To future OMFS applicants

[ibuprofen400mg]

I am now finished with my interviews and I would like to share my thoughts with future OMFS applicants.
1. You definitely need to score really well on NBME. I have heard from many programs that this year's average was around 70 and not 54~56. I would say the safe line is no longer 65 but 70.
2. Applicants from big schools such as Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, UCSF, and Penn are landing tons of interviews. I kind of regret that I chose state school over ivy school.

so, If you are really interested in OMFS, attend one of those dental schools and score high on NBME.

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[joh02034]

70 certainly wasn't the average where I interviewed. And state school is just fine. Put in the time and you can do well on the CBSE.

 

[ballztowallzomfs]

Interview averages were between 50-65. Obviously there were some people who scored in the 80's, but there were probably 2-3 people I met with scores that high.

 

[keeneye]

97% of dental schools are equal opportunity Oral Maxillofacial Surgery prospect providers. The new dental schools are hard to gauge the quality of their didactic achievements. The CBSE and personal development are very important.

So I completely disagree with your statement to go to IVY league schools. Many of these schools have a curriculum which encourages post graduate training and thus they choose to apply in masses. But, the majority of applicants from around the country are not from Ivy league schools. nothing has changed.

Remember, the key is not to match per say, but rather to maximize your interviews. The recipe for that is still the same

 

[avangusva]

Thanks for the insight. Can you provide some more information on how the interviews went? Do programs ask specifically about NBME? Do you get pimped? What did you notice as far as the number of externships most interviewing applicants attended?

 

[asc414]

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[joh02034]

It's important to remember that you're interviewing programs as much as they're interviewing you. I had zero pimping. Some off the wall questions to see how you react to pressure. A lot was the faculty selling the program to you. To be honest they all were very positive experiences which makes the decision in ranking a lot harder.

 

[gryffindor]

2. Applicants from big schools such as Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, UCSF, and Penn are landing tons of interviews. I kind of regret that I chose state school over ivy school.

so, If you are really interested in OMFS, attend one of those dental schools and score high on NBME.

LOL, some notions just don't die on SDN. Did you score a 70+? I would bet a lowly state or even new dental school candidate with an 80 is probably a rock star candidate.

 

[agent2362]

LOL, some notions just don't die on SDN. Did you score a 70+? I would bet a lowly state or even new dental school candidate with an 80 is probably a rock star candidate.

Yes, I would agree that anybody with a 80+ on the NBME would be a good candidate, but you are more likely to get a score like that at a school with better sciences compared to your average state dental school with 19 DAT and 3.5 GPA average. Go to a school with strong sciences with average student predent grades of 3.7 and DAT averages of 21-22.

 

[Sublimazing]

Some 6 year programs don't interview people with less than a 70, but the average on the test is still in the mid 50s.

My advice to attend a school with good preparation for the cbse still stands, but if you post an 80 from a state school, youre still going to land interviews wherever you want

And a big name school wins out over a podunk school, but that should be only one part in your decision making process

 

[Muggsy Bogues]

70 certainly wasn't the average where I interviewed. And state school is just fine. Put in the time and you can do well on the CBSE.

Yea. OP is off base.

Those Ivy schools or whatever have more people going into OMFS because they draw the type of dental student that is dead-set on specializing. If I hear another in-state predent say they're thinking about passing up my half-price in-state school for Penn or Columbia, I'm going to lose it, especially since they are ignoring the relevant fact they're making these comments to someone who has interviewed at the "top" programs in the most competitive specialty . Their dental school name carries basically little weight. The fact that the program director and the chairman at my "lowly" state school can strongly vouch for me carries infinitely more weight than "Columbia". And good luck getting that sort of recommendation at a school where you're one of 15 OMFS applicants.

The only advantage to one particular school over another is that a few schools have the first two years with medical school and it makes the CBSE easy. However, program directors aren't dumb. They know what scores to expect from applicants from those schools. And they're certainly not sitting there twiddling their thumbs thinking "Suzie Q from UConn with a class rank of PASS scored an 82 while Jim Bob at Indiana with a class rank of 7 scored a 66; Suzie Q must be way smarter." The most reputable programs are definitely interviewing applicants with CBSE scores <70 and even <65. CBSE is only a part of the equation.

