Funding for medical/optometry schools

[Sam]

Hello all,

My two kids are planning to further their education in the medical field. My daughter will be done with her B.S. degree in May 2010, and my son in May 2011.

They both know that they are financially responsible for any education beyond undergraduate study. I would like to learn about grants, scholarships, loans for professional (? it's not graduate, is it?) schools.

It's my understanding (not much) that medical and optometry schools have NO scholarships, NO grants at all? Correct?

Can they apply for federal/state grants (like FAFSA)? Or does FAFSA only applies to undergraduate study?

Loans: Are there federal subsidized loans?

I went to graduate school at night back in the 80's. I never had to worry about money, as my employer took care of it.

Thanks all in advance.
Sam

[JPatrick]

One of the better places to begin, is the student doctor network. They cover (or link to) any subject you could possibly think of beginning with the application process to residency. It is useful for parents as well as students.
While IMO this site is a goldmine, you must acquire the ability to separate fact and fiction. For example, you will find any number of wanttobe med students who will tell you that you should not sweat the 150k in loans because it will be simple to pay it off when the bucks start flowing. Yeah maybe, but simple may be a bit of a reach.

The other thing to do is to start drilling that oil well in the backyard.

the link
Student Doctor Network Forums

[landonew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Hello all,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam My two kids are planning to further their education in the medical field. My daughter will be done with her B.S. degree in May 2010, and my son in May 2011. They both know that they are financially responsible for any education beyond undergraduate study. I would like to learn about grants, scholarships, loans for professional (? it's not graduate, is it?) schools. It's my understanding (not much) that medical and optometry schools have NO scholarships, NO grants at all? Correct? Can they apply for federal/state grants (like FAFSA)? Or does FAFSA only applies to undergraduate study? Loans: Are there federal subsidized loans? I went to graduate school at night back in the 80's. I never had to worry about money, as my employer took care of it. Thanks all in advance. Sam

Honestly, funding for professionals is not a problem. I recently graduated Law School and have around $150,000 in debt. With no credit and no credit worthy co-signers (i.e. parents recently declared bankruptcy, I never had so much as a credit card) I was able to receive funding. Now, maybe that will change now that the credit market is drying up, but I think that there should still be plenty of funding.


Not to be a killjoy (you must be so proud), but have you discussed other alternatives with your children? Here is where I am going with this. Neither of your children has taken the MCAT correct? If they have, more power to them but at that stage in my education I had not taken the LSAT (law equivalent of the MCAT). Their ability to get into a med school will be almost completely determined by the score they receive on this test.
I am sure your children are very bright, but remember that everyone taking this test; (a) has a college degree w/ the requisite science background, and (b) is ambitious enough to aspire to be a medical doctor. In other words, the majority of people taking this test will likely be members of the intellectual elite (i.e. top 10-15% IQ).
There are around 130 medical schools in the country accepting around 17,500 entering freshman each year. According to AAMC.... 67,828 people took the MCAT in 2007.
http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/combined07.pdf
Thus, less than 1/4 people taking the MCAT (in a given year) are actually admitted into medical school.
I apologize if I sound pessimistic (I sincerely hope your children are successful in their aspirations), but I had a friend back in college who spent 4 years working his a$$ off to get into medical school. He ultimately failed to get in and, aside from being stricken with grief, had absolutely no Plan B. He ended up wasting a semester, but eventually was accepted into the biology department's PHD program.
You may want to discuss a contingency plan with your children. It never hurts to have a plan B. Good luck.

[FUEGO]

Sam, your kids will have no problem getting into med school if they are reasonably bright and did ok in undergrad. It's like the SAT on steroids with a few extra subjects that they covered in undergrad premed most likely.

I don't know specifics of funding for med school, but I went through a 3 year professional school (med school is classified as professional school) and received $18,500 a year in student loans, about half subsidized (ie no interest during school) and the other half unsubsidized, but all at attractive interest rates. And I received a very small tuition grant. I didn't need private loans but they were available at less attractive interest rates and worse terms.

