Re: can I afford to go to dental school?

Tough questions !

You would need to check the local Dental School to see if your BS degree
includes the pre-requisites they want. You *may* still need to take a
course or two prior to application. Assuming your husband cannot relocate,
you would need to be within driving distance of a dental school. My alma
mater is looking at 2,000 applicants for 75 seats in the 2007/2008 freshman
class. Last year's freshman class had an average GPA of 3.6. 50% of last
year's class was female.

Please take no offense with the next comment! :-) Ladies do not tend to
work as many hours per week, nor for as many years as men do in Dentistry.
If this applies to you, you would need to figure how many hours you would
plan to work and how much money you could make per year.

Check the tuition at the dental school in your area. Dental school tuition
is not cheap. My alma mater is a private college, so tuition is a bit
higher. These kids are graduating with $250K in debt.

Consider the time required studying and completing lab work. This is not
like undergraduate studies. My second term of sophomore year in DS had us
taking over 20 separate classes at the same time. That was the most intense
term for us, but all four years required tremendous commitments of time.
You will not have a lot of time left over to be "Mom".

You have to look at your relationship with your husband and children and
decide if your family can survive your going through this gauntlet. It is
not an easy four years. Did I mention stress? DS teaches you all about
being stressed out.

Dentistry is a great career, you just have to make sure you know what you
are getting into before you jump in. I started DS at 26 years of age,
married with a mortgage and car payments. My wife earned less money per
year than what my tuition was. We made it! We learned lots about each
other in the process.

I threw a lot of negatives at you. Obviously, there are lots of positives
as well.

--
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Amatus

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<charlotte.bobadilla@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1177946973.479818.55210@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
HI,
I am 29 years old and would love to go to dental school. My problem
is, just like an old post I just read, that I am starting to wonder if
it's worth the economical sacrifice? IS it going to pay off in the
end?
I am a mother of two and my husband works full-time and even though we
are managing on one salary it is a bit tough at times. The only reason
why I am so "late" in getting a professional career is that I came to
the US a few years back because of my husband and it has taken me a
long time to get through the legal process of becoming a resident. I
graduated magna cum la
ude with a B.S from college so I think I could probably get into
dental school, but my major concern is if 1. it is going to be too
tough on my family and 2. is it worth it financially? I am starting to
think that if I will put in that much time and energy and compromise
family time during my education, will I be able to make it up to my
kids and my husband afterwards? I mean, the financal stress will be on
my husband for another couple of years, willI be able to give him a
break once I am done? This issue is holding me back, and I have
started to consider to go into nursing and then become a nurse
anesthetist. This plan of becoming a nurse anesthetis can be done in
two steps, first I get a BSN (15 months) then I need at least one year
of clinical experience and then the nurse anesthetist program is
approximately 27 months long. So the year while I am acquiring my
clinical skills, I will also help to contribute a bit of money instead
of going for 4 years in one stretch.
Please help me with some insightful information!!!!

Charlotte



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