 

[Muggsy Bogues]

Yes, I would agree that anybody with a 80+ on the NBME would be a good candidate, but you are more likely to get a score like that at a school with better sciences compared to your average state dental school with 19 DAT and 3.5 GPA average. Go to a school with strong sciences with average student predent grades of 3.7 and DAT averages of 21-22.

I fail to see how you can possible correlate an incoming dental school class's average GPA and DAT score with the strength of that dental school's basic science curriculum.

 

[Tufts R Us]

As someone who has gone on 10+ interviews this year for omfs, I would have to agree with the OP. If you are dead set on omfs, do your self a favor an go to a school that takes classes with med student and/or has a pass/fail curriculum (ie. Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, UCSF) It will make the task so much easier.

 

[Sublimazing]

Yea. OP is off base.

Those Ivy schools or whatever have more people going into OMFS because they draw the type of dental student that is dead-set on specializing. If I hear another in-state predent say they're thinking about passing up my half-price in-state school for Penn or Columbia, I'm going to lose it, especially since they are ignoring the relevant fact they're making these comments to someone who has interviewed at the "top" programs in the most competitive specialty . Their dental school name carries basically little weight. The fact that the program director and the chairman at my "lowly" state school can strongly vouch for me carries infinitely more weight than "Columbia". And good luck getting that sort of recommendation at a school where you're one of 15 OMFS applicants.

The only advantage to one particular school over another is that a few schools have the first two years with medical school and it makes the CBSE easy. However, program directors aren't dumb. They know what scores to expect from applicants from those schools. And they're certainly not sitting there twiddling their thumbs thinking "Suzie Q from UConn with a class rank of PASS scored an 82 while Jim Bob at Indiana with a class rank of 7 scored a 66; Suzie Q must be way smarter." The most reputable programs are definitely interviewing applicants with CBSE scores <70 and even <65. CBSE is only a part of the equation.

Can you elucidate which reputable programs interviewed people with cbse scores of less than 65? I think the sdn crowd would like to know that information.

 

[joh02034]

As someone who has gone on 10+ interviews this year for omfs, I would have to agree with the OP. If you are dead set on omfs, do your self a favor an go to a school that takes classes with med student and/or has a pass/fail curriculum (ie. Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, UCSF) It will make the task so much easier.

As someone who also went on over 10, go to a cheap dental school and limit your debt.

 

[Muggsy Bogues]

Can you elucidate which reputable programs interviewed people with cbse scores of less than 65? I think the sdn crowd would like to know that information.

I'm not going to name programs but the vast majority of the programs that get mentioned on here as being "the top" programs are interviewing people in the 60-65, assuming class rank is solid and everything else lines up.

 

[Sublimazing]

I'm not going to name programs but the vast majority of the programs that get mentioned on here as being "the top" programs are interviewing people in the 60-65, assuming class rank is solid and everything else lines up.

I guess i just respectfully disagree with you. I'm only familiar with my home program (and maybe that's why i am out of touch) but what you described is far from true here. And as a current resident, there are many factors that make a good coresident...but if these people can't get a 65 on the cbse it bodes very poorly for them being able to pass the step 1 as an intern, and if they can't pass that it's lights out, end of story.

Part of the reason i get so frustrated with people justifying their subpar scores is that i am not a smart guy, and i dominated that test as a resident in another program...if i can do it, anyone can do it assuming they want it bad enough

Maybe parkland and NO are interviewing a lot of people with less than a 65, but i can't imagine why theyd take that risk when there were a ton of great applicants who scored 70+.

Admittedly though, i'm not an omfs application expert.

 

[ballztowallzomfs]

I guess i just respectfully disagree with you. I'm only familiar with my home program (and maybe that's why i am out of touch) but what you described is far from true here. And as a current resident, there are many factors that make a good coresident...but if these people can't get a 65 on the cbse it bodes very poorly for them being able to pass the step 1 as an intern, and if they can't pass that it's lights out, end of story.

Part of the reason i get so frustrated with people justifying their subpar scores is that i am not a smart guy, and i dominated that test as a resident in another program...if i can do it, anyone can do it assuming they want it bad enough

Maybe parkland and NO are interviewing a lot of people with less than a 65, but i can't imagine why theyd take that risk when there were a ton of great applicants who scored 70+.

