how hard is it to get into dental school?

[Dr.One]

compared to getting into a MD medical program. i will be applying as a nontraditional student being 29 currently. i have a degree in advertising from UF, and i took gen chem and bio 1 about 10 years ago but did really poor so i will have to retake them. is it ok if i take my pre-dental classes at a community college, and will my previous bad grades look really bad? thanks

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[apaul]

dental school requires that that the majority of you prereqs being from a university, and since those grades were so long ago, I doubt they'd care. I would say that getting into D school is getting pretty close to the difficuty of getting into med school

 

[aggie-master]

dental school requires that that the majority of you prereqs being from a university, and since those grades were so long ago, I doubt they'd care. I would say that getting into D school is getting pretty close to the difficuty of getting into med school

You can take all prereqs at CCs at the schools that I applied to. I think the university thing only applies to some dental schools.

 

[aggie.teacher]

most schools require that your prereqs be taken within 5 years or close to that if you have recent classes to prove yourself.

 

[54807]

You can take all prereqs at CCs at the schools that I applied to. I think the university thing only applies to some dental schools.

I believe it was Temple that will not accept CC coursework. And lots place caps on total units. I hope the unit count is not a big deal. I have taken SOOOO many courses at the community college for "fun" that are not towards my degree. So I have WAY more than the 60 units they usually cap at.

 

[vha7777]

Like everyone is saying just look at the particular schools are you are interested in applying to. I know that's far down the line but you don't want to take all of the classes and then not be able to apply to some schools just because they were at a CC! To be competly honest if you can go to a school that you know you can do well so you can come out with the best possible grades is best. (That's what i'm doing now!) It's very important to *protect* your science grades if that makes any sense and keep it as high as possible. i learned that the hard way and messed up in my UG years and now i'm paying the price.


I am also a career changer (kinda) and I have talked to some adcom people and they actually look for the non-trad students in the applicant pool because they believe these kind of students can be more mature and more dedicated to the field of dentistry because they are willing to make the change to go in this direction. I think that dentistry is becoming more and more competitive recently because people are starting to realize there is the potenial to make very good money in this medical field with slightly less stress.


I do think that just like MD schools the applicants at each school is going to vary, some better, some slighly lower then the average BUT there are way more medical schools then Dental schools = less spots. I think the acceptence rate for dental students is lower then medical school but on the other hand dental schools are much more forgiving for UG grades unlike MD schools. For medical schools if you mess up in UG then that's pretty much it, ur doomed! Both schools have their hoops you must jump through to get in but it's very doable. Hope this helps!