Researching, Budgeting, and Financing Professional School

Ashley Light Author

12/15/2023 Added

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A workshop presented by the Explore Center that gives helpful tips about how students can research, budget, and prepare financially for professional school.

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[00:00:00.266]My name is Ashley Light. I'm an assistant director in the Explore Center, and so welcome to our presentation today on researching, budgeting, and financing professional school. So we'll go through all 3 of those areas. If you have questions today, feel free to raise your hand, we can go over those. But I'll spend some time going through the presentation and
[00:00:23.386]we'll definitely have time at the end for a question and answer. So
[00:00:34.256]Ashley Light: okay. So as people in the room have told me, their plan is to go to professional school, we had some med school and some dentistry school potentially
[00:00:43.686]and so going to those schools does take some planning, if you guys haven't already noticed that. So we're gonna go over 3 different things today researching which schools to go to, what factors to look for, how to potentially start budgeting for health schools and their application process already,
[00:01:03.346]Ashley Light: and then a little bit on financing, too, at the end.
[00:01:07.186]Ashley Light: I will say, disclaimer, that I am not an expert in financial aid. If you have specific questions about that, please go talk to Husker Hub, or reach out or reach out to health schools about their specific
[00:01:19.806]Ashley Light: financing issues there. But this presentation will give you kind of a general overview about the big ideas about planning to go to medical school or professional schools.
[00:01:31.616]Ashley Light: So first off talking about researching
[00:01:34.796]Ashley Light: and a couple of different things about why you want to start researching schools early. So number one is to be strategic and to save you time and money during the application process for most health schools. The more schools you apply to, the more charges that you occur. So, having a guide as to which schools you want to apply to can be helpful, because it will save you that application fee as well as the time to apply to all those schools.
[00:02:02.596]Ashley Light: It can also help make a better impression to the professional schools. You're applying to showing them that you've done your research. You know what their school entails and how you qualify to meet their requirements.
[00:02:14.156]Ashley Light: And you know, did, looking at all the school info that you've doing your research, that you know what you're doing so. and just on a personal note can be a little less overwhelming when you go to that application. When you go through that application phase because it can be a little daunting. It's a long process. So going in with a plan can be really helpful.
[00:02:37.896]Ashley Light: So what factors to look for, what I usually tell students is to whatever method works for you to make like a chart usually like Excel. Or if you're more of a word document person, you could do that, too. But to make
[00:02:53.896]Ashley Light: an excel spreadsheet or a spreadsheet of some sort, that kind of looks at all these factors, so picking out the schools that you're interested in, and then finding all these things on websites and making a comparison, so things to look for would be their interest exam scores whether that's Mcat or the
[00:03:13.656]Ashley Light: the DAT. For dental school or other health professions as well. Their average incoming class GPA, both the science GPA and their overall GPA. Because health schools will separate out their science GPA
[00:03:28.886]Ashley Light: as well as the overall GPA. And for those of you who don't know, health school do recalculate your GPA. It will not be the same as your UNL GPA. So they do break out your classes and reclassify them, based on their own kind of rubrics that they have
[00:03:45.676]Ashley Light: other things to think about. Is this a public school or private school? Kind of the general rule of thumb is that private schools are going to be more expensive than public schools. You want to look at the mission of the school. Do they have a certain
[00:03:59.066]Ashley Light: area of expertise that they have? Are they like a religious institution? Or do they have a specialized area of medicine that they practice, and then also the state of residence for public schools. You do want to pay attention to their residency policy.
[00:04:16.736]Ashley Light: Some State schools, because they are State funded, give preference to State residents.
[00:04:23.306]Ashley Light: So UNMC is kind of a good example of that. If you're a Nebraska resident, or you have a tie to the State of Nebraska you went to UNL, or you graduated from Nebraska High School. They look at that more favorably than out of State applicants. Right? So if you're native Nebraska, but want to go out of state, you wanna make sure to pay attention. Does that institution have a State Residency kind of
[00:04:44.956]Ashley Light: preference right that might make your job of getting into that school a little harder, just based on, if you have no ties there whatsoever. So another factor to pay attention to when you start looking at health schools.
[00:04:59.886]Ashley Light: and then you want to pay attention to some of these other details. So the requirements most health schools have certain academic classes that they want you to take in order to come into their program. So writing those down and making sure you're hitting all of those as part of your undergraduate experience. In the explore center. We do have those checklists that most of you have probably seen online with requirements that we've kind of built
[00:05:25.286]Ashley Light: for schools in the State of Nebraska. But again, if you're doing out of research on institutions out of state. You're gonna make sure to pay attention to their requirements to make sure you're meeting those.
