When he was in dental school, the OP had spent 3 hours every day to commute to school (from his parents' home) to save money on rents and food. This showed that he was very concerned about the student loan debt after graduation. This alone already put him ahead of most of his classmates.
We didn’t have class rank so it is tough to know, but I’d guess I was in the middle. Clinically, I don’t think I was anything special. I had some classmates regularly taking outside CE while a student. That wasn’t me. I just focused on getting the requirements done. I was very focused on keeping my debt down so from that standpoint I was ahead. I commuted 1.5 hours each way to school and had earned a little bit of a scholarship to school. Finished with $250k in loans.