A friend is at a private med school right now and has no problem borrowing $41,000 a year or so for tuition and fees and books.

You are in texas, IIRC. Isn't there a good UT med school that has attractive in state tuition rates? This is the case in my state - very cheap top notch med school ranked very highly.

Look into federal programs for tuition reimbursement if you work for a few years in a rural area or other area where they really need docs/optometrists.

[Sam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JPatrick The other thing to do is to start drilling that oil well in the backyard. the link Student Doctor Network Forums

I already started drilling. Found nothing but crawfish ;-)

Thanks for the link. I'll look at it.

Sam

[Sam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by landonew Their ability to get into a med school will be almost completely determined by the score they receive on this test.

At this moment, I'm not too concerned about getting admitted. My daughter is 2 and 1/2 semesters away from graduation and maintaining a GPA of 3.9x.

So there was no scholarships/grants at all for you while you were in law school?

Sam

[Sam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FUEGO I don't know specifics of funding for med school, but I went through a 3 year professional school (med school is classified as professional school) and received $18,500 a year in student loans, about half subsidized (ie no interest during school) and the other half unsubsidized, but all at attractive interest rates. And I received a very small tuition grant.

Wow, how did you go through 3 years with only 18.5K loan?

About the small tuition grant. How small is it, %tage wise to the actual tuition? And how did find out about it?

How about scholarships? Do professional schools offer merit scholarships?

Sam

[haha]

This is a little skew to your specific question, but if they have any interest perhaps they might also consider pharmacy. Great salaries, many job opportunities without the need to be entrepreneurial, regular hours, even federal govt jobs if they want them.

Amazing pay and bennies for a job that is way down from clinical medicine on the stress and harassment scale. Plus instead of living poor for many years beyond school, they get their degree (I think it may take six years beyond high school) and start pulling down big salaries immediately.

The pay is way beyond the skill and other demands of the job, thanks to the moat called pharmacy school. Which if you have a prayer of getting into medical school you should have no problem with.

Oh, there are ethical dilemmas- like “is giving some 16 year old the morning after pill against my religion?” Let's call it mild ethics stress.

Ha

[landonew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Wow, how did you go through 3 years with only 18.5K loan? About the small tuition grant. How small is it, %tage wise to the actual tuition? And how did find out about it? How about scholarships? Do professional schools offer merit scholarships? Sam

Yes they do. I had a full ride my first semester. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stay in the top 10% of the class and lost it.

[landonew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam At this moment, I'm not too concerned about getting admitted. My daughter is 2 and 1/2 semesters away from graduation and maintaining a GPA of 3.9x. So there was no scholarships/grants at all for you while you were in law school? Sam

I don't think you will find much in the way of grants unless your child applies as a minority canidate.

There are so many differences between Law School and Med school. Personally, I don't know if I could have gotten through medical school. From what I understand, it takes substantially more dedication than law school.

Good luck to you and your children. If she is a dedicated student then she will truly enjoy the challange, I know I did.

Also, don't let her worry too much about the loans. She will be pulled in so many different directions, the last thing she needs to concern herself with is looming debt that she can do little about.

[Sam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by landonew Yes they do. I had a full ride my first semester.

Great. Did you apply for it? Or was it automatically offered to you when you got admitted? I looked at a few med/opto schools' websites, but could not find any mention of scholarships.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha This is a little skew to your specific question, but if they have any interest perhaps they might also consider pharmacy.

Ha, I am not fond of pharmacy, and neither are the kids.

Sam

[JPatrick]

As has been stated above, grants seem to be fairly few and far between.
That said, I never heard of a student not being able to get loans. It seems to be, if you can get in you will find the loans. I have seen some instances of docs getting their loans paid off by signing on to work in underserved areas for X number of years. Of course, you can't buy into that until you finish. The military has what amounts to a full ride plan, but of course it has its own strings.
Don't underestimate the challenge of getting in the door. The competition is tough and you practically need a campaign manager to groom the prospect. Not only do they want GPA, they want GPA in specific subjects. The MCAT is not a piece of cake either. Letters of rec are important as is some form of interaction with the medical community. Some spend time shadowing docs, some are EMT's, lots of volunteers etc.
Good interviewing skills are key also. In other words, it is a pretty big package. A review of acceptance stats by med schools will show the rate of getting a thumbs up is low. Texas is probably one of the better states so far as opportunity goes, but the system has its share obstaces also.

