A good residency match would position me well for a fellowship in a competitive field.
Do competitive fields tend to be the highest-paying? I would have assumed that the fields where there were more people going in to them than spots available had relatively low pay due to supply and demand, and the highest pay was to be found by going in to a field that was somehow difficult, boring, or distasteful in a way that discouraged people from entering it.
Fair question. It seems that compensation is determined largely by what Medicare/insurance companies are willing to pay for procedures etc. I believe unfilled fellowship spots aren’t really a problem in any field, but the highest-paying subspecialties attract the most applicants. For example, cardiologists are very well-compensated, and cardiology fellowships are among the most competitive.
Right now I’d be leaning towards UF if I were you, I think, since my intuition is that $30-60K isn’t much debt relative to what physicians typically make. But have you thought about using instacalc.com or some other spreadsheet to actually tally up all the numbers related to fees, cost of living, expected career earnings, time value of money/disconting, etc.?
Congratulations on getting admitted to medical school, btw.
I had just about settled on UF when I was suddenly struck with SERIOUS FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS as Ohio State, the highest-ranked school that accepted me, offered me a scholarship covering full in-state tuition. Ohio is quite easy to establish residency in, so I’d probably only be out of pocket the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for the first year, but of course I’d have to move, and we’d be far from both our families.
I put together a spreadsheet taking into account the cost of moving, transportation costs, estimated change in rent, tuition and fees, and potential lost wages—and it looks like OSU could actually be the least expensive of the three, depending on whether I manage to establish residency in time to get in-state tuition my second year (I’m told this is the norm). My estimate for the difference between UF and FIU increased slightly to $40k-$70k. I am not sure what to do about estimated career earnings—lots of variance there, and I’m having a hard time weighing it against the costs, which I can be much more confident about.
Do competitive fields tend to be the highest-paying? I would have assumed that the fields where there were more people going in to them than spots available had relatively low pay due to supply and demand, and the highest pay was to be found by going in to a field that was somehow difficult, boring, or distasteful in a way that discouraged people from entering it.
Fair question. It seems that compensation is determined largely by what Medicare/insurance companies are willing to pay for procedures etc. I believe unfilled fellowship spots aren’t really a problem in any field, but the highest-paying subspecialties attract the most applicants. For example, cardiologists are very well-compensated, and cardiology fellowships are among the most competitive.
Interesting.
Right now I’d be leaning towards UF if I were you, I think, since my intuition is that $30-60K isn’t much debt relative to what physicians typically make. But have you thought about using instacalc.com or some other spreadsheet to actually tally up all the numbers related to fees, cost of living, expected career earnings, time value of money/disconting, etc.?
Congratulations on getting admitted to medical school, btw.
Thank you!
I had just about settled on UF when I was suddenly struck with SERIOUS FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS as Ohio State, the highest-ranked school that accepted me, offered me a scholarship covering full in-state tuition. Ohio is quite easy to establish residency in, so I’d probably only be out of pocket the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for the first year, but of course I’d have to move, and we’d be far from both our families.
I put together a spreadsheet taking into account the cost of moving, transportation costs, estimated change in rent, tuition and fees, and potential lost wages—and it looks like OSU could actually be the least expensive of the three, depending on whether I manage to establish residency in time to get in-state tuition my second year (I’m told this is the norm). My estimate for the difference between UF and FIU increased slightly to $40k-$70k. I am not sure what to do about estimated career earnings—lots of variance there, and I’m having a hard time weighing it against the costs, which I can be much more confident about.
Congratulations on your first world problems! I don’t have any brilliant ideas on estimating career earnings, sorry.