Admittedly though, i'm not an omfs application expert.

I guess i just respectfully disagree with you. I'm only familiar with my home program (and maybe that's why i am out of touch) but what you described is far from true here. And as a current resident, there are many factors that make a good coresident...but if these people can't get a 65 on the cbse it bodes very poorly for them being able to pass the step 1 as an intern, and if they can't pass that it's lights out, end of story.

Part of the reason i get so frustrated with people justifying their subpar scores is that i am not a smart guy, and i dominated that test as a resident in another program...if i can do it, anyone can do it assuming they want it bad enough

Maybe parkland and NO are interviewing a lot of people with less than a 65, but i can't imagine why theyd take that risk when there were a ton of great applicants who scored 70+.

Admittedly though, i'm not an omfs application expert.

Didn't LSU-Shreveport have a problem with not matching anyone last year cause they made their cutoff for interviews a 70? It seems unwise to not interview people with scores that are close to passing, then letting them study a bit harder close to taking Step 1

 

[Spaceman Spif]

The 70 cutoff was not a hard line. I personally know someone who had a NBME score lower than that who got an interview at Shreveport.

 

[CMistry]

At Parkland interviews this year we had a CBSE range from the high 50s to the mid 90s. This is almost the exact same range we had last year. Everyone who matched to Parkland last year had a score in the low-mid 70s. I would have to agree that 70+ places you in good standing for a 6yr program match.

 

[deleted660390]

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[Tufts R Us]

As someone who also went on over 10, go to a cheap dental school and limit your debt.

If I went to a school that took classes with Med students I'm confident I would have scored at least 10 points better on the cbse

 

[Tufts R Us]

As someone who also went on over 10, go to a cheap dental school and limit your debt.

If I went to a school that took classes with Med students I'm confident I would have scored at least 10 points better on the cbse

 

[Lspear]

Don't blame your dental school education. I'm from Maryland and my classes did not prepare me at all for the CBSE and I did well. It comes down to TIME and DEDICATIONS and taking it more than once.

Also if if I went to dental school that took classes with medical students then went to medical school again that would sound redundant!

 

[agent2362]

I fail to see how you can possible correlate an incoming dental school class's average GPA and DAT score with the strength of that dental school's basic science curriculum.

I am not correlating incoming averages with better science curriculum. But the fact of the matter is that on a class's bell curve for grades, its going to be harder to score an A when you are "competing" against "smarter" classmates. Getting an 'A' in anatomy at Upenn/ is not quite as easy as getting an 'A" in anatomy at some token state schools. That is why CBSE is slightly --> moderately more important than class ranking.

Score needed depends on your class rank:
I know a 2nd year resident at UCSF Fresno (4 year) who got in with 61 on the NBME CBSE. But he was also president of the class one year and ranked #2/140. He was a sick smart guy. He studied for the CBSE for a 1-2 weeks while in full time clinic.

I know a 1st year resident at Baylor (4yr) who got in with a 59 on his CBSE. Ranked in top 20% of class.

 

[Sublimazing]

I am not correlating incoming averages with better science curriculum. But the fact of the matter is that on a class's bell curve for grades, its going to be harder to score an A when you are "competing" against "smarter" classmates. Getting an 'A' in anatomy at Upenn/ is not quite as easy as getting an 'A" in anatomy at some token state schools. That is why CBSE is slightly --> moderately more important than class ranking.

Score needed depends on your class rank:
I know a 2nd year resident at UCSF Fresno (4 year) who got in with 61 on the NBME CBSE. But he was also president of the class one year and ranked #2/140. He was a sick smart guy. He studied for the CBSE for a 1-2 weeks while in full time clinic.

I know a 1st year resident at Baylor (4yr) who got in with a 59 on his CBSE. Ranked in top 20% of class.

I don't think anyone is going to argue that the CBSE is far less important for four year programs, and that other parts of your application could be more important when you don't have a test to pass.

 

[agent2362]

Don't blame your dental school education. I'm from Maryland and my classes did not prepare me at all for the CBSE and I did well. It comes down to TIME and DEDICATIONS and taking it more than once.