[00:05:36.846]Ashley Light: And then also experiences depending on your healthcare field.
[00:05:41.976]Ashley Light: some might require a certain amount of experience or hours. So I was just talking to an OT student earlier today about OT schools routinely require so many volunteer hours that you like have to hit those
[00:05:55.466]Ashley Light: PA schools will sometimes want to see a certain amount of patient contact hours. So you wanna make sure that each school you kind of have an idea of what those are both the minimum and they kind of expected. So some schools might say, like, we require 250 patient contact hours. But most of their applicants are coming in with like 2,000. So
[00:06:15.596]Ashley Light: you want to be more competitive for those schools.
[00:06:19.416]Ashley Light: Another detail is to look at their acceptance rates most of the time. You can find that online about how many students they accept every year.
[00:06:27.356]Ashley Light: And then another important thing to pay attention to is school outcomes. So this is really assessing the quality of the school that you're applying to one big one that I would point out. Is there passage rates for any like board exams that they have? So how well are they preparing you to pass the the board exam in your field to make sure that you can practice after you are done with their professional school.
[00:06:52.896]If you are interested in residencies or fellowships things like that after graduation. You would also want to kind of pay attention to those and do your research on those specific schools.
[00:07:03.606]Ashley Light: and then obviously cost right. That's kind of the main point of
[00:07:07.126]Ashley Light: all this, too. But you do want to factor that in as well
[00:07:11.006]Ashley Light: along with costs. I would also say, noting if they have any scholarships or financial aid available, because that might vary school by school.
[00:07:21.156]Ashley Light: Okay? So
[00:07:22.476]Ashley Light: where do you find all this information. School websites are a good place to start. Many of them have, like infographics of their incoming class, so it'll say, like our average Mcat score our average Gpa, and you can pull that off of the Internet that way.
[00:07:38.636]Ashley Light: Another good way is to meet with school representatives. Has anyone here been to our professional school visits in our office?
[00:07:48.306]Ashley Light: Nope, okay, so for your information, we have health schools come to our office every day just about to meet with students. So we have reps coming from
[00:07:58.686]Ashley Light: every school imaginable mostly, and in Nebraska and their surrounding States. But you can meet with representatives and learn more about their program and ask them some of these questions. So like, what was your average
[00:08:10.826]Ashley Light: MCAT score for last year's class? And they should be able to tell you that information. So they're a great resource, too. Also a good way to make sure that you're staying competitive for their programs about what extracurricular activities are their students bringing in? Or are you on track with course, requirements, things like that? So
[00:08:29.216]Ashley Light: you can find that the list of health schools coming online on our website. So it's great way to meet with them and learn more information about their programs.
[00:08:39.116]Ashley Light: A lot of health schools will also have open house events, either in person or virtual, and, like, I know, UNMC just had an open house virtual event last night for their OT program, where they gave a lot of information about their
[00:08:53.616]Ashley Light: curriculum, and they had, and some faculty and staff present about what it means to be an ot and things that they look for in their in their applicant. So those are great ways to learn more about each program.
[00:09:06.476]Ashley Light: And then the application service websites can be really helpful. So each healthcare profession has its own kind of like professional website
[00:09:16.886]Ashley Light: that they cater to that will house their application. So, for example, medical school, it's the AAMC and they have a lot of information that you can use to kind of gauge health schools in that area and the commonalities that they have among them. So that's a really great website, and that's on the back of the handout that I gave you guys?
[00:09:40.876]Ashley Light: You can also ask alumni. So if you know if people who have gone to those health schools or are currently enrolled like they got in, you can ask them a little caution there, because obviously their story is going to be a little colored if they went into that school already. So take that with a little grain of salt about what they tell you. But there can be a great resource
[00:10:08.786]Ashley Light: when you do your research into these schools. Remember, I said, it's nice to have kind of a spreadsheet of some kind.
[00:10:15.406]Ashley Light: You can if you want to get fancy kinda rank them into 3 different categories. So you have comparable exams and gpas. So the schools that are kind of sitting right where you are academically, that you know you could be competitive. If you applied to those schools.
[00:10:35.396]Ashley Light: you could also look at schools where you're above the mean average where, you know? Like, okay, I'm pretty sure I could get into this school because I'm like way above what they're requiring.
