Pre Dent Majors and DS Admission-04-08

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Every year there are several posts claiming biology as the best major for ds admission. The statistical information available from the 2006 to 2010 ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools does not support the bio notion. The misconception may due to the fact ~50% of the applicants are bio majors. This belief may be compounded by encouragement from admission deans for upper division bio courses. The advice may be misinterpreted. How adcoms make decisions is anyone's guess, however, the closeness of the percentages of the applicant and enrollee pools represented by a particular major appears to suggest that a particular applicant pool of major is being compared only to that subgroup rather than across the entire spectrum of applicants. Thus, a business major with upper division bio may be a more competitive candidate than a business major without those courses. While engineering majors represent a small portion of both the applicant and enrollment pools, they appear to have a slight edge. "Pre-dent", and no major appear to be at a more significant disadvantage than any other group. Notwithstanding this information, it is risky to choose a major only as a means to improve one's chance of acceptance since the choice may end up being the terminal degree.

Doc Toothache - great work as usual.

So those who are wondering as I was, if you look at the most recent Percent Rate of Enrollment from 2008 - 2009 here they are in order of highest to lowest.

Eng > Math/CS > Bus > Chem/P > Bio > Lang/Hu > Other > Soc Sci > Pre-D > Ed > No Maj
And interestingly enough it only changes slightly when you factor in the data from all years 2004 - 2009

Eng > Math/CS > Bus > Chem/P > Lang/Hu > Bio > Soc Sci > Other > Ed > Pre-D > No Maj
So what does this mean? The most recent data shows that if you are an Engineering, Math/CS, or Business major, your percent rate of enrollment is higher than all other majors.
Thank goodness I have a CS degree as well as a Finance/Business degree, I only pray it helps.

Originally Posted by Timmi

Doc Toothache - great work as usual.

So those who are wondering as I was, if you look at the most recent Percent Rate of Enrollment from 2008 - 2009 here they are in order of highest to lowest.

Eng > Math/CS > Bus > Chem/P > Bio > Lang/Hu > Other > Soc Sci > Pre-D > Ed > No Maj
And interestingly enough it only changes slightly when you factor in the data from all years 2004 - 2009

Eng > Math/CS > Bus > Chem/P > Lang/Hu > Bio > Soc Sci > Other > Ed > Pre-D > No Maj
So what does this mean? The most recent data shows that if you are an Engineering, Math/CS, or Business major, your percent rate of enrollment is higher than all other majors.
Thank goodness I have a CS degree as well as a Finance/Business degree, I only pray it helps.

The entire idea of this post was to show that major does not play a role in acceptance. Major in something that interests you and do well in school, good things will happen to you.

i talked with a dental admissions officer and they told everyone in the lecture hall that majors don't affect decisions as long as you complete the pre reqs. Since a lot of biology majors attend dental or medical school, a interviewer might ask you what made you change from engineering to dentistry.