The Routes to become a specialist

[NumbaOneStunna]

Scenario 1: Go to Prestigious Dental School, Get a Okay Class Rank

Scenario 2: Go to a Mediocre Dental School, get a great class rank

(the difference in class rank being due to the ability of students at different schools and no differences in motivation etc)


What's the better option based on ability to get into your specialty. (Money Aside) Also how does this situation change when you factor in that alot of prestigious dental schools are p/f and the boards will be p/f when I take them.


Thanks!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[doc3232]

So first...are they still going to make the boards p/f? If so, I have the same question as what you asked. How will you be able to stand out amongst those in the same situation as you (P's on transcript and P on boards)?

Secondly, are you sure you will get a high rank at a "mediocre" school? Consider that lots of students choose schools based on location and hence there may be top/competitive students there.

 

[NumbaOneStunna]

Secondly, are you sure you will get a high rank at a "mediocre" school? Consider that lots of students choose schools based on location and hence there may be top/competitive students there.

I saw a thread on SDN along with some official source saying the boards would be pass/fail. This is all hypothetical doc, so for the sake of my question stay with me. (Although I think prestigious schools for the most part are prestigious mainly due to the caliber of their students making it harder to be at the top of a prestigious school)

 

[NumbaOneStunna]

What I mean by mediocre is not a prestigious (but not bad) like your local state U dental school in most cases. Not all dental schools have the same caliber of students, so if you need me to define this exactly then lets say for the purposes of this discussion that a mediocre dental school is in the bottom three-quarters of dental schools based off metrics like gpa and dat scores.

 

[armorshell]

Scenario 1: Go to Prestigious Dental School, Get a Okay Class Rank

Scenario 2: Go to a Mediocre Dental School, get a great class rank

(the difference in class rank being due to the ability of students at different schools and no differences in motivation etc)

There are inherently differences in motivations between students at prestigious vs. "mediocre" (whatever that means) schools. I can't imagine how you could not take that into account (or not take into account cost for that matter).


.

 

[doc3232]

There are inherently differences in motivations between students at prestigious vs. "mediocre" (whatever that means) schools. I can't imagine how you could not take that into account (or not take into account cost for that matter).


.

What about the boards being pass/fail, is that going through? You never responded to my PM...

Thanks

 

[armorshell]

What I mean by mediocre is not a prestigious (but not bad) like your local state U dental school in most cases. Not all dental schools have the same caliber of students, so if you need me to define this exactly then lets say for the purposes of this discussion that a mediocre dental school is in the bottom three-quarters of dental schools based off metrics like gpa and dat scores.

What about the caliber of your competition at those schools though? Remember, you're competing for a >10% rank. What do you think the entering stats of the top 15-20% of "mediocre state school" will be like. I'm sure many of those people could have gone to "prestigious school" if they wished.

We were told at some point during our education at Pacific that the top 35 people in our entering class had equivalent stats to the most recently published entering class at Harvard dental school. Of course, if you ended up in the middle of "that" group it would put you at a decent rank to specialize (I wouldn't call it great however).

My point? You're over thinking things if you're worrying about this. You can specialize coming from any school. There are hundreds of students that do it each year from non-prestigious schools.

I submit there's nothing ANY school can do for you another can't to help you specialize, though some will tell you in regards to them, correlation does equal causation.

 

[yuppers]

Scenario 1: Go to Prestigious Dental School, Get a Okay Class Rank

Scenario 2: Go to a Mediocre Dental School, get a great class rank

(the difference in class rank being due to the ability of students at different schools and no differences in motivation etc)

What's the better option based on ability to get into your specialty. (Money Aside) Also how does this situation change when you factor in that alot of prestigious dental schools are p/f and the boards will be p/f when I take them.

The stuff I bolded makes 0 sense.... if there is p/f for classes how can there be class rank?

I would think that there will be other tests to get into specialty programs. And programs will probably look at your community service, research, etc as well.

Also I heard that if you are in the top 10ish% of your class (for schools that give grades and therefore can give class rank) you have a good chance to make it into a specialty program.

 

[yuppers]

What about the boards being pass/fail, is that going through? You never responded to my PM...

Thanks

Yeah, boards will be p/f.... heard at an interview.

 

[armorshell]

What about the boards being pass/fail, is that going through? You never responded to my PM...

