What should you do to prepare for dental school?

[Yasmine Zazi]

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And how do you select the right dental school?

 

[Incis0r]

how do you select the right dental school?

In no particular order

• Cost
• Location (do you want urban setting or suburban setting?)
• Curriculum (do you like lectures, or are you interested in team-based learning which is a new and innovative approach)
• "Feel" from the interview day
• Specialty placement rates (if that's something you're interested in)
• Grading: do you want P/F, or do you want letter grades? Same with class ranking

Here is a list of questions you should consider for each school: 10 Dental School Questions that Actually Matter for the US Pre-Dent • r/DentalSchool

I'm sure I'm missing some things

Each person has a different value system.

 

[WaveRace]

To add to the very important points @Incis0r listed:

What are your professional goals and how does the school help you achieve them? What do YOU want out of dental school?
Trying to specialize or going into general? Is academia of interest?

(The following are just examples and are by no means an exhaustive list)
General dentistry
Is the school known for producing general dentists with a lot of experience or is a GPR/AEGD generally needed?
Does the school have high requirements for graduation (produce x amount of crowns, etc.)?
Do students find their own patients or does the school do it for them?
Is there a surplus of patients or is it difficult to find enough to meet requirements?
How much time in clinic relative to time in basic science classes?
Does the school help the underserved?
Outreach programs?
What are the first time pass rates for the boards?

Academia/research interest
Does the school do a lot of scientific research?
What is the funding from the NIDCR like?
Do the professors publish often?
Are they studying things you are interested in?
Does the school have specialty programs?

 

[drsoni]

Generally speaking, how would we go about looking into all these factors? Like are some of these mentioned on the School's website or do we gotta call them and ask?

Sent from my SM-G935T using SDN mobile

 

[LogOff]

Generally speaking, how would we go about looking into all these factors? Like are some of these mentioned on the School's website or do we gotta call them and ask?

Sent from my SM-G935T using SDN mobile

Ask to speak with an upperclassman and you will probably get more accurate information than anything someone in admissions will tell you.

 

[mcbnerd]

A big one for me is:
"Is it my only acceptance?"