USC School of Dentistry Class of 2029 Interview/Acceptance Thread

you could be right...but if there was a wave today those people who got off must've really just accepted within the hour and also be accepted in the fb group...you know what I mean.

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A friend of mine called admissions office earlier today and was told there hasn't been an acceptance wave since April 7th and that there are still seats available.
 
A friend of mine called admissions office earlier today and was told there hasn't been an acceptance wave since April 7th and that there are still seats available.
I hope that is the case. I really want to attend USC.
 
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IDC...I would rather pay that than be a re-applicant and waste more money on this whole process again...all for a uncertainty
Practicing dentists: USC is outrageously expensive and not worth it. You'll struggle to repay your loans let alone live a comfortable life.

Predents:
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Dentist: I have no money to pay off my loan

I only work 4 days a week
I do not want to move to a rural area
I only live in a 3k a month house
I eat steak only 5 days a week
I only drive a BMW
All debts are bad

I am broke so I am going to write on a pre dent SDN to make me feel better about my broke life 🙂
You forgot “I only pay $6000 a month in student loans and that only covers interest”
 
Practicing dentists: USC is outrageously expensive and not worth it. You'll struggle to repay your loans let alone live a comfortable life.

Predents:
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I'm sadly resigned to the fact that predents simply won't listen. Only after they rack up 800k in student loan debt will they realize what they've done. There's no coming back from that.
 
I'm sadly resigned to the fact that predents simply won't listen. Only after they rack up 800k in student loan debt will they realize what they've done. There's no coming back from that.

It’s not that we won’t listen, like trust me this is a HUGE concern and anxiety for me. But if the average debt is 500k with most schools it’s almost impossible to make a “good financial decision” when all these numbers are astronomically high. We’ve accepted the fact that no matter where we go we’re gonna have to pay debt because we’re passionate abt the field and cannot stay waiting for years on every cycle for a lottery chance to get into a cheaper institution.
 
I hope that is the case. I really want to attend USC.

Ahhh I hope so, I honestly can’t find any other reason as to why the group would go up? Wouldn’t the admin have joined earlier? Because it’s 15 admin and that’s a big number to join — ain’t nobody need that many moderators
 
It’s not that we won’t listen, like trust me this is a HUGE concern and anxiety for me. But if the average debt is 500k with most schools it’s almost impossible to make a “good financial decision” when all these numbers are astronomically high. We’ve accepted the fact that no matter where we go we’re gonna have to pay debt because we’re passionate abt the field and cannot stay waiting for years on every cycle for a lottery chance to get into a cheaper institution.
You aren't listening because you are still going to dental school when it isn't financially worth it. You shouldn't go if dental school costs you 500k either. Your "passion" will fade once you are actually a dentist. There are plenty of other things to be passionate about that don't ruin your finances and your life. Please, do not go to USC. Working at Walmart will be better for you financially.
 
I agree with you guys; however, I believe some people succeed because of debt.
 
It’s not that we won’t listen, like trust me this is a HUGE concern and anxiety for me. But if the average debt is 500k with most schools it’s almost impossible to make a “good financial decision” when all these numbers are astronomically high. We’ve accepted the fact that no matter where we go we’re gonna have to pay debt because we’re passionate abt the field and cannot stay waiting for years on every cycle for a lottery chance to get into a cheaper institution.
If you ever stop being “passionate” about dentistry, are your loans forgiven? Or are you still stuck paying them back? Asking for a friend…

Big Hoss
 
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I agree with you guys; however, I believe some people succeed because of debt.
Not 800k of student loan debt compounding at 9.08% that you can't discharge in bankruptcy. Everyone here who is taking out full loans for USC is committing financial suicide. Anyone reading this, please do not pay this much for a job that pays 120k. You're throwing you entire financial future away. What this school is charging should be criminal.
 
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I hear you. it’s true and I respect that and dental school debt is a big commitment, and it shouldn’t be taken easily. But for me this isn’t just about the starting salary or the debt number. It’s about investing in myself and the kind of future I want to build. I’m passionate about growing, learning, and work in a field that I have passion to wake up for that each morning. I don’t want to limit my future options just because of the future cost. I see this as planting seeds for long-term progress—not just financially, but in the kind of of life I want to make. Yes, the debt is real, but so is the opportunity to shape my career and life the way I want.
 
I’m passionate about growing, learning, and work in a field that I have passion to wake up for that each morning.
You’re going to quickly find that your “passion” has turned into “a job.” Trust me. You predents need to take off the rose colored glasses.