Also if if I went to dental school that took classes with medical students then went to medical school again that would sound redundant!

Actually sounds like a great time to moonlight or take one of the few opportunities to relax during residency.

 

[Lspear]

Completely agree with agent2362!

 

[predent1891]

Is anyone here taking the exam for the first time? I am giving my first shot at the exam this February and feeling hopeless. This test is crazy. I finished about 80% of pathoma and 30% of FA, with some Uworld questions peppered in after reading that section. I attend one of the schools mentioned in the OP and finding it crazy that people are scoring in the 70s (although I don't really have an idea of what that score means yet since I haven't taken it yet). We only covered like 10% of this material in dental school....

 

[amali]

Is anyone here taking the exam for the first time? I am giving my first shot at the exam this February and feeling hopeless. This test is crazy. I finished about 80% of pathoma and 30% of FA, with some Uworld questions peppered in after reading that section. I attend one of the schools mentioned in the OP and finding it crazy that people are scoring in the 70s (although I don't really have an idea of what that score means yet since I haven't taken it yet). We only covered like 10% of this material in dental school....

In the same boat. I studied like crazy and took a practice NBME test and did terrible. I was having too high of expectations for this test and am pretty much planning on taking in August as well.

 

[Tufts R Us]

You need to have read FA like 2-3 times before you get reasonably comfortable with the material

 

[Bereno]

Lol, life can really dish out humble pie if you are not careful. I am attending UConn, where we take all the same classes with the med students for the first two years. Everything is essentially the same, we even take the same exact exams. The thing is, the class above us all did well on the exam, so I thought I would not be any different. My rationale was that I consistently performed a good bit above the med school average on each exam, so I figured I could do well enough. I took most of my summer off after second year, went home, took the dental boards, and began studying for the CBSE for about a week during summer, and for the first 4-5 weeks of third year. My classmates studied all summer. Come test time, all my classmates who took it with me ranged from the mid to low 80s to mid to low 90s. I got a 61. Oops.

The take home here is that I really over-estimated my abilities, and really underestimated what it takes to do well on this exam. I got served a hearty slice of humble pie. I was taught a tough lesson, and am consequently re-taking it this February. If I could give any advice to those getting ready for it, all I would say is to take the exam seriously, and make studying early a priority.

Best of luck to anyone else studying right now.

 

[Sublimazing]

Lol, life can really dish out humble pie if you are not careful. I am attending UConn, where we take all the same classes with the med students for the first two years. Everything is essentially the same, we even take the same exact exams. The thing is, the class above us all did well on the exam, so I thought I would not be any different. My rationale was that I consistently performed a good bit above the med school average on each exam, so I figured I could do well enough. I took most of my summer off after second year, went home, took the dental boards, and began studying for the CBSE for about a week during summer, and for the first 4-5 weeks of third year. My classmates studied all summer. Come test time, all my classmates who took it with me ranged from the mid to low 80s to mid to low 90s. I got a 61. Oops.

The take home here is that I really over-estimated my abilities, and really underestimated what it takes to do well on this exam. I got served a hearty slice of humble pie. I was taught a tough lesson, and am consequently re-taking it this February. If I could give any advice to those getting ready for it, all I would say is to take the exam seriously, and make studying early a priority.

Best of luck to anyone else studying right now.

80s and up? To hear people on this forum talk a 70+ is rarer than a unicorn

 

[Silent Cool]

At Parkland interviews this year we had a CBSE range from the high 50s to the mid 90s. This is almost the exact same range we had last year. Everyone who matched to Parkland last year had a score in the low-mid 70s. I would have to agree that 70+ places you in good standing for a 6yr program match.

@CMistry ,

Do you have some sense of how the CBSE correlates to the USMLE in terms of score difficulty/percentile? In other words, would a 65 on the CBSE roughly correlate to a 220 on the USMLE?

thanx

 

[Silent Cool]

Lol, life can really dish out humble pie if you are not careful. I am attending UConn, where we take all the same classes with the med students for the first two years. Everything is essentially the same, we even take the same exact exams. The thing is, the class above us all did well on the exam, so I thought I would not be any different. My rationale was that I consistently performed a good bit above the med school average on each exam, so I figured I could do well enough. I took most of my summer off after second year, went home, took the dental boards, and began studying for the CBSE for about a week during summer, and for the first 4-5 weeks of third year. My classmates studied all summer. Come test time, all my classmates who took it with me ranged from the mid to low 80s to mid to low 90s. I got a 61. Oops.

