Chance applying to ortho? should I wait?

[dmvdentist]

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Hey everyone,

I am a rising D4 interested in applying to ortho residency this cycle. My stats are 35/130 3.65 gpa and I'm currently studying for the GRE. I'm involved in clubs and will have good LORs. I am torn because I know how competitive getting into ortho is and while I do want to specialize I don't want to do it at ANY cost. I feel that with my stats I'm not a very competitive to get into an ortho program that is not 70-100k/year. My loans at graduation will be about 500k (ridiculous I know).

A friend of mine with similar stats and graduated this past year is going to the infamous Georgia program. Honestly financially for me it does not make sense for me to dig myself in that kind of hole. My question is should I try my luck and apply selectively to programs that are on the cheaper end or wait until next cycle with the goal in making any headway I can increasing my rank. I'm not sure if ortho programs look down on applicants who decide to work as GPs before deciding to specializing, but I am open to applying after working as a GP for 3-5years.

Thoughts?

 

[PerioDont]

I think I would apply and see what happens. like you said don't apply to stupid expensive programs

 

[e00z]

You have a shot. Apply. Even to some pricier ones. Do it now or you'll just end up doing it in a few years.

 

[Ortho-ftd]

Go for it..apply!

 

[charlestweed]

It’s a tough decision since you are already stuck with the $500k loan. If I were you, I would try to reduce that amount to about $250k within 1-2 years by working 6 days/wk and living like a student. If you are 25-26 yo now, it shouldn’t be too bad to go back to school for ortho at 28-29…..it’s still shorter than the 6-yr length that many OS residents have to go through. You will learn a lot from working in the real world…..you will be a better clinician (being more efficient, better at managing the chair time)…better at dealing with patients and staff….better at managing your spending budget etc.

Ortho is a wonderful profession. Right now….in the year of 2022….here in CA, many corp offices desperately need orthodontists. My company has a hard time finding associate orthodontists. I have to help them cover for one of their offices at least until August….may be longer if they still can’t find an orthodontist. Another corp office (a former assistant told them about me) also tried to reach out to me but told them that I don’t have any more days to give them. Not sure if this will change in the future since there are programs like Georgia that continue to pump out more residents each year.

I've just looked at the Georgia website. They currently have 81 residents: 20 in the 3rd year class, 20 in the 2nd year class, and 41 in the 1st year class. It looks like they have no problem filling all the seats. It guess there are still a lot dentists out there who don’t mind paying $$$ to become an orthodontist.

 

[FutureDent020]

I've just looked at the Georgia website. They currently have 81 residents: 20 in the 3rd year class, 20 in the 2nd year class, and 41 in the 1st year class. It looks like they have no problem filling all the seats. It guess there are still a lot dentists out there who don’t mind paying $$$ to become an orthodontist.

Wait… WHAT. 81 residents is absolutely absurd. I wonder what their admissions rate is? I can’t imagine they are rejecting many

 

[PerioDont]

I'm currently 30 will be 31 when I graduate (not married). While I do want to start working sooner than later imo 2-3yrs in ortho residency in the grand scheme of things is nothing when I can work until 70+ as an orthodontist. My internal struggle is that yes I want to be an orthodontist but at what cost? 800k in loans not factoring interest that will accumulate while in residency I'm afraid will cripple my financial goals until I'm in my late 40s. Especially if I don't have a spouse who makes a good living. a friend of mine who is a prosth PGY1 was telling me "who cares?! just get a good accountant, set up an LLC and shell corps, IBR payment plan and shoot for loan forgiveness" haha

An ortho resident graduating this year just told me he signed his first offer was 350k to work 16days/month in a rural area for a DSO. Seems pretty solid to me especially only as an associate. I figured working full time it would be ~500k and thats about the same debt to income ratio as I would have as a GP associate with a far easier work load. Can any recent ortho grads with similar loans share their experience?

I’m not in Ortho. And if you look at my post history I’m pretty consistently against taking out large amounts of debt.

But if you are already 500k in it’s going to be very difficult to get out as a GP unless you are very much business minded and work a ton. Personally in this circumstance I’d rather do Ortho and have a bigger shovel.

I think it is reasonable for any specialist to make 400k as an associate in most areas. You will have to travel a bit and work but it’s doable.

I spoke with a periodontist yesterday, he had a similar situation as you. Graduated around 450 from d school, then decided to do perio. Ended up around 700k.

He got divorced and lost a bunch of money and only paid the minimum for some time. So his debt is now 800k. But he also makes 40k/month take home post tax. So he is paying 10k per month to his loans now and he should be done in a few years.

Does it suck to pay that much in loans and still have it take many years to pay off? Yes no doubt.

But honestly I would much rather be a specialist with a 800k debt than a GP with 500. Both are insane. But one gives you a much better shovel to work with.

 

[charlestweed]

It’s a simple math. In order to maintain the same debt to income ratio, you have to increase your income (by working harder or by specializing), if you owe more money. That’s why I never give a straight NO answer when a student asks me whether it is worth it to pursue dentistry (or ortho) with $500-800k debt. It depends on how hard one is willing to work.

The problem is many dental students don’t know if they will be able to find good jobs that will pay them enough for them to deal with such massive student loan debt amount. They don’t have enough confidence in themselves since they don’t have any experience. They don't know how good of a dentist/orthodontist they will become. They think the ones who make $500+k must be outliers. It’s completely understandable, especially now when new ortho programs are pumping out a lot more new grads each year. I used to have the same fear like these students when I was still in school…and that was 20 years ago when there weren’t as many ortho residents as there are now.

Another problem is many young doctors don’t want to work 5-6 days/wk. They had already spent 8-10+ years of schooling. They don’t want to make any more sacrifice. To them, the whole point of going to schools for so long is to be able to work less…and to have a work-life balance after graduation….family should come first….and money can’t buy happiness. And again, the way they think like this is completely understandable.

I was hesitant to tell the OP to go ahead and apply because of the 2 above reasons. It’s not a bad idea to work for 1-2 years to pay down the debt. Facing life’s challenges (paying bills, dealing with patients and staff) helps teach a person a lot of good things.

 

[charlestweed]

An ortho resident graduating this year just told me he signed his first offer was 350k to work 16days/month in a rural area for a DSO. Seems pretty solid to me especially only as an associate. I figured working full time it would be ~500k and thats about the same debt to income ratio as I would have as a GP associate with a far easier work load. Can any recent specialist grads with similar loans share their experience?

Yup, same debt to income ratio. And working 5-6 days/wk as an ortho is way easier than working as a GP.

 

[Big Time Hoosier]

A friend of mine with similar stats and graduated this past year is going to the infamous Georgia program.

Big Hoss

 

[P7898]

Debt to income ratio.... be a GP... cheap schooling and go rural and work hard. <- best option.

 

[blablabla1]

My stats were very very similar to yours except I had a high GRE score. I matched to a very good but expensive (75k a year) 2 year state program (due to the OOS tuition). Granted I have much less dental school debt than you, but I think it’s still worth applying. For me, Ortho is just significantly more enjoyable than GP and a lot of my non-Ortho friends are not really loving general dentistry in their first year out