WashU (60K/year) vs UVA (40K/year) vs UTulsa (0/year) vs UAlabama (-4K/year) for premed

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1

Hello! I’m a senior from Virginia considering a pretty wide variety of colleges for this coming fall.

Net price per year at each college, after applying for scholarships and financial aid grants.

College Cost of attendance per year ($) Medical school succes rate (%)
U. of South Carolina Honors College 26K 70 (for Honors college students)
Washington U. in St. Louis 60K 76
U. of Virginia 40K 60
U. of Alabama (Randall Research Scholars) -4K 50
U. of Tulsa 0 60 for allopathic

Maximum parent contribution per year.
I’ve been unable to get an exact number out of them but they indicated around 20K to 30K per year.

Student preferences beyond the above (including weather, class sizes, campus culture, college demographics, fraternities/sororities, distance from home, etc.).
I prefer a smaller school with more individualized attention and small class sizes but I think I can succeed at any college I go to. Also, I think the Honor college programs I got into will help me create a smaller environment with academically strong peers. Location doesn’t matter too much but I would like to have access to hospitals or medical centers for volunteering/shadowing opportunities. My main priority is having a college experience where I get a quality education, get to do research in areas I am interested in (biology, bioinformatics, neuroscience), and have a high chance of going to medical school (I don’t care too much about getting into a top medical school but it would be nice to have the best shot at it).

Preliminary assessment of each college based on the above.
U. of SC Honors College

  • Good Honors College education while not being overly expensive
  • Honestly don’t know how good it is for premed but it looks like they have a great track record for sending students to medical school
  • Doesn’t really have that much that stands out to me that makes me want to take it over other options but don’t dislike it either

WashU

  • Great premed at a T20 university but expensive
  • Very good track record for sending students to great medical schools but coursework is very challenging and probably hard to get a high GPA (though if I manage it, will probably be a competitive medical school applicant)
  • Excellent research/medical opportunities as it has a T10 medical school nearby
  • Don’t like the idea of taking on debt before even going to medical school
  • I would guess a lot of students who enter this school as premed change their mind (I know this is the case in general but I would guess especially at WashU due to how difficult the courses are)

U. of Alabama

  • Really great financial opportunity – getting paid to go to college (about 17K over four years)
  • Got into the Randall Research Scholars program so will have no problem doing whatever research I want
  • Really big school – but hopefully being in honors college will help make it feel more manageable
  • Location isn’t the best. Tuscaloosa is a college town an hour away from the hospitals in Birmingham, so I would likely need to find volunteering/shadowing opportunities during summer break (there is however a two-credit-hour course, CHS230 Medical Shadowing that gives you exposure to work done at the university medical center)

U. of Tulsa

  • When I visited, I liked the campus, small class sizes (average 13), and availability of research opportunities
  • Didn’t apply for the Honors program because it seems mostly based on literature and study of the classics – no special treatment or perks
  • In the city of Tulsa, meaning there are opportunities to shadow/volunteer at three different hospitals.
  • Very small (I think around 4K undergraduates) which I kinda like because it feels much more manageable than the 40K undergraduates at a school like UAlabama with its huge campus. However, there is the concern that there is more limited funding/resources for research.

I would love to hear your thoughts on which program seems best for me! Thank you!

2

I think your assessments seem fair, and to me it sounds like you should strongly consider Tulsa.

As almost everyone familiar with med school admissions will tell you, the overriding priority is to get really good grades (and a really good MCAT score). You do NOT need to go to a higher ranked, more selective college for that purpose, and I would particularly not advise that if you would also have to pay much more for that.

Of course Bama would be good too, and if you wanted to prioritize the extra money, that would not be irrational at all. But I think your self-assessment is pointing to Tulsa as maybe being closer to the best environment for you, and I think that is no small thing as it could be a factor in how you do in classes/grades.

As for research, that whole world is in massive upheaval, so who knows. I would just note that plenty of people go to med school, grad school, and so on out of smaller universities, and indeed colleges without any grad programs. So that is definitely not a dealbreaker sort of thing, and I would personally advise picking your favorite sort of college first.

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3

So you are NMF. Congrats.

You’ve got the golden opportunity.

The answer in this case is Tulsa. You can afford it and you prefer small.