[00:10:45.756]Ashley Light: Then you could also look at reach schools. So these are the schools like, oh, man, I would love to go to the school, but something in my application, maybe, is a little off. Maybe my GPA is a little low, or my MCAT scores a little low, or I don't have as many patient contact hours as they would want. Those are good schools to keep an eye on.
[00:11:04.546]Ashley Light: And you can put them in your rubric. Just know that if you apply to those schools, the chances of you getting in might be a little less right?
[00:11:15.716]Ashley Light: So I know this slide is very blurry, but this is a good example of a
[00:11:23.336]Ashley Light: a spreadsheet that we got from a student one time who went ahead and color coded everything.
[00:11:27.886]Ashley Light: So on the left hand side you have there you'll see. The green ones are her target schools. So schools where she knew she can meet the requirements as far as Gpa.
[00:11:39.776]Ashley Light: and extracurricular requirements.
[00:11:43.136]Then she had some high targets.
[00:11:45.486]Ashley Light: That she knew she could still apply for and be competitive for, but maybe a little less, and then her reach. Schools are in the orange there.
[00:11:55.086]Ashley Light: The red ones! She labeled. Impossible. Maybe just something to keep on. Keep, you know, in the back of your head that like this is one that I would love to go to. But it may not ever happen so. And you'll notice across the top there. There are different categories that this student use to keep track of so school, name region where they are. If you're looking at going
[00:12:19.666]Ashley Light: out of State or across the United States. GPA. This was a Med student, so they had MCAT score.
[00:12:26.986]Ashley Light: the links to the websites, maybe, and then the failure challenge diversity open-ended. Those are questions on the application. So the student was keeping track of which
[00:12:39.726]Ashley Light: questions that they had available, that they could answer
[00:12:45.016]Ashley Light: and then
[00:12:46.886]Ashley Light: extracurriculars, gap years, school specific things that she needed to pay attention to. So this one is pretty detailed I would say. You can make it as detailed or as open as you want to. But this is just one example.
[00:13:02.806]Ashley Light: I also had a student on this semester who came in with something kind of like this, but on her reach school she had put in all of her grades at Unl, and was factoring her Gpa. As she took classes to make sure she was reaching reaching the Reach school and so she was keeping track very closely because she really wanted that reach school. And she she had done some really good stats and programming to get the system to do that.
[00:13:32.996]Ashley Light: Okay, any questions about
[00:13:35.546]Ashley Light: researching health schools?
[00:13:41.486]Ashley Light: I do not have that exact spreadsheet.
[00:13:44.396]Ashley Light: I do have a template that I will email out probably tomorrow morning. So if you wanted to start from that template you could. It doesn't look as pretty as not color coded. But you could do that on your own. So yes.
[00:14:02.596]Ashley Light: okay, let's move into budgeting then.
[00:14:07.706]Ashley Light: I mentioned before that applying to health schools can be expensive. So I don't want to sugarcoat that. That's kind of the reality.
[00:14:16.646]Ashley Light: On the screen here you will see an example of an application to medical school. So
[00:14:23.646]Ashley Light: I did update these numbers. They are as accurate as I think they will be for this upcoming cycle. Just know that they may increase in price by the time you apply.
[00:14:35.006]Ashley Light: So MCAT, prep, course. Some of these materials you can find online for free like
[00:14:44.046]Ashley Light: Khan Academy offers some free resources for MCAT. Prep. But you can
[00:14:50.386]Ashley Light: by a course entirely.
[00:14:54.286]Ashley Light: Excuse me, an entire course for $7,000 if you wanted to.
[00:15:06.166]Ashley Light: So how much you spend on that really depends on how much you want to prep for that, and how the materials that you want. The MCAT exam itself is $330,
[00:15:19.496]Ashley Light: which is why it's an expensive exam. You kind of only want to take that thing once.
[00:15:23.836]Ashley Light: AMCAS is the application service that used to apply for medical school.
[00:15:30.366]Ashley Light: And if you, they charge you a base rate just to have the application. And then each school that you apply to is more money. So if you would apply to 5 schools, for example, it'd be $355.
[00:15:44.226]Ashley Light: Then, as part of the application, you have to order school transcripts from
[00:15:48.266]every undergraduate institution that you have applied to and take classes at, so that could, depending on how many schools you went to that could be anywhere from like 3 to 40 bucks.
[00:15:59.206]Ashley Light: The Casper test is pretty unique to medical school applications. So if you do decide to take that, it is optional for some schools required for others. but that's the price for that
[00:16:11.596]Ashley Light: other pre-health areas might have different exams that you would have to take on top of that. This is just the medical example.
