Out of State Merit Scholarships

Paying for College
21

Hi @addygefre

As you know medical school admission is extremely competitive and only about 40% of applicants get accepted in a given year.

However, I want to caution you that medical schools are extremely reluctant to admit younger than typical students. (Less than 1% of matriculants are age 20.) Med schools will strongly question the maturity level of younger students and it is your job to convince them that you’re mature enough to handle med school and the delicate intimacy of treating patients. The median age for newly matriculating students has been on an upward trend for the last decade and a half and is now 25.

Med schools are extremely picky about pre-requisites. It’s a buyer’s market and they can afford to be as picky as they want since every med school in the country gets 10X more applications than they have seats.

You should not assume that you will be able to use your IB credits to complete admission requirements. Also do not assume that you will be able to use DE credits to fulfill admission requirements unless you supplement them with upper level coursework at a 4 year college.

There are a large number of medical schools that do not accept AP/IB credits to fulfill admission pre-reqs. Full stop.

Those schools that do accept AP/IB credits strongly recommend (which in med school speak = require ) all applicants supplement any AP/IB credits with an equivalent number of upper level classes in the same department as the AP/IB credits.

For example, if you have 8 credits for IB general chemistry that are accepted by your undergrad as credit toward graduation, medical schools will still expect you to take an additional 2 semesters/8 credits of inorganic or analytical chemistry in order to be considered a competitive applicants for med school.

The same holds true for CC credits. Rightly or not, adcomms do not view CC credits as having the same rigor and level of competitiveness as coursework taken at a 4 year college. You are expected to supplement any CC coursework with additional coursework in the same department at a 4 year college.

Medical schools also do not accept AP/IB credit for required lab classes. Those will need to be taken/re-taken at a 4 year college.

Medical schools strongly recommend that applicants do NOT take summer pre-req classes. Because of the shorter summer term, summer classes often do not cover all the same material as do regular term classes and do not cover the material with same depth or detail. Something always gets cut out to accommodate the reduced number of class hours during the summer.

Taking classes in the summer is poor use of a med school applicant’s time. Summers are better used to participate in the expected pre-med ECs. ECs are extremely important. Without appropriate ECs you might as well jus throw your med school application in the trash. You won’t be considered for an admission.

Expected pre-med ECs:
–clinical exposure (paid or volunteer) in direct patient contact positions
–community service with disadvantaged populations
–physician shadowing, especially in primary care specialties
–leadership roles in your activities
–lab bench or clinical research experience

While it’s great that you have been a high achieving, ambitious student in high school, if med school is your goal, you may need to slow down and follow a slower, more methodical path in undergrad. When it comes to getting a med school admissions, faster does to equal better.

Are you sure?

Med school tuition is averaging around $45K/year for in-state public med schools. Private and OOS public med schools have tuition in the $60-90K/year range.

22

Could someone please explain this?? Where do these loans come from?

And even if this is true…it is not advisable, in my opinion.

Medical school will be paid for mostly in loans, loans and more loans. You could easily end up with $400,000 in loans for four years of medical school. Add another $120,000 in undergrad loans to that and whew…that’s a LOT of loans even for a doctor.

You have the option of keeping your undergrad loans to a bare minimum…or even nothing…and really that is what you should be aiming to do.

23

I have a few things to clarify
1- I have no community college credits. They are all from in person classes at private nationally ranked college near my school. These include my science labs and calculus 1, 2, and 3 classes.
2- I am positive med school will be paid for

While I had heard about low med school admit rates for students who graduate early I was not able to find any data on it. Yikes! This is obviously not ideal for me but I guess I will have to work in between.
Even with the difficulty of getting into med school could I still try and graduate early? Just to save money?

Thank you so so so much for your time. I’ve really lacked the adult guidance I clearly needed.

24

By who? Has your family saved the cost for you to attend Med school?

25

Have you considered Wisconsin schools? Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Milwaukee? COA at Stevens Point for a Minn resident is $8200/sem, before any scholarship. The hospital is inches from the campus. Marshfield clinic is 30 miles away, a fantastic medical complex.

Many western (and cold) schools are cheap. Look at North and South Dakota schools (some have reciprocity for Minn residents), Montana, Missouri.

Your stats are going to get you more money at the less popular schools. Also, going to school in those states may get you preferences to medical schools in those states.