You cannot afford UVA or WUSTL so they should get no consideration.

As for pre-med and who is better, I take that (personally) with a grain of salt.

A UVA or WUSTL has higher academic students overall - so they’ll do better in areas like med school - not necessarily because of the school but because of who attends.

Also, rates are impacted by things such as - do schools give committee letters - meaning, they pick and choose who they are supporting to apply to med school vs. a free for all.

But in reality - your choices are Tulsa, Bama, and maybe U of SC. You can’t go where you can’t afford - and you can only borrow, first year for example, $5500.

Also, med school may be $400K + so you have to account for that. If your parents can afford $25K a year, then that’s $100K they can save or potentially one year of medical school - because how else will you pay for that?

Now, Bama is a great opportunity in that you get a 5th year of tuition included - so if you were to pivot or you could do a Masters. Randall Research is great - it sounds like you didn’t apply to or get into McCullough Pre Medical Scholars but you might look to see if that’s a possibility.

The thing with Tulsa is - it’s historically a very good name - maybe where Rice or SMU (when it was a much harder admit) - where those kids who didn’t get in would end up. And today, a full quarter plus of the school is like you, NMFs. So you have cohort strength.

At a Bama, you have the most (or close to) NMFs - but it’s a much bigger school so the percentage is left - and you have everything that comes with a big campus there - and that doesn’t sound like you.

I’ll leave you with one other thing about medical school - I wouldn’t worry about the undergrad name. I’m a patient at Vanderbilt, in radiation. Here is the undergrad school of the first and second year residents.

In the end, you’ll study, learn, get through the classes, and hopefully will be ok. I don’t think Bama or WUSTL or Tulsa is going to impact your success.

You are going to impact it.

You earned yourself and your family a “reprieve” from grad school costs or financial strain in the next few years. Enjoy it. Take advantage of it - and best of luck.

Vandy Residents 1st / 2nd year Radiation - top hospital - and yet most didn’t go to top schools. So I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure most these kids were tops wherever they went!! It’s them, moreso than the school (my opinion).

Auburn
CWRU
Florida A&M
Florida State
Fordham
Lipscomb
Luther
Murray State
Northern Illinois
Pitt
Princeton
Tulane
Tuskegee
U North Carolina
U Puerto Rico
U Tennesse

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Thank you for your thoughts! I agree–I’m really grateful for the opportunity to get a free undergraduate education.

A college advisor who helped me edit my essays is recommending I go to WashU and suck up a potential 200K in loans (of course in addition to medical school loans). She seems to really value the quality of my peer network and the teaching caliber of the school and told me that the debt is manageable given I am going into a lucrative career. She told me that the time to invest in myself and my education is now and that if I were her son she would recommend WashU or UVA.

What do you think about this?

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Do not do this. The time to “invest” in yourself is in med school. Any of these schools get you there. Go to Tulsa.

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I disagree.

$200K in loans means you have to pay back well over $2K a month for 10 years - graduating undergrad with no income.

In fact, I’d say she is committing malpractice and should not be counseling kids - my opinion - this is before the $400K in med school costs.

And you’ll have strong cohorts at Bama, U of SC, and Tulsa (where 1/4 or more are NMF like you).

Fortunately, the feds only let you borrow $27K, including $5,500 the first year. Only your parents can take out that amount of loans like you are talking - and don’t forget loans have fees (so you are borrowing 208 or 210 to get 200 - and they have interest - that builds while you are in school. The Feds know people like your counselor are - deluded. I hope you didn’t pay for that guidance.

btw - medicine is not necessarily lucrative and many doctors today work for companies/private practices vs. themselves due to the expense of being a doctor. They’re employees vs. wealth building. Yes, many are lucrative but.

Not to mention most kids who start pre med don’t ever apply and most who apply don’t get in.

hmmmm - if I could put that person in career prison, I would :slight_smile:

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So we have a first-year at WashU and he really likes it so far. We are quite happy.

And I could not disagee with your college advisor more. That amount of loans can really overshadow the benefits of attending a college like WashU.

Like, consider this statement:

But that is NOT a given. In fact, the vast majority of kids who start off thinking pre-med do not go to med school. Some end up not doing well in their classes. Others just gradually realize there are other things they would rather do. But that debt would not care about any of that, it would still be hanging over you.