[00:16:21.876]Ashley Light: Secondary application fees vary by school.
[00:16:26.066]Ashley Light: and they do vary by help prehealth area as well. So usually, what happens is the base application which would be the AMAS. Application requires a charge per school.
[00:16:37.556]Ashley Light: and then each school has what they call secondary applications where they have follow-up questions that are specific to their institution.
[00:16:45.956]Ashley Light: Those also cost extra money. So, depending on how many of those you fill out and send back. Would depend on how much that charges there
[00:16:56.386]Ashley Light: interviews, especially if you're interviewing out of state, can be
[00:17:00.546]Ashley Light: a significant investment if you have to travel and take a flight or things like that. Otherwise, if you're staying locally, that charge might be less to you.
[00:17:10.485]Ashley Light: and then let's pretend that you get into.
[00:17:14.136]Ashley Light: you know, more than one medical school. You have to put down a seat deposit to hold your spot.
[00:17:19.806]Ashley Light: and so that could be anywhere from $100, or if you get into like 10 schools, that'd be a grand to apply to so
[00:17:27.526]Ashley Light: so estimated costs. If you're on the low end, could be as low as like $3,500 on the high end, more than $10,000, just to apply to medical school. So
[00:17:37.406]Ashley Light: things to think about. Obviously this looks a little different for each student in each healthcare profession. But that is something that you want to kind of budget for, as you're starting to prep for this process.
[00:17:53.696]Ashley Light: And that is where these fee assistant programs can come in really handy. So
[00:17:59.086]Ashley Light: most healthcare professions, you'll see the list on the
[00:18:05.356]Ashley Light: right
[00:18:06.896]Ashley Light: do have what we call the assistant programs. So what? These are our programs to help with the cost of applying to health schools. They usually cover the fee for the entrance exam, whatever that might be for your health related. Field application costs will cover that for up to so many schools that you want to apply to.
[00:18:32.476]Ashley Light: They might even play pay for prep material. So I know that the medical school one will pay for, and Mcat books for you to study from. They might pay for other situational tests like that. Casper Exam. And some school fees depending on the school on how they're situated, but
[00:18:52.656]Ashley Light: great investment. I think the medical school one is worth over like $1,500 if you're able to get it. So
[00:18:59.496]pay attention to the deadlines for those that your goal would be to apply for those programs at least one or 2 months before you register for the exam that you're taking, which for medical school would be the Mcat, or for dental school, would be the did
[00:19:14.926]Ashley Light: because they do pay for that exam. So you want to tread it. Get approved for that program before you pay and take the exam.
[00:19:22.266]Ashley Light: But on the on the our right hand side there you can see the different fee assistant programs that are available, too.
[00:19:33.636]Ashley Light: Any questions about budgeting or things that were in those last few slides.
[00:19:42.786]Ashley Light: Okay, cool
[00:19:45.226]Ashley Light: moving on to financing. So how do you pay for professional school?
[00:19:53.136]Ashley Light: there's a variety of ways to do this. And I'm just gonna kind of run down them. So the first one would be personal funds. So start saving as much as you can right now to pay for that later. Obviously not everyone is as fortunate to do that as other people. So there are these other options that we can talk about. So
[00:20:13.726]there are loans for graduate school, including medical and health schools, both federal and private,
[00:20:22.236]Ashley Light: and then scholarships are available to usually at the national, local or school specific level. So kind of like you did for
[00:20:30.546]Ashley Light: college is a variety of scholarships available at different levels. They have the same thing for health schools. You just got to kind of hunt, look for them, and then start applying for them the other ones that
[00:20:44.936]Ashley Light: A lot of people look to our loan loan repayment plans
[00:20:49.116]Ashley Light: and these can be national, local or job specific. And this is the handout shoot. It's not going to pull up on the screen.
[00:20:59.046]This is the handout that I gave you
[00:21:03.466]Ashley Light: when you came in.
[00:21:05.296]Ashley Light: So this is just a compilation of what we know of. Some of them are specific to the state in Nebraska.
[00:21:14.236]Ashley Light: But some of them are more nation wide. So some of them, let's see.
[00:21:24.176]Ashley Light: are specific to the population that you'll be working with. So, for example, like the veterans affairs ones. You will be working with veterans in a VA facility. Some of them, like the military do, have different programs depending on which branch you decide to go into.
