Pre-med Harvard v. Yale

Nerdyparent
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 15:27:08 +0000

If your question is Harvard or Yale for pre-med AND if you have it paid for, then that is outstanding.
However, if this is going to put you into debt, my advice is go to a state school
or a less prestigious school on merit based scholarships (which I assume you would easily qualify for if you got Yale and Harvard acceptances).
Why?
Because unless you want to be a renowned MD PhD researcher or something like that, going to a supercompetitive school and getting your GPA dashed against the rocks competing with other superbrains may harm your long term goal of getting into medical school.
Plus, your salary as an MD will be the same regardless of whether you go to an Ivy or a Podunk state school - not to mention considerably less debt to pay off.
To further illustrate my point, read chapter 2 of Malcolm Gladwells book David and Goliath about the pre-med girl who went to Brown instead of U of Maryland.

see link below:
http://www.ash.nl/ftpimages/401/download/download_1009994.pdf

Don’t get me wrong - if going to an Ivy League school is your dream then go for it.
These are just some observations by me - someone on the other side of things.