forgive me as I'm still researching this on my spare time but its 8000 USD for external tibias LON. 8000 is an attractive price but are you more prone to complications with external as opposed to internal methods with femurs?
These questions can all be answered if you actually took the time to read the forum instead of being spoon fed the answers on a silver platter. Sorry but theres too many of these threads around on here for my liking with the same questions being asked time and time again when a new member joins. When I first came across this forum I spent days and days and days reading majority of the threads, if not all as to not offend senior members by asking questions that are already answered on numerous threads, it provided a lot of insight and I didn't need to ask the same questions every new member ask when they come on here.
You can read most of the info on here in your spare time like I did and what ever else you didn't understand then by all means, ask away. You say you want to get into med school, then reading numerous threads shouldn't be a big problem so get to it. Its an interesting read thats for sure
Back to your problem
If money is tight atm then you'd want to do external tibias, cheapest internal femurs I'd do would be either Dr Shah, Dr Parihar or Dr Birkholtz of which all use the Precice 2 nail and that'll cost you anywhere between $45-55,000 so say $60,000 to be safe
I wouldn't go with Dr Jamal from the Ukraine who has a similar price but uses his own specially designed nail, most of his patients dont tend to do well during the consolidation phase with case in point being a user by the name of Emanuel on the old forum who isn't fully consolidated yet after 2 years, yes 2 years and still has a gap....
So if you want to do it now, go do tibias which supposedly has less complications, debatable.
External tibias will be cheaper. Cheap external tibia doctors that Im personally considering myself are.
Dr Shah - India
Dr Parihar - India
Maybe Dr Bagirov or Barinov - Russia, two different people by the way.
Not so sure about China any more atm...
They are the cheapest, head to the doctors section and make up your mind depending on your budget, time, commitment and so on.
With tibias you'll also come to crossroads
LON/LATN = get off frames sooner but have a high risk of permanent knee pain according to people who've already done it, I havent done it yet so its hearsay from me
Externals only = no risk of permanent knee pain as theres no drilling and less scars but longer fixator times
Decisions, decisions
And to answer your should you wait question, personally I'd rather be taller in my 20's than my 30's but if you dont have the necessary funds then your decision has already been made