Admissions Cycle help

[trojantorero]

Hello everyone! I am currently a predental junior hoping to attend dental school in fall 2023 or 2024. I made the switch to dentistry pretty late so I am a bit clueless on this entire process. I have all of my course requirements, but I have not started shadowing yet and have not taken the DAT yet. With that being said, when should I begin my application? I am also not really sure how to "boost" my application. I have worked every year since I was 15 but not in jobs related to dentistry, does that count for anything?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Boofy]

I recommend looking over the stickied thread on this forum. Shadowing and Volunteering hours should be over 150 IMO. If you are applying this cycle be ready in May to start working on essays, and start getting LORs as soon as possible. The rest of your questions should be answered in that thread.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

SDN outside the forums has a booklet on applying to dental school that you should access. You should also look up the ADEA GoDental site.

First things first: get your shadowing/working with dentists experiences to determine if all the efforts your going to have to make are worth the debt.

EDIT: Timeline to apply

 

[PurpleSails]

Plan to apply in early June, but later is okay. Start studying for DAT asap (schedule ~ 3 months in future). And maybe one of the most important thing would be to get your shadowing hours, no dental school would let you in with no hours, they want to make sure you are actually familiar with the dental field. Your other jobs during college should count for "something" but depends on that type of work, for example, working as a research assistant with names in publications would be a more valuable job experience for the application than retail

 

[trojantorero]

Thank you everyone!