This is a difficult decision. I don’t know Memphis very well, other than visiting it for one weekend.
But what I can tell you is that you should have a good college experience. My roommate worked really hard and went to med school. He’s now a surgeon after many years of med school, residency and an internship. While I felt a bit bad that he was always studying, he found ways to have fun (we were in a fraternity). GW will likely give you a better college experience. You have the rest of your life to work.
Honors colleges are great partially because of the opportunities presented to you that general university students don’t have. My daughter is entering one in the fall, passing up higher ranked schools. We loved our visit to the school, which combines a small school within a very large university. But to get the most out of an honors school, I believe you should live there, as you are surrounded day and night by similar minded students.
I believe that most grad schools, med school included, really focus in on your GPA and test scores–MCATs in your case, and will also look at your extracurriculars. I think school name matters a bit but really not as much as people think. There are good students at every college who are there for a variety of reasons. Grad schools want diversity and to cast a wide net with a variety of schools they accept students from. I wouldn’t think Memphis vs GW is that big of a difference. Maybe Memphis vs MIT, but even then, it’s not a huge difference.
I don’t love the fact that you will be tied to $80K in debt from GW for 20 years, and really longer since you will be deferring it to after med school. And then there’s the med school debt…ugh. My roommate told me he hated the med school debt that both he and his wife accumulated, which was 25+ years ago.
I love the idea of the CEGEPS program, which I have never heard of. Montreal is so great, and McGill is well respected. If you get out of McGill with $5,000/year of med school tuition, all I can say is WOW!