Thanks

I don't think there's anyone who knows how that is going to pan out. I wouldn't bother trying to make a decision based on what might possibly maybe potentially happen. Yes the boards are changing, but who knows how it will affect anyone.

 

[yuppers]

What about the caliber of your competition at those schools though? Remember, you're competing for a >10% rank. What do you think the entering stats of the top 15-20% of "mediocre state school" will be like. I'm sure many of those people could have gone to "prestigious school" if they wished.

My point? You're over thinking things if you're worrying about this. You can specialize coming from any school. There are hundreds of students that do it each year from non-prestigious schools.

Beat me to the point... but it more reliable coming out dental student anyway.

 

[yuppers]

This brings me to the thread about prestige and undergrad schools....
comparing the effect that undergrad prestige has on your chance of getting into dental school, I think that going to a "prestigous" dental school has even less of an effect on whether or not you can get into a specialty.

 

[Zubnaya Feya]

What's her name... that girl who liked shoes a lot and got into harvard raised that q some time ago. I remember the thread didn't end in peace.

BTW at Case interview they told us that although it is P/F there, they keep rank of the students but just don't tell them about it. I think it would be a good idea for all schools to do that when P/F boards come in and that is the logical way to do it.

 

[yuppers]

BTW at Case interview they told us that although it is P/F there, they keep rank of the students but just don't tell them about it.

How can you rank Ps?

 

[Zubnaya Feya]

How can you rank Ps?

Maybe they do grade the tests on 100-point scale (for example) and then, if it is above,.. 75, they give you a P.

 

[yuppers]

Maybe they do grade the tests on 100-point scale (for example) and then, if it is above,.. 75, they give you a P.

So they keep scores but call it p/f.....

 

[nextuszerodmd]

when i was at UCSF they said the reason the school was P/F was to "lessen the competition" among fellow classmates.

 

[Zubnaya Feya]

So they keep scores but call it p/f.....

Yep. The lady said they specifically keep the scores for later requests by specialty programs/residencies. But no one from the class knows their ranking.

 

[nextuszerodmd]

and fyi, i think boards will be pass/fail in january 2012. as of right now, the the boards are still a score, but the thing is if you pass you cannot take it again!

so if you get like an 85 composite and wanted to take it again to get 90+ to specialize, you're out of luck.

 

[sajjy]

and fyi, i think boards will be pass/fail in january 2012. as of right now, the the boards are still a score, but the thing is if you pass you cannot take it again!

so if you get like an 85 composite and wanted to take it again to get 90+ to specialize, you're out of luck.

I think with the new format, 85 is sort of new 90.

 

[Extirpator]

Staying on topic... I don't understand how people don't agree with the op...


***using these 2 schools simply because of a huge difference in stats***

harvard for example takes top gpa/dat... students will obviously be far more intelligent/harder working.

howard takes low gpa/dat (ignoring other known selection factors)... students would obviously pose a far lesser level of competition for someone looking to get top 10% of their class

take a harvard student and put them at howard and I promise they will be top 10%... you can argue as much as you want, but it's obvious. You're simply not dealing with the same caliber of students.


even if you decide to compare harvard students to a "mediocre" state school, the fact remains, that you're still probably only looking at maybe 20% of the class that could have got into someplace like harvard... so you would be competing with 20% of your class, compared with 100% of your class at harvard.

sure, it's not that straight forward, but I'm sure you see my point.

however, I really don't know enough about the selection factors for specialization schools to comment on which is the better route.. sorry

 

[NumbaOneStunna]

Thank you DaveyK for sticking to the topic. People on SDN like to argue for no reason and fail to comprehend posts. Great examples in this thread would be Armorshell's and Yupper's responses.

I'm probably asking this in the wrong forum anyways, should have put it in the dental forum.

 

[armorshell]

I'm probably asking this in the wrong forum anyways, should have put it in the dental forum.

Nope, pre-dent forum is the right place.

 

[Oracle DMD]

Thank you DaveyK for sticking to the topic. People on SDN like to argue for no reason and fail to comprehend posts. Great examples in this thread would be Armorshell's and Yupper's responses.