The actual great thing about a college like WashU, when you can afford it, is if you change your mind about what you want to do, it will still be good for anything you could choose. But not all those paths would be as lucrative as being an MD. Indeed, sometimes the best way to start a different career path could be to take a job that does not pay as well as some others, but provides a great experience that can enhance your career in the future. And you want to be able to make those choices free from some massive debt you would need to service.

So this is just my perspective, but I think it could be basically ruining what could be a good thing, if affordable, by taking on massive debt to attend a college like WashU.

And while we do like WashU for how it is working out for our kid, I am absolutely confident that if our kid went to Tulsa, he would find a way to do great there too! And he could have a great life either way, assuming he kept making good choices about how to focus his energies.

Anyway, ultimately you need to make this decision for yourself. But I thought you should at least hear in clear terms there are people who very much disagree with what your advisor told you, and why.

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this is just one example but maybe it helps…

we know a student at Emory medical school. great kid. he was going to go to Penn (Wharton) and then changed his mind and took his full ride to Bama. He kicked a$$ there and was involved in a ton of leadership stuff and is now at Emory med.

his undergrad will never matter at this point.

now if the pre-med thing changes and your kid wants to do business stuff, well then the undergrad name might have more impact.

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[quote=“apple99, post:4, topic:3687075”]
She told me that the time to invest in myself and my education is now and that if I were her son she would recommend WashU or UVA.

Our country is filled with 67 and 70 year old’s who cannot afford to retire- even if they are in poor health and could start tapping their 401K and social security. Why? Because they followed the advice your counselor gave you. They finally paid off their own loans at about age 50. They had two good years. And then they started to pay for their kid’s college-- and MORE loans- and now they are stuck. They need that paycheck.

I honestly cannot believe that a so-called professional would be recommending this level of debt. I do not believe that you should necessarily take the best financial offer you get- there are many, many reasons to pay more, and a few good reasons to borrow. But none of these situations seem to apply here. Unless you have a parent whose startup is going public in two years- so they can’t pay full freight now, but they’ll be able to pay off the loans in full and then cash flow the rest of your education including med school- I say stay away from loans as long as you can. They will be unavoidable after your Bachelor’s-- that’s just the way it is- but there’s no need to pile on MORE debt right now with two fine affordable options on the table.

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Congratulations! In my opinion based on your criteria of what’s important to you this is an ideal scenario as it’s your cheapest options.

Tulsa has the small classes and nearby hospitals, and Alabama has research they are paying you to do in a smaller cohort honors college.

It appears Tuscaloosa has hospitals based on Google search? Also, I’m sure they have clinics and even hospice care can be clinical hours if open to it. I think you could find something.

One thing that caught my eye, it’s interesting that Tulsa specified 60% allopathic. I’d just confirm if students are only getting into allopathic which seems hard to believe, but just in case it matters to you to be an MD over a DO.

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Sounds like you are getting bad advice here. Where are you getting 200k in loans? Your parents would need to co-sign. Are they willing to do so? Take the free ride at Tulsa!

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Do not do this ! You will ruin your life–not “may”, “will” !

Imagine $200,000 of undergraduate student loan debt followed by an additional $400,000 of medical school student loan debt followed by several years of poverty like wages. Then think about the accumulated interest on top of the $600,000 of student loan debt principal that must be repaid.

Forget marriage, forget having kids, forget owning a home, and start thinking about how financial pressure destroys lives.

Possible that in the near future such indebtedness will be made either illegal or highly improbable if one is required to prove creditworthiness to borrow student loans. If credit standards are required for student loans, then one with a large amount of undergraduate student loan debt can forget about graduate or professional school of any type.

You have only two options: Tulsa for free or U Alabama for a slight profit.

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Okay cool this was my thought, so I was kinda surprised when she recommended it.

I was wondering if anyone knew whether the Randall Research Scholars is significant enough to sway in UAlabama’s favor or which forum/people I could ask? Specifically, for premed. My dad thinks that UAlabama will have better opportunities for research which will give me a significantly better chance at getting into medical school, especially a good one.

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@WayOutWestMom can you please comment on the weight research is given in medical school admissions.

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Why wouldn’t you have opportunities at Tulsa?

