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Ok, here goes... (I am doing this since I was spazzing out in your shoes last year when no one told us anything...)
As far as I know, if you asked for the $38.5, you'll get it. As long as your EFC wasn't really really high on your SAR (student aid report - from FAFSA). This was not enough money for me when I did my budget b/c I was living in an expensive place, I had a big move to get here, and I like to have my fun.
Therefore, I looked into alternative loans. The finaid office will try to get you not to take them out, but they're just doing there job. I am usually shocked when someone only has out the $38.5, because I couldn't have lived on it. I think I took out close to $10k in alt loans. I chose CitiBank Loans (citibank.com) b/c they had low interest, no guarantor fee, and a good grace period. There are a TON of alternative loans out there for medical students that you can choose from. It doesn't really matter as long as the interest is low, there's no guarantor fees, and there's a grace period for while you're an intern, etc.
When you apply for an alt loan, assuming you have good credit, you'll get what you ask for as long as your total amount of aid (gov't, alt, scholarships, grants, and EFC) doesn't exceed some amount that the fin aid office came up with for the MAX total first year costs. It was somewhere around $48k last year, I think.
Ok, does that help? Oh, yeah, if you have undergrad gov't loans, don't forget to get them deferred...
Michelle
As far as I know, if you asked for the $38.5, you'll get it. As long as your EFC wasn't really really high on your SAR (student aid report - from FAFSA). This was not enough money for me when I did my budget b/c I was living in an expensive place, I had a big move to get here, and I like to have my fun.
Therefore, I looked into alternative loans. The finaid office will try to get you not to take them out, but they're just doing there job. I am usually shocked when someone only has out the $38.5, because I couldn't have lived on it. I think I took out close to $10k in alt loans. I chose CitiBank Loans (citibank.com) b/c they had low interest, no guarantor fee, and a good grace period. There are a TON of alternative loans out there for medical students that you can choose from. It doesn't really matter as long as the interest is low, there's no guarantor fees, and there's a grace period for while you're an intern, etc.
When you apply for an alt loan, assuming you have good credit, you'll get what you ask for as long as your total amount of aid (gov't, alt, scholarships, grants, and EFC) doesn't exceed some amount that the fin aid office came up with for the MAX total first year costs. It was somewhere around $48k last year, I think.
Ok, does that help? Oh, yeah, if you have undergrad gov't loans, don't forget to get them deferred...
Michelle
about my decision. I don't know of any other students here who are going to the same program, so I decided to say hello to Class of 2006...since I'll be sharing the campus :wink: . 