That said, once you are in, very few fail. If you are good enough to get in and can handle the load, you are probably going to make it barring personal tragedy.

[Martha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam At this moment, I'm not too concerned about getting admitted. My daughter is 2 and 1/2 semesters away from graduation and maintaining a GPA of 3.9x. So there was no scholarships/grants at all for you while you were in law school? Sam

I got a partial grant/scholarship to law school because I was from a disadvantaged population. Never quite understood how I met the requirements. I have no idea what is out there now.

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Wow, how did you go through 3 years with only 18.5K loan? About the small tuition grant. How small is it, %tage wise to the actual tuition? And how did find out about it? How about scholarships? Do professional schools offer merit scholarships?

That was $18.5k loans per year unfortunately. However that covered all tuition, books, and most of room and board for me.

The grant was $1000 a year. Less than 10% of annual tuition.

Scholarships were few and far between. Some received full rides plus stipends in my professional school, but not many, and it was very competitive. I imagine med school would be similar. I would estimate that less than 10-20% of students received significant scholarship funds.

[Sam]

Thank you Martha and Fuego. It's good to know that scholarships and grants do exist for law schools. Hopefully med and opto schools have them too.

Sam

[SonnyJim]

Hey Sam,

I know of a private medical school that will virtually guarantee that if you can get in, they will make sure you have access to funds to cover the expense of school (thought they may only be loans). It is not uncommon for new grads to be $300,000 in debt with the three worst words in the English language "accrue and capitalize" attached to the loans. They have no way to pay off as pay has been decreasing for physicians over the last few years.

I wish you kids good luck and to go into medicine because that is what they love and not to get rich. There are easier ways to make money. Don't forget about pharmacy school. Better hours and decent pay.

Sonny

[landonew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sam Great. Did you apply for it? Or was it automatically offered to you when you got admitted? I looked at a few med/opto schools' websites, but could not find any mention of scholarships. Sam

The scholorship was offered as an incentive to attend. The law schools are typically well supported by the alumni, so they can afford to offer lots of good scholorships. They use the money to attract the best canidates in hopes of improving their USNEWS ranking, which relies heavily on the average LSAT score for entering 1Ls (first year law students, sorta like freshman). Consequently, if your LSAT is 2-3 pts higher than their median they will offer you a partial/full scholorship. For extremelly attractive canidates, they offer other perks... One of my good friends got a new dell laptop Computer and a stipend for text books.

Most schools in the top 30 will be offering substantial scholorships to any student whose LSAT is a few points higher than their median (except for the top5 schools such as harvard/yale, who don't need to offer incentives).

The trick is that your retaining the scholorship after the first semester is "conditional" upon you finishing in the top 10% (or for some 20%) in your class. Of course, when you visit you are sure that you will write the best paper in every class and be the editor of the Law review so you aren't concerned with that little contingency. Long story short, it is very competitive and graduating in the top 10% is very difficult.

Suffice to say, I graduated just inside the top 25% and paid out-of-state tuition for 5/6 semesters. That was a costly 15%.... to the tune of about $90,000. Come to find out, 40% of the incoming class was on some sort of scholorship....

I am not sure if MED school is similar to this, but if it is proceed with caution for the final bill may be larger than you anticipate.


To be fair, my choice of school was not influenced by the scholorship. I was going to go there anyway because it was the best school that I was accepted to. So honestly, I wasn't duped into attending based on empty promises and at the end of the day and happy that I got a semesters free tuition out of it.

[Sam]

Thank you for your input, landonew and SonnyJim.

Sam