Dental School committee thinks I should wait a year, but I disagree... Advice?

[Goro]

I'm a non-Canadian international student and currently in my 3rd year at a high ranked liberal arts women's college. My current sGPA is 3.51 and cGPA is 3.66 (with a rising trend). I just took the DAT last month and got a 21 AA, 19 TS (PAT 21, QR 25, RC 21, Bio 17, GC 22, OC 21). I'm a neuroscience major and have been doing research at a clinical psych lab since my first year. I have about 60 hours of shadowing general dentists so far, and by June I will have about 30-40 more hours of shadowing specialists. I have also secured all required letters of recommendation. Outside of classes, I started a pre-dental club and have been club president since, recently started volunteering at a local soup kitchen on the weekends, and have been involved with my school's residential community all three years.

My school's pre-health committee said that they wouldn't want to "recommend me with reservations" so they suggest that I don't apply this upcoming cycle. They said that my GPA and DAT scores are okay, but I have no experiences involving patient contact (taking patient history, setting up for procedures, volunteering at senior centers, etc.) which makes me less competitive than other current applicants. They said that if I waited a year I would gain a lot more shadowing and volunteering hours, and be able to retake the DAT too.

I have been quite determined in pursuing dentistry since I began college, and having shadowed many dentists, I know that this is the right path for me. As an international student, it just makes more sense for me to go into dental school right away after college, so I'm really torn because I thought I was ready to apply but my committee doesn't think so. I understand that with my stats, I should be looking to apply to mostly lower-tier schools, which I would much prefer over waiting a year. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Getting a LOR with "recommend with reservations" is an app killer at my med school.

Applying without relevant clinical experience puts your judgement into question.

"You just know" that this is the right path for you? Imagine how that will go over with admissions people.

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[artist2022]

Okay so your DAT and your GPA are not bad at all, but I would say they're not too too competitive for an international applicant. You definitely do need to hit 100-150 shadowing hours, but doing research and the fact you started a pre-dental club will help!

One question I have is that you say you have secured all required letters of recommendation. If this is the case, why are you concerned about what your pre-health committee is saying? Not every school requires a committee letter. I didn't even know about committee letters until after I had applied, lol (naive me!). I just asked 3 professors that knew me well to write me a LOR, and the dentist I shadowed too, and that was it- I didn't get a committee letter from my school even though one was offered (granted I didn't know about it, but the 3 individual letters didn't hurt me).

If you do have all your LORs, I would go ahead and apply this cycle. You don't want to take a gap year if you don't really need to- that's a loss of a potential year's salary.

BUT, if you do not have all your LORs, I would try and see if you can get individual ones. If you cannot, and your committee letter is your only option, then I would unfortunately wait the year so you can get a strong letter from them :/

I hope this helped a little!

 

[artist2022]

Thank you for your input! I heard that some schools will actually question you if you submit individual letters when your school has a committee. I’ve actually seen some schools explicitly state on their website that if there is a committee they will only accept a committee letter...

That said, from your case it seems that it doesn’t matter for some schools. I guess I’ll keep shadowing and volunteering and try to get my application in as soon as possible.

Yeah I know, I saw that too so maybe just try to avoid applying to those schools, if you can. Honestly I think it would be better to apply this cycle and "waste" a couple thousand on some schools and maybe get in, than to not try at all and just waste a year in potential peak salary that you could be earning if you graduated one year sooner. I hope that made sense haha. Let me know if you have any other questions! And yes, definitely be sure to apply as soon as the cycle opens!!! Good luck

 

[Mr.Smile12]

With 60 hours in the bank and hopeful 40 hours to go, you do fulfill a few schools' minimum expectations for applicants. However, for me, quality is as important as quality, so somehow your ability to communicate what your insights are about dentistry to the committee may have been seriously lacking. I do understand your position though because being part of predental club means you have had to do a lot more with making connections with dentists in your area. So I'm not sure you were effective conveying your ability to be empathetic or understand the mundane challenges of the profession as much as you think you did. Maybe talk with the institution's prehealth advisor on whether it's a communication issue more than just an experience issue and develop a plan to address it, even during the application cycle.

I am the type of person who does take prehealth advisors' assessments seriously (having been one who wrote many such committee letters), and your choices as an international applicant are a little more limited. Through your club connections, you should have connected with ASDA/SNDA chapters and other dental school students who can probably give you a little more insight. Networking is very important.

I'll also say don't try to throw a committee letter under the bus by avoiding or masking the committee letter in your list of evaluations. At this point in February, chances are they haven't even completed a (final) draft, likely because they are waiting for your final spring grades. That's why I would recommend you talk with the committee chair and/or your prehealth advisor as noted above.