I'm probably asking this in the wrong forum anyways, should have put it in the dental forum.

honestly you'll see when you get to dschool that your choice might be made for you, getting into the top 15% or even 25% is waaay easier said then done. you're gonna be surrounded by bizarrre amounts of talent fool. a guy i know at my school busted his butt 1st year and is very smart and driven, did well on the boards, 3.79 gpa, and is NOT in the top 25...or 30. pulling down top grades in any dschool is a man's game junior (or woman's game girls... not to be sexist) but pre-dents will be pre-dents haha. i'm just happy to be here, enjoying the ride but others are on the grind 24/7 to pull those kind of scores.

 

[doc3232]

Thank you DaveyK for sticking to the topic. People on SDN like to argue for no reason and fail to comprehend posts. Great examples in this thread would be Armorshell's and Yupper's responses.

I'm probably asking this in the wrong forum anyways, should have put it in the dental forum.

Posting this in the dental forum is the equivalence of high schoolers posting in the pre-dental forum...it probably annoys dental students a bit.

 

[yuppers]

People on SDN like to argue for no reason and fail to comprehend posts. Great examples in this thread would be Armorshell's and Yupper's responses.

People on SDN like to argue for no reason and fail to comprehend posts. Not to mention they only want responses that coincide with what they believe. A great example in this thread would be NumbaOneStunna's responses. .... see how far that got us.

In my posts, I was either responding to things you wrote or to what someone else asked in this thread.

 

[armorshell]

Thank you DaveyK for sticking to the topic. People on SDN like to argue for no reason and fail to comprehend posts. Great examples in this thread would be Armorshell's and Yupper's responses.

I think it's funny that you praise DaveyK for staying on topic and not "arguing for no reason", though in his post he admits he has no idea how to answer the question that you directly posed (Which choice is better) and is responding to an argument I brought up (By reposting the information I posted, somehow to prove me wrong?) which according to you is "off-topic" (you don't appear to understand what that means).

In fact, the ONLY post in the entire thread that addresses your question "What's the better option based on ability to get into your specialty.(sic)", you decided was off-topic.

Brilliant!

 

[NumbaOneStunna]

I realize d school is hard. I realize that getting in the top x% of your class is anything but a sure bet. But I asked a question about a hypothetical situation, there is no need to say stuff like first worry about getting into d school or worry about getting in the top % of your class or get upset at my use of the word prestigious and mediocre. If can contribute towards answering the question then do so, if you can't then don't post crap in this thread.

And to OracleDMD thank you for your useless post. It was nice of you to call me a fool for no reason lol.

(In case you two were wondering why I called you out. Yuppers you find that my first post makes no sense, I disagree. Armorshell I said to discount factors such as money and motivation in my first post, you respond by saying you can't believe I forgot about how those factor into the equation)

 

[armorshell]

I realize d school is hard. I realize that getting in the top x% of your class is anything but a sure bet. But I asked a question about a hypothetical situation, there is no need to say stuff like first worry about getting into d school or worry about getting in the top % of your class or get upset at my use of the word prestigious and mediocre. If can contribute towards answering the question then do so, if you can't then don't post crap in this thread.

Your definition of mediocre is vital to answering the question, as are your reasons for excluding important parts of the equation (Motivation of students at different schools). How does defining these not contribute towards you developing an answer to your question? Do you think you're the first person to post a thread like this? To consider it at all?

 

[yuppers]

Yuppers you find that my first post makes no sense, I disagree.

Alright, I stand corrected by Zubnaya Feya that a p/f school can keep rank even though it is kept secret. If you disagreed, you must have had a reason for it and you could have said why instead of calling me out.

 

[yuppers]

Just go to a school that impresses you and you think you will be happy. Also ask for the % of dental students that make it into specialty programs during interviews or look on school websites. You will probably get a similar answer at most schools: top 10%.

 

[whateveryoulike]

while the original post is valid, the responses are ridiculous. its quite simple people, go to the ADA website and pull up the study that shows correlation between DAT and undergraduate GPA to board scores and dental gpa. THERE IS A DISTINCT CORRELATION.

It seems most of you are getting butt-hurt over the poor decision to use the word 'mediocre' to refer to the schools most of you are probably going to. at the end of the day, if a dental school applicant is in the 95th percentile now, he stands a (statistically speaking) a much higher chance of being in the 95th percentile as a specialty applicant than another dental applicant that is in the 50th percentile. Stop attacking the guy for sounding like an academic elitist. Just because you do not like the reality of the post does not make it invalid. It just means you do not like it.