I don’t want to limit my future options just because of the future cost.
That’s just it, $800,000 in student loans is going to profoundly limit your future options in virtually every aspect of your life. And, it will do so for decades.

But, at the end of the day, they’re your student loans and you’ll be the one who enjoys them. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Big Hoss
 
You’re going to quickly find that your “passion” has turned into “a job.” Trust me. You predents need to take off the rose colored glasses.


That’s just it, $800,000 in student loans is going to profoundly limit your future options in virtually every aspect of your life. And, it will do so for decades.

But, at the end of the day, they’re your student loans and you’ll be the one who enjoys them. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Big Hoss

Did you go to USC and are experiencing that loan crisis rn? Also, I feel like you’re generalizing your experience for everyone. Just because you lost your passion doesn’t mean everyone does. I’ve shadowed so many dentists and specialists and very few had lost their passion, I’d say that it’s more so you need to reevaluate your life style in that case and choose what’s best for you. And debt in this school landscape is inevitable, medical school debt is also irrationally high but people want to go into the field and do smth they care about. I feel like instead you guys can give us good insight in how to manage finances after we graduate with the debt with the experience you have.
 
Did you go to USC and are experiencing that loan crisis rn? Also, I feel like you’re generalizing your experience for everyone. Just because you lost your passion doesn’t mean everyone does. I’ve shadowed so many dentists and specialists and very few had lost their passion, I’d say that it’s more so you need to reevaluate your life style in that case and choose what’s best for you. And debt in this school landscape is inevitable, medical school debt is also irrationally high but people want to go into the field and do smth they care about. I feel like instead you guys can give us good insight in how to manage finances after we graduate with the debt with the experience you have.
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Good luck everyone! You’re going to need it…

Big Hoss
 
Did you go to USC and are experiencing that loan crisis rn?
I graduated with 200k in loans and worked my butt off moving to the middle of nowhere to pay it back. My experiences of how difficult it was to just pay back 200k showed me just how screwed everyone with 300k+ in loans are. I couldn't even fathom USC levels of student loan debt. You'll never be able to pay that back. As a pre-dent, you just don't understand finance. When I was in your position, I was just as naive as you were. I'm trying to look out for you.
 
This forum is dedicated to discussions about USC acceptances and interviews. For conversations regarding USC costs, financial aid, or debt, please use the appropriate forum dedicated to those topics. We kindly ask that replies stay on topic, and remove your unrelated posts.Thank you for your understanding!
 
Did you go to USC and are experiencing that loan crisis rn? Also, I feel like you’re generalizing your experience for everyone. Just because you lost your passion doesn’t mean everyone does. I’ve shadowed so many dentists and specialists and very few had lost their passion, I’d say that it’s more so you need to reevaluate your life style in that case and choose what’s best for you. And debt in this school landscape is inevitable, medical school debt is also irrationally high but people want to go into the field and do smth they care about. I feel like instead you guys can give us good insight in how to manage finances after we graduate with the debt with the experience you have.
9% interest. What does that mean to you?
 
I'm not going to do that. Every person interviewing and getting acceptances to USC needs to be warned that USC costs will decimate them financially. This seems like the perfect thread to warn pre dents.
Haha, I always see the USC wave posts in the pre-dental reddits. Yesterday, a girl was willing to be 600k in debt, so she can live next to her family 10 minutes away. I'm still a predent, but to justify 600k for your family, idk you gotta be a bit insane.
 
This forum is dedicated to discussions about USC acceptances and interviews. For conversations regarding USC costs, financial aid, or debt, please use the appropriate forum dedicated to those topics. We kindly ask that replies stay on topic, and remove your unrelated posts.Thank you for your understanding!
Who is "we"?
 
Hello guys, did anyone get off the waitlist who was interviewed in mid-March?
 
Did anyone get accepted today?
FB group went up by 3 looks like there was another acceptance
I also saw that the Facebook group went up by 3. But no one posted anything anywhere about receiving an acceptance from USC today — could be just admins joining or maybe people who were previously accepted just joined?
 
Don’t judge acceptances by Facebook group count. I applied for the FB group over a month ago and just recently got accepted.
 
D1: This is not true. I will make 300K so I can it off in 2.5 years

I am being sarcastic
 

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What are your financial plans for USC if you guys get off the waitlist? I got military scholarship so it doesnt matter but paying 8k per month for 10 years seem brutal.

If you do the IBR 2014 plan, assuming you make $200k/yr, you’d be paying around $18000 per year for 20 years.