[00:21:41.386]Ashley Light: Some of them, like the National
[00:21:44.676]Ashley Light: Institute of Health, is very research-based. So if you are interested in the health field, but want to do it through research, that would be one to look into
[00:21:54.376]Ashley Light: and then on the back, there is one for the State of Nebraska. If you plan to practice here in specific fields after you graduate. So
[00:22:05.146]Ashley Light: that handout has a lot of URLs on it where you can research. And look at those different options. I'll also send you the Pdf handout, too, because I know
[00:22:16.596]Ashley Light: some of them are hyperlinked in that handout, so I can send you that. So you have the full URL,
[00:22:25.246]Ashley Light: and then last one on the screen. Here is paying for school through work.
[00:22:30.806]Ashley Light: So
[00:22:31.906]Ashley Light: this would be if you decide to go the PhD. route instead of like an MD route, but there are assistant ships, fellowships, or grants that you can apply for to pay those back while you are working.
[00:22:47.996]Ashley Light: So here is just a quick example. These are like rounded numbers, and they have a lot of range to them. So just take that with a grain of salt, too.
[00:22:59.016]Ashley Light: But it shows you the average price of
[00:23:03.016]Ashley Light: healthcare schools. So, depending on whether you are a resident, a nonresident, or you maybe go to a private institution, and then the last one on the right is the average.
[00:23:18.366]Ashley Light: So just kind of a range to give you a ballpark about what you would be looking at for your healthcare field.
[00:23:26.676]Ashley Light: Obviously I'd recommend doing some research into this, too, because you can narrow it down like, if you know you're going to go to dental school in state. You kind of narrow that down and get a better figure.
[00:23:39.276]Ashley Light: You will notice to that some of the numbers depend on if you go into primary care. If you decide to go into a specialty
[00:23:46.956]Ashley Light: because that would be more more college to do.
[00:23:54.836]Ashley Light: And then on here we have kind of a loan repayment example. I will say I did not update this slide from when it was first created. Given interest rates right now I might be a little off. So
[00:24:06.376]Ashley Light: the point of the example is that if you have
[00:24:10.636]Ashley Light: the interest rates of your undergraduate debt and your medical school debt
[00:24:15.096]Ashley Light: kind of total all that up, but also factor in how much you'll be making as a healthcare professional. You might have a pretty big student loan payment every month, but you also have a pretty big take-home pay every month.
[00:24:29.656]Ashley Light: So this could be something that you could try to factor out now, or when you get closer to medical school, that you could look at like interest rates and kind of have an idea of how much undergraduate debt you have. But you could also, based on like future, take home pay, calculate that every month, so
[00:24:48.456]Ashley Light: I would say, pay attention to the overall goal of that exercise rather than the numbers themselves.
[00:24:59.816]Ashley Light: Okay. So just some tips moving forward.
[00:25:03.346]Ashley Light: Things to pay attention to would be to manage your undergraduate debt wisely. I would say every student should be doing that. No matter if you're going to healthcare field or not. Cause. Obviously, when you go into a medical field that undergraduate that comes with you. So just making sure that that's as low as possible. Going into a health field.
[00:25:24.486]Ashley Light: We talked about researching schools and being strategic in that cause. It can help reduce the application costs that you have when you go to apply for school. So,
[00:25:35.846]Ashley Light: being realistic with how many schools you want to apply to? Not cutting your chances too slim, but also not applying to every school in the world to get in when you know that it will cost a lot. So
[00:25:49.776]Ashley Light: along with managing your undergraduate debt, managing your personal debt wisely. Some students could consider a gap year, too to where you can
[00:26:00.876]Ashley Light: really hunker down and work for a year. Save up some money for those professional schools. That kind of depends on your situation and what you want to do, but that would be an option.
[00:26:12.876]Ashley Light: Do your research onto the different debt types as well as the different repayment options, so that sheet that I gave you could be really helpful for that and the loan repayment options as well. And then apply for scholarships. That would be another good question to ask those healthcare
[00:26:28.686]Ashley Light: representatives when you meet with them during professional school visits. So
[00:26:33.396]Ashley Light: a lot of good resources are online for those
[00:26:37.136]Ashley Light: health field websites like the ones listed there. Amc. Is for medical school. Acomas is for do. Pia is a
[00:26:48.626]Ashley Light: physicians. Assistant things like that can be really helpful because they post a lot of really good information on them.
[00:26:57.206]Ashley Light: Okay? And that is all the information in the presentation. Does anyone have any questions?

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Researching, Budgeting, and Financing Professional School

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