For all the Mormon dental students/dentists

[O Gaúcho]

I am a little worried about my extra curriculum not being as great as I hoped. And I was wondering how did serving a full time mission look in the eyes of the adcoms? I mean it is literally a straight 2 years worths of service and in some cases you can be considered bilingual. I have already served in Brazil and speak Portuguese fluently. How would this look? Does it standout at all? Have you ever had an experience where it gave you an advantage or disadvantage? Thank you so much for the help!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[O Gaúcho]

And I know that dental experience is very important as well and I have that.

 

[Streax1]

Be very careful in telling adcoms that is was a straight two years of service. Yes there were many service opportunities that you were part of, and talk about those all you want, but you primarily served a proselytizing mission. Just be careful not to give the impression that you're "double dipping." As far as the Portuguese goes, it's not a deal breaker, but it's definitely worth mentioning.

Which mission did you serve in?

 

[BYU4you]

I only mentioned it in my personal statement.

And for extracurricular section, I put down the English classes I taught every week not anything else.

 

[Blackhorse90]

In the mission hand book and in my mission we were supposed to set the morning of each Saturday for service. I usually averaged 2-4 hours of service, so split the time and only counted those hours and not the whole two years. In my personal statement I said that I serviced a proselyting mission, and while there I was able to perform 2-4 hours of weekly service.

 

[Mascota]

I only mentioned serving a mission in my PS as a way to explain how I speak Spanish fluently, I did not count it for any service hours. Here's why (just my opinion) - 1) There's enormous pressure to serve a mission from church leaders, family, and girlfriends that push young men to go on missions. and the majority wouldn't have gone without that pressure 2) The absolute first and foremost purpose of a mission is to baptize/proselytize, and a very small amount of time during the mission is actually used for service, and most service is only done to accomplish the first purpose, baptize.

I strongly felt that I should be able to accumulated enough service/leadership experience independent of my mission, while taking classes and working during undergrad to be a competitive applicant.

That being said, here's what I've heard from various schools - Stan from UoP presented at my school and said basically, we see LDS missions on the apps of basically every Utah app, we don't think it sets you apart, we know that basically all of you do, we need to see stuff outside of that. Brian from Marquette present at my school and said - we like seeing that you guys did a mission on your apps, to us it show that that kind of stuff is part of your nature and who you are.

I had one friend who interviewed at Michigan State and the interviewer straight up asked if his mission was primarily a proselytizing mission or a service mission.

In conclusion, generally it will either do nothing for you or help you from what I've seen, although there may be adcom members who take issue with past controversies with the church and it's political involvements, so that might hurt you if that's the case. Idk....

Sorry, this is a pretty long winded response, hope it helps in some way!

 

[BYU4you]

I only mentioned serving a mission in my PS as a way to explain how I speak Spanish fluently, I did not count it for any service hours. Here's why (just my opinion) - 1) There's enormous pressure to serve a mission from church leaders, family, and girlfriends that push young men to go on missions. and the majority wouldn't have gone without that pressure 2) The absolute first and foremost purpose of a mission is to baptize/proselytize, and a very small amount of time during the mission is actually used for service, and most service is only done to accomplish the first purpose, baptize.

I strongly felt that I should be able to accumulated enough service/leadership experience independent of my mission, while taking classes and working during undergrad to be a competitive applicant.

That being said, here's what I've heard from various schools - Stan from UoP presented at my school and said basically, we see LDS missions on the apps of basically every Utah app, we don't think it sets you apart, we know that basically all of you do, we need to see stuff outside of that. Brian from Marquette present at my school and said - we like seeing that you guys did a mission on your apps, to us it show that that kind of stuff is part of your nature and who you are.

I had one friend who interviewed at Michigan State and the interviewer straight up asked if his mission was primarily a proselytizing mission or a service mission.

In conclusion, generally it will either do nothing for you or help you from what I've seen, although there may be adcom members who take issue with past controversies with the church and it's political involvements, so that might hurt you if that's the case. Idk....

Sorry, this is a pretty long winded response, hope it helps in some way!

On the flip side I've also heard of people not putting anything about the mission down and schools weren't very happy that they didn't put it down and questioned first if they went and second why they wouldn't mention it.

Again just because you may be "pressured" into doing it, service is still service. I mean most predental students are pressured by applications and getting in to dental school causing them to serve and shadow.

Would I put down 2yearsx24 hours a day of service? No

But I taught English to Russians for two years almost every week and I thought that was worth mentioning.

That being said had I not had that English lessons every week idk what I would've put down because it was hard to find service outside of that.

 

[sandcalf]

On the flip side I've also heard of people not putting anything about the mission down and schools weren't very happy that they didn't put it down and questioned first if they went and second why they wouldn't mention it.

Again just because you may be "pressured" into doing it, service is still service. I mean most predental students are pressured by applications and getting in to dental school causing them to serve and shadow.

Would I put down 2yearsx24 hours a day of service? No

But I taught English to Russians for two years almost every week and I thought that was worth mentioning.

That being said had I not had that English lessons every week idk what I would've put down because it was hard to find service outside of that.

Fellow Russian speaker! Don't see many of those around do ya? haha

I agree with what others have said. Adcoms like to see it because it sets you apart from other applicants in general, but at the same time, there are a ton of LDS applicants, so how are you going to set yourself apart from all of us?

 

[Hammer Time]

O gaúcho.. Lol.. Fala gaúcho. Rio grande do sul, né?

 

[O Gaúcho]

Thank you so much guys for all of your responses! @Hammer Time Falo gaúcho sim! Você serviu a onde?? No sul??

 

[O Gaúcho]

@BYU4you I also taught english almost every week as well plus tons of other service opportunities. I love your idea of putting it in the personal statement. To be honest it was during my mission that I kinda of decided that I wanted to become a dentist. I will defiantly include it in my PS, but I'll be careful to make it not sound weird haha I'm planning on applying next year btw

 

[Hammer Time]

Haha I'm not mormon, but I do speak Portuguese. Achei legal o seu nome Só coloca que você fala portugûes, só pode ser uma coisa boa.. Em relação as missões, não sei muito bem o que vocês fazem, mas se é dois anos de trabalho voluntário, porque não colocar dois anos de trabalho voluntário?

 

[O Gaúcho]

Pois é cara! Sou gaúcho mesmo.... na coração. De qual parte do Brasil você morava? Vou colocar que eu falo português e vai ser a melhor coisa de minha aplicação! haha Sim eu fazia trabalho voluntário por dois anos, então eu vou colocar na aplicação mesmo.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

/.

 

[Gunnabeadentist]

I put it in my PS, but then on the extracurriculars I only counted the service I did each week (2-3) hrs multiplied that by about 100 weeks and put that down. I served in Micronesia

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

[Q.

 

[Gunnabeadentist]

I worked on saipan, a trust territory of the USA and then on yap and chuuk which are islands of the federated.statest of.micronesia. these are all pacific islands