If you want to argue on this then you need to put things into perspective. If a student consistently scores average and then has to compete with another student that consistently scores far above average, I think it should be a given that the student that scores consistently higher is much more likely to win a competition between the two students. The dental student that posted earlier is trying to appeal to authority and his argument is ridiculous. Spouting off a classmate's GPA and then stating he isn't in the top 30% means nothing. You haven't told us the average gpa or any other piece of information that allows such a relative statistic to be put into perspective. Additionally, any arguments made about stellar applicants going to local schools is invalid because the 2-3 students that may do that in any particular class are not abundant enough to crowd out the top 10% by themselves.

 

[ucla2134]

while the original post is valid, the responses are ridiculous. its quite simple people, go to the ADA website and pull up the study that shows correlation between DAT and undergraduate GPA to board scores and dental gpa. THERE IS A DISTINCT CORRELATION.

It seems most of you are getting butt-hurt over the poor decision to use the word 'mediocre' to refer to the schools most of you are probably going to. at the end of the day, if a dental school applicant is in the 95th percentile now, he stands a (statistically speaking) a much higher chance of being in the 95th percentile as a specialty applicant than another dental applicant that is in the 50th percentile. Stop attacking the guy for sounding like an academic elitist. Just because you do not like the reality of the post does not make it invalid. It just means you do not like it.

If you want to argue on this then you need to put things into perspective. If a student consistently scores average and then has to compete with another student that consistently scores far above average, I think it should be a given that the student that scores consistently higher is much more likely to win a competition between the two students. The dental student that posted earlier is trying to appeal to authority and his argument is ridiculous. Spouting off a classmate's GPA and then stating he isn't in the top 30% means nothing. You haven't told us the average gpa or any other piece of information that allows such a relative statistic to be put into perspective. Additionally, any arguments made about stellar applicants going to local schools is invalid because the 2-3 students that may do that in any particular class are not abundant enough to crowd out the top 10% by themselves.

 

[ucla2134]

honestly you'll see when you get to dschool that your choice might be made for you, getting into the top 15% or even 25% is waaay easier said then done. you're gonna be surrounded by bizarrre amounts of talent fool. a guy i know at my school busted his butt 1st year and is very smart and driven, did well on the boards, 3.79 gpa, and is NOT in the top 25...or 30. pulling down top grades in any dschool is a man's game junior (or woman's game girls... not to be sexist) but pre-dents will be pre-dents haha. i'm just happy to be here, enjoying the ride but others are on the grind 24/7 to pull those kind of scores.

then don't type it here

 

[Oracle DMD]

then don't type it here

really? wow. relax.

 

[Oracle DMD]

while the original post is valid, the responses are ridiculous. its quite simple people, go to the ADA website and pull up the study that shows correlation between DAT and undergraduate GPA to board scores and dental gpa. THERE IS A DISTINCT CORRELATION.

It seems most of you are getting butt-hurt over the poor decision to use the word 'mediocre' to refer to the schools most of you are probably going to. at the end of the day, if a dental school applicant is in the 95th percentile now, he stands a (statistically speaking) a much higher chance of being in the 95th percentile as a specialty applicant than another dental applicant that is in the 50th percentile. Stop attacking the guy for sounding like an academic elitist. Just because you do not like the reality of the post does not make it invalid. It just means you do not like it.

If you want to argue on this then you need to put things into perspective. If a student consistently scores average and then has to compete with another student that consistently scores far above average, I think it should be a given that the student that scores consistently higher is much more likely to win a competition between the two students. The dental student that posted earlier is trying to appeal to authority and his argument is ridiculous. Spouting off a classmate's GPA and then stating he isn't in the top 30% means nothing. You haven't told us the average gpa or any other piece of information that allows such a relative statistic to be put into perspective. Additionally, any arguments made about stellar applicants going to local schools is invalid because the 2-3 students that may do that in any particular class are not abundant enough to crowd out the top 10% by themselves.

1. correlation is not causation. 2. my buddy was just an example to say that even if you kill it in undergrad, you may not kill it in dschool. not that its impossible for anyone to do well, but you may get checked into reality when you get into school. 3. as posted before, i am no gunner. i'm happy to be in dschool and i have never had aspitations to specialize and have no problem with those who want to, however for every 10 people thinking about specializing in predent, probly 8 change their mind after D1. (or get their mind changed for them via classmates that are crazy smart and outpreform them)

 

[alanan84]

then don't type it here

You're kidding right?