The balance will obviously grow during this time, but the interest accrual is only based on the principal amount, not on the grand total with interest. We will assume a 9.08 percent interest rate, but it will be slightly lower due to the federal direct loans being 8.08% (and some services offer minus 0.25% off your interest rate as well if you enroll in autopay). But I will round up and use a 9.08% interest rate.

After the 20 years, your balance will reach roughly $1.6 million (including what you’ve paid). This amount will then be forgiven, and you’ll have to pay almost $600k in taxes on this amount.

So the grand total, over the course of 20 years, including money put in plus the tax bomb, you’d have to pay a little less than $1 million to attend USC’s dental school. Sure it’s a lot, but you will make far more than that over the duration of working.

If you put another $1600 monthly into a high yield savings account or total market fund, over the 20 years, you’d end up paying even less as you can use the annual % increase to help pay as well.

There are many tax loopholes that can easily decrease the tax bomb by up to 60%. So in reality you can pay even less. In the end, depending on how smart you are with your financing, you can pay anywhere between 600k to a little less than a million dollars for USC, total. The standard 10 year plan is probably one of the worst plans for this. Go the IBR 2014 route.

Stop freaking out. You’re gonna be a dentist, you’re gonna make money, you’re gonna be fine. Especially if you have a brain and know how to use it. The people freaking out are not in this category.
 
If you do the IBR 2014 plan, assuming you make $200k/yr, you’d be paying around $18000 per year for 20 years.

The balance will obviously grow during this time, but the interest accrual is only based on the principal amount, not on the grand total with interest. We will assume a 9.08 percent interest rate, but it will be slightly lower due to the federal direct loans being 8.08% (and some services offer minus 0.25% off your interest rate as well if you enroll in autopay). But I will round up and use a 9.08% interest rate.

After the 20 years, your balance will reach roughly $1.6 million (including what you’ve paid). This amount will then be forgiven, and you’ll have to pay almost $600k in taxes on this amount.

So the grand total, over the course of 20 years, including money put in plus the tax bomb, you’d have to pay a little less than $1 million to attend USC’s dental school. Sure it’s a lot, but you will make far more than that over the duration of working.

If you put another $1600 monthly into a high yield savings account or total market fund, over the 20 years, you’d end up paying even less as you can use the annual % increase to help pay as well.

There are many tax loopholes that can easily decrease the tax bomb by up to 60%. So in reality you can pay even less. In the end, depending on how smart you are with your financing, you can pay anywhere between 600k to a little less than a million dollars for USC, total. The standard 10 year plan is probably one of the worst plans for this. Go the IBR 2014 route.

Stop freaking out. You’re gonna be a dentist, you’re gonna make money, you’re gonna be fine. Especially if you have a brain and know how to use it. The people freaking out are not in this category.
That’s all good and well, as long as the government holds up their end of the bargain.
 
If you do the IBR 2014 plan, assuming you make $200k/yr, you’d be paying around $18000 per year for 20 years.

The balance will obviously grow during this time, but the interest accrual is only based on the principal amount, not on the grand total with interest. We will assume a 9.08 percent interest rate, but it will be slightly lower due to the federal direct loans being 8.08% (and some services offer minus 0.25% off your interest rate as well if you enroll in autopay). But I will round up and use a 9.08% interest rate.

After the 20 years, your balance will reach roughly $1.6 million (including what you’ve paid). This amount will then be forgiven, and you’ll have to pay almost $600k in taxes on this amount.

So the grand total, over the course of 20 years, including money put in plus the tax bomb, you’d have to pay a little less than $1 million to attend USC’s dental school. Sure it’s a lot, but you will make far more than that over the duration of working.

If you put another $1600 monthly into a high yield savings account or total market fund, over the 20 years, you’d end up paying even less as you can use the annual % increase to help pay as well.

There are many tax loopholes that can easily decrease the tax bomb by up to 60%. So in reality you can pay even less. In the end, depending on how smart you are with your financing, you can pay anywhere between 600k to a little less than a million dollars for USC, total. The standard 10 year plan is probably one of the worst plans for this. Go the IBR 2014 route.

Stop freaking out. You’re gonna be a dentist, you’re gonna make money, you’re gonna be fine. Especially if you have a brain and know how to use it. The people freaking out are not in this category.
Look at what a disaster PSLF approval was. Only 11% of PSLF applicants got forgiveness. As stated above, you really have to trust the government is going to hold up their end while simultaneously trudging around 7 figures of student loans debt compounding at 9.1% for 20 years. That is not worth the risk imo.
 