My son went to Bama. His GF did four years research, maybe five with grad school - they broke up so I don’t know. She was not in a program.

The point being - one doesn’t need to be in a program to do research. When you get to school, you hit up professors doing things of interest. And you’ll get emails too - both my kids at Bama and Charleston do.

I would pick the right school for you. If you like small - Bama is huge, with huge Greek houses, huge sports presence and more. It’s gorgeous, it’s a great school, but it’s the polar opposite of small as opposed to Tulsa which has a 9:1 student to faculty ratio and average class size of 13. Bama is 19:1. Bama shows an impressive for a large school 48% of classes 20 or less - but while I can’t find an average size it’s going to be far larger than the courses at Tulsa.

Tulsa is a really great school with a long history. Your dad may not know it - but it’s always been very strong academically.

Research Opportunities - The University of Tulsa

Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge (TURC) - The University of Tulsa

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Is your college advisor a financial advisor? If not, and if you don’t have the cash saved, it’s horrible advice. I’m a retired doctor. I had many doctors as patients. Their biggest complaint in recommending the career to others was debt. It can be crippling. You have a golden opportunity to avoid that trap. Take it.

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That suggests that your choices are Tulsa and Alabama, and maybe South Carolina.

Remember that medical school is expensive.

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So this will give you and your family 600K in debt. There is no current guarantee that any debt forgiveness will exist in 8 years so lets assume you have to pay this back. In addition most people will have to work for 2-4 years before getting into medical school and those kind of jobs (medical assistant, research, scribe) are minimum wage jobs. A resident salary is no more than 80K and the typical doctor makes between 200-300K. It is the rare doctor who now makes 600-700K or more. Premed should cost as little as possible.

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Did this college advisor offer to pay the loans off, and take them in the college advisors name? It’s nice to spend someone else’s money, I guess.

You can take the required courses for medical school admissions at just about any four year college, arts conservatories excluded.

You have two very affordable options. Please consider those.

At this point, I would not have undergrad research as something you think you must have to apply to medical school…because you don’t need it. And it’s not a high criteria in terms of medical school admissions.

AND federal funding for college research is in jeopardy right now. If there are cuts, remaining research will be for grad school students, not undergrads, most likely.

@WayOutWestMom what did I miss?

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AAAAAAck! 200k in loans for a bachelor’s degree, for someone who wants to go on to medical school, would be IMHO catastrophic. There is no way that I would do this. There is no way that I would allow a child of mine to do this. This might by itself ruin your chances of ever getting to medical school before you even start university.

I liked WUSTL quite a bit when I visited (a while ago) but still would not take on this much debt, and would not recommend that anyone take on this much debt for any bachelor’s degree.

In your original post you have a column “medical school success rate”. You should be very leery of these numbers. They can be gamed. The numerator (number of students accepted to MD or DO programs) is probably relatively precisely defined. The denominator (how may medical school applicants you claim to have) is what is unclear.

There are at least three ways that I know of that medical school success rate numbers are gamed. One is the type of student that a school accepts in the first place. If only exceptionally strong students get accepted to the university they there are likely to be more students who get into medical school just because of who got to start as freshmen in the first place. Another is that students are often “discouraged” to continue on a premed path based on tough weed out classes. If you get a C or a D in freshman year “biology for biology majors and premed students” you are likely to look for a different path in life. The third is that even for students who complete the premed prerequisite courses, some schools only count students who are strong enough that the school in some sense explicitly supports their application to medical schools.

I would be inclined to ignore the alleged medical school success rate advertised by any particular university.

This is very true at pretty nearly any university. Some students cannot maintain sufficient grades in tough premed classes. However, there are also some students who get stellar grades in tough premed classes and just decide that they want to do something else.

One daughter was in the honors program at a different university and dropped it because she just didn’t think it added anything that she cared about. She still did well in graduate school admissions.

This is actually a concern right now at a wide range of universities, including some highly ranked ones. Some famous and well known universities which are very good at, for example, biomedical research, are very unclear right now what funding they are going to have going forward and what impact this might have on their students and their researchers.

Everything that I have heard suggests that students in very good MD programs come from a very wide range of undergraduate universities. At least our family members have seen exactly the same thing in various medical-related graduate programs. What you do as an undergraduate student is going to matter a lot more compared to where you do it.

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