26

Or if you just need to get away from your hometown, what about Duluth?

27

I understand you do not want to stay in Minn, but have you considered states where you can get instate tuition ? I believe a number of states around Minn have agreements with Minn to give instate rates to the region. Just a thought. Also what about crossing the border and schooling in Canada? A gap year and become a state resident in Fla and go instate there?

28

Specifically, MN has reciprocity agreements with Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Manitoba.

29

A dependent student doesn’t get residency in Florida by living there for one year. She might get to pay instate tuition (not a sure thing, and most likely not), but FA will still require her parent’s info. A big chunk of Florida financial aid is through Bright Futures, and that requires graduating from a Florida school.

FSU does have a few ways to get instate tuition, but that would still leave tuition, fees, room and board of about $20k per year.

30

@addygefre

Age data comes from the AAMC’s MSQ.

You can certainly graduate early if finances are an issue, but you should plan on working at a real world job for a year or three before applying for medical school. You may want to consider working for Americorps or TFA.


Your stats would get you the Amigo Scholarship at University of New Mexico. The Amigo grants you in-state status for tuition & fees. In-state COA at UNM is about $19K/year. Deadline for Amigo application is March 30.

<a href="https://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/index.html">https://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/index.html</a>
31

Even if extended family members will cosign $30k/year loans because that’s what your parents want, I’d avoid going down that path. What are you going to do if your parents decide in a year or two that your relatives should quit cosigning for you? If you need to get away, make as clean a break as you can. Search for as much merit as you can find and avoid all but the ~$5500/year federal student loan.

Unless you have a family member who’s promising to pay for med school, I wouldn’t assume you have all the costs covered.

32

My daughter is in a med school program and the extra costs, of going to these schools, are going to wallop your checkbook and your time.

  1. You need funding, during undergrad, for clinical experiences. To get into her program, she needed consistent volunteer clinical work with direct patient contact and experience in lab procedures during her undergrad. She was able to do that for a community clinic which catered to low-income SES patients. Her volunteer position was competitive, requiring a full panel interview, and a review of her experience: Because of her biotech background in labs, her strong Spanish skills, and her student position as a lab tech for a diabetic study with a professor, these experiences were favorable for her 2 years of volunteer work. **We paid for her car maintenance, gas, insurance (car, health, liability), scrubs, and allowance ** to get to that site. You don’t have that option for your undergrad.
  2. She studied after graduation for 1 year while working a part time job and continuing to volunteer at that clinic. **We paid for her rent and expenses** while she prepared. Her classmates did the same. Some got in, in one year, after graduation, but most got in on the 2nd or 3rd year after graduation. Is your co-signer going to pay for your rent and expenses to study for a year? 2 years? Three years?
  3. **We’ve paid for 2 ½ years of an instate program, so we get the state discounted fee of $62k per year**. She’s beginning her rotations at a hospital that is not near her school. So, in addition to her fees, we will be helping her to pay for another apartment and expenses. Your $33k a year would not make the cut.

We saved money and have made some financial sacrifices, but, in the end, she won’t owe a dime and we won’t be in debt.

Be realistic and smart by applying to schools that are like your instate rates.

33

@addygefre

You say you are sure medical school will be paid for. Again I ask…who is going to do the paying?

There is precious little grant aid available to medical school students. There are a few schools that offer free tuition to all accepted students…but they don’t offer free living expenses.

So…you say Med school will be paid for…and I ask…who is going to do the paying?

And I’m still patiently waiting for someone, anyone to clarify this!

34

UMich Ann Arbor doesn’t give merit money. Especially to OOS. My DD got in, but no merit money. She has 36ACT, 4.0 UW & NMF.

35

@kmmord

This student is talking about UMN…University of Minnesota…not University of Michigan.

36

@thumper1 Op talks about merit from Michigan in post #8 and Post # 11 where she also speaks about the number of merit scholarships for OOS

37

Oops…sorry. The poster above is right. Merit at Michigan is very competitive, not a lot is awarded, and most aid is need based.

This poster is being very overly optimistic in terms of college funding, in my opinion.

38

Which programs give public health majors $33,000 in loans?

Banks are backers of loans; what banks would do that without collateral?

No banks or loan companies would back these student loans because IF the federal government cant fund $33,000 for a non-degreed, non-skilled college student, what bank could???