If you do the IBR 2014 plan, assuming you make $200k/yr, you’d be paying around $18000 per year for 20 years.

The balance will obviously grow during this time, but the interest accrual is only based on the principal amount, not on the grand total with interest. We will assume a 9.08 percent interest rate, but it will be slightly lower due to the federal direct loans being 8.08% (and some services offer minus 0.25% off your interest rate as well if you enroll in autopay). But I will round up and use a 9.08% interest rate.

After the 20 years, your balance will reach roughly $1.6 million (including what you’ve paid). This amount will then be forgiven, and you’ll have to pay almost $600k in taxes on this amount.

So the grand total, over the course of 20 years, including money put in plus the tax bomb, you’d have to pay a little less than $1 million to attend USC’s dental school. Sure it’s a lot, but you will make far more than that over the duration of working.

If you put another $1600 monthly into a high yield savings account or total market fund, over the 20 years, you’d end up paying even less as you can use the annual % increase to help pay as well.

There are many tax loopholes that can easily decrease the tax bomb by up to 60%. So in reality you can pay even less. In the end, depending on how smart you are with your financing, you can pay anywhere between 600k to a little less than a million dollars for USC, total. The standard 10 year plan is probably one of the worst plans for this. Go the IBR 2014 route.

Stop freaking out. You’re gonna be a dentist, you’re gonna make money, you’re gonna be fine. Especially if you have a brain and know how to use it. The people freaking out are not in this category.
Where are you getting the idea that interest does not accrue on interest under IBR?

PAYE caps the amount of unpaid interest that can be capitalized, ie added to your principal balance, at 10% of your starting repayment balance. IBR does not cap the amount of unpaid interest that can be added to your principal.

The following table is based on your assumptions (9% interest, making 18k payment per year), the total remaining balance is $2.6M

Even without doing math, coming out with 800k at 9 percent with paying 18k a month for 20 years doesn't make sense that the total remaining balance is only $1.6M.
 

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Where are you getting the idea that interest does not accrue on interest under IBR?

PAYE caps the amount of unpaid interest that can be capitalized, ie added to your principal balance, at 10% of your starting repayment balance. IBR does not cap the amount of unpaid interest that can be added to your principal.

The following table is based on your assumptions (9% interest, making 18k payment per year), the total remaining balance is $2.6M

Even without doing math, coming out with 800k at 9 percent with paying 18k a month for 20 years doesn't make sense that the total remaining balance is only $1.6M.
IBR 2014 and PAYE’s interest only applies to the principal amount for as long as you’re on the plan. So if you owe 100k at 10% interest, next year your balance will be 110k. When the next 10% interest compounds, it’s on the original 100k, not on the additional 10k in interest. So in year 2, you will be at 120k

What you said about PAYE and IBR in your second paragraph will only apply if you get off of the plan. If you remain on it then interest is not capitalized on the principal. You’d have to make an unrealistic amount of money yearly to no longer qualify for either program.

I’m using this debt calculator (which USC suggested at my interview and has it on their financial aid presentation slides):


It’s much better than the one on fafsa. Allows for more nuance. I’m assuming 680k borrowed and 120k interest accrued by graduation (so graduating with 800k). I did forget to mention that my calculations were on the assumption that you got a 3.5% salary increase per year. So it wouldn’t be a flat 18k for the 20 years. But even if it was, here are rough calculations. The first line is what the 9.08% interest would be on the principal per year. Second line is (debt at graduation + 20 years of interest - amount paid). And you said “800k at 9%” but the principal isn’t 800k, the principal would be around 680k. So even if you’re graduating 800k, the 9% applies to the 680k

Also, for those talking about "trusting the government," once you get on the IBR plan you're grandfathered in, so if they decide to end it in 15 years, you will still receive your forgiveness at the end.
 

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Just wanted to share a personal opinion. I've gone to good academic institutions prior to attending USC dental and will admit it was the absolute worst decision of my entire life. The cost is beyond absurd and you do not get a quality education. Teaching was non-existent, faculty were biased and some faculty were completely unethical and unknowledgeable in my personal experience. I was always wondering where the tuition money went because I was mostly learning from YouTube videos. Additionally, in recent years, they screw over many students from graduating. Most of us come in being straight A students our whole lives and take out a whole lot of loans to attend. It is not worth it, if I could take one decision back in my life it would be attending USC dental. So just as a personal take, go to any other dental school except for USC. You'll save your life. If you want to be southern california, UCLA, Loma Linda, and other schools around here will give you a better dental education for a lower price.
 
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