The take home here is that I really over-estimated my abilities, and really underestimated what it takes to do well on this exam. I got served a hearty slice of humble pie. I was taught a tough lesson, and am consequently re-taking it this February. If I could give any advice to those getting ready for it, all I would say is to take the exam seriously, and make studying early a priority.

Best of luck to anyone else studying right now.

Sage advice.

Don't make the same mistake on the USMLE if you attend a 6-year OMFS program. I know of someone who was admitted to a 6-year and was in jeopardy of being kicked out because of failing the USMLE.

Good luck pursuing OMFS.

 

[Silent Cool]

You need to have read FA like 2-3 times before you get reasonably comfortable with the material

This, and the other essential resource is UWORLD.

 

[Bereno]

80s and up? To hear people on this forum talk a 70+ is rarer than a unicorn

My class has some exceptionally smart people in it this year. They all did very, very well. Talking to a few people familiar with CBSE scores (not my classmates), it seems that most repeat test takers can only hope for a score increase of 6-8 points. I am hoping for a 14+ point increase, so we will see haha.

 

[CMistry]

@CMistry ,

Do you have some sense of how the CBSE correlates to the USMLE in terms of score difficulty/percentile? In other words, would a 65 on the CBSE roughly correlate to a 220 on the USMLE?

thanx

Unfortunately, no. Though we all take an NBME practice exam here at Parkland, it is graded on a different scale. Fortunately we also do second year of medical school here and I am not aware of anyone failing Step 1 in recent years.

 

[sjv]

Do you have some sense of how the CBSE correlates to the USMLE in terms of score difficulty/percentile? In other words, would a 65 on the CBSE roughly correlate to a 220 on the USMLE?

http://www.nbme.org/PDF/SampleScoreReports/CBSE - Score Report.pdf
Page 2?

 

[amalu6969]

80s and up? To hear people on this forum talk a 70+ is rarer than a unicorn

Getting an 80+ is not impossible. You just have to put in time and effort and it is achievable. If an idiot like me can get a 80+, then so can most other people. Just pretty much memorize first aid, know pathoma, and go through uworld - you are pretty much guaranteed an 80+

 

[Bereno]

Getting an 80+ is not impossible. You just have to put in time and effort and it is achievable. If an idiot like me can get a 80+, then so can most other people. Just pretty much memorize first aid, know pathoma, and go through uworld - you are pretty much guaranteed an 80+

"just" lol

 

[predent1891]

Getting an 80+ is not impossible. You just have to put in time and effort and it is achievable. If an idiot like me can get a 80+, then so can most other people. Just pretty much memorize first aid, know pathoma, and go through uworld - you are pretty much guaranteed an 80+

How long did this take you? Did you attempt this test more than once?

 

[Lspear]

Getting an 80+ is not impossible. You just have to put in time and effort and it is achievable. If an idiot like me can get a 80+, then so can most other people. Just pretty much memorize first aid, know pathoma, and go through uworld - you are pretty much guaranteed an 80+

Same here. Except I feel if you are interested in the material and understand it - this exam wont be that bad. I took it twice and went up 17 points (Bereno it is Feasible!) while my original score was "passing". UWORLD is plenty to "pass" - Do it once for sure. It all comes down to the amount of good studying TIME / dedication IMO.

 

[OMSCoordinator]

I'm the residency coordinator for one of the big OMS residency programs. As the person who reviews every application and decides what to send to the program director, I can tell you that your NBME score matters much more if you are in a Pass/Fail dental school (which should be obvious). For our program, a low NBME score is not an automatic disqualifier, but you need to be outstanding in other areas to make up for it. If you don't have a class rank or a GPA, we probably won't look much at your application if you scored a 45 on the NBME. But even if you have an 80 on your NBME, and you don't have any references/evaluations from OMS faculty, no extracurriculars, and didn't extern with us, you'll probably only get an interview if everyone else that we liked cancelled.

It's not all about the score. It starts with the score (because we need quantitative data to narrow down the applications), but that's just one piece of your puzzle. If you know that your NBME will be a weakness, make sure you pump up your app in other areas to compensate.

 

[Bereno]

I'm the residency coordinator for one of the big OMS residency programs. As the person who reviews every application and decides what to send to the program director, I can tell you that your NBME score matters much more if you are in a Pass/Fail dental school (which should be obvious). For our program, a low NBME score is not an automatic disqualifier, but you need to be outstanding in other areas to make up for it. If you don't have a class rank or a GPA, we probably won't look much at your application if you scored a 45 on the NBME. But even if you have an 80 on your NBME, and you don't have any references/evaluations from OMS faculty, no extracurriculars, and didn't extern with us, you'll probably only get an interview if everyone else that we liked cancelled.

It's not all about the score. It starts with the score (because we need quantitative data to narrow down the applications), but that's just one piece of your puzzle. If you know that your NBME will be a weakness, make sure you pump up your app in other areas to compensate.

Thanks for posting - that is good to know. In light of what you said about P/F schools, what is a solid NMBE in your eyes? This is assuming one has "average" extracurriculars, recommendations, etc.

 

[OMSCoordinator]

Thanks for posting - that is good to know. In light of what you said about P/F schools, what is a solid NMBE in your eyes? This is assuming one has "average" extracurriculars, recommendations, etc.

If the applicant has average extracurriculars and recs, I would say they would need at least a 70 to make it past me to the program director. If the PD isn't impressed, the application will go in the pile of people we will look at again if we don't have enough people to interview. And I don't think we've ever gone back to that pile. (The recs mean more to the PD than they do to me because he/she knows everyone in the OMS world and I don't)

For us, the recs count more than the NBME score, unless the score is really bad. And WHO writes your recs matters as much as what they say.

And as far as good scores go, they cannot erase really bad screw ups. I had an app that had an awesome NBME score (one of the highest submitted to us) but had such a huge personal screw up detailed in essay and recs that there was no way we would even interview that person.

I can do an AMA thread at some point if that's something people are interested in. I can only speak for my experience with my program, but we're a big program so I figure we do things similarly to other big programs.

 

[Bereno]

@OMSCoordinator - I really appreciate your willingness to help us with this. A thread on the topic would be a popular one I am sure.

It seems that the old adage is true: scores get you in the door, while personality and letters of rec get you the match. I will be sure to keep these in mind as I start to build my letters for next year's cycle.

 

[tcufrof824]

If the applicant has average extracurriculars and recs, I would say they would need at least a 70 to make it past me to the program director. If the PD isn't impressed, the application will go in the pile of people we will look at again if we don't have enough people to interview. And I don't think we've ever gone back to that pile. (The recs mean more to the PD than they do to me because he/she knows everyone in the OMS world and I don't)

For us, the recs count more than the NBME score, unless the score is really bad. And WHO writes your recs matters as much as what they say.

And as far as good scores go, they cannot erase really bad screw ups. I had an app that had an awesome NBME score (one of the highest submitted to us) but had such a huge personal screw up detailed in essay and recs that there was no way we would even interview that person.

I can do an AMA thread at some point if that's something people are interested in. I can only speak for my experience with my program, but we're a big program so I figure we do things similarly to other big programs.

Do you think those applicants that attended a dental school without any specialty program are at a disadvantage?

 

[OMSCoordinator]

Do you think those applicants that attended a dental school without any specialty program are at a disadvantage?

It's hard for me to say without knowing which school specifically. I know that our PD and faculty have their own opinions about which are "strong" dental schools and which aren't. I think that you could make up for your dental school's lack of specialty programs by doing many externships and having exceptional recs from either practicing OMS or OMS faculty at other schools. And you would need to have a good answer to the question of why you want to specialize in OMS but went to a school with no OMS department.

Newer dental schools are still an unknown quality to us. If you are one of the first graduating classes from your dental school, you're going to have a harder time getting an interview because we just don't know how strong your school is/will be. At least with established dental schools, we have a history with those grads and know at what level they should be when they join us.

 

[punchdrunk7]

How many externships is considered average among applicants? And how many look amazing in your/program directors eyes?