Asian student-- is that an advantage at mid west schools?

kayo said:

Hello there-

I just had a meeting with the advisor from the pre-dental club I join.
He told me asian students are welcomed in schools in the middle west
because they want to balance the race statistics of the students.

I thought there are tons of asian students applying for dental schools, and
never thought being an Asian could be an advantage..
If that's true, I will consider applying several schools in the Mid west.

I don't think Asians are minorities at dental schools but
I appreciate your thoughts on this thread.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Oh yeah, if you have good grades and DAT score, you're golden

kayo said:

Hello there-

I just had a meeting with the advisor from the pre-dental club I join.
He told me asian students are welcomed in schools in the middle west
because they want to balance the race statistics of the students.

I thought there are tons of asian students applying for dental schools, and
never thought being an Asian could be an advantage..
If that's true, I will consider applying several schools in the Mid west.

I don't think Asians are minorities at dental schools but
I appreciate your thoughts on this thread.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Yeah, we are not considered minorities at dental schools. However, I'm sure that some of the midwest schools that are predominently caucasian would like to diversify their class so will look to specifically accept asians into their class. I'm not sure exactly how that works...

Good luck!

HELL YES....

I know this one indian dude who had a horrible lsat score (law school) and got into Iowa (number 25 law school in nation). It's so easy for Asians in general to get into mid-west schools, but do you really want to go to ''IOWA'' for 4 years.

Like it or not, affirmitive action helps most minorities. Apply to the schools you like and with good scores you'll be fine. Make sure you apply early.

I originally found this a little hard to believe. I went to a midwest university for undergrad and about 20% of my classmates were asian. So I looked at the stats for different dental schools in the midwest. I did see two schools (Minnesota and Iowa) that had low percentages of asian enrollees so maybe this is true for those schools.

However, it seems like a lot of them have a student body that is well over 10% asian. From 2000 US census figures, the asian population as a whole is only 4.2% of the total US population. I'm not an expert on how affirmative action works, but I'm pretty sure that preference is not given to so-called "over-represented" minorities.

That said, you may want to check with the admissions offices at individual schools just to see what they say. I have been told that there are a lot of ethnicity-based scholarships that are given out by different groups so you may want to check that out.

Good luck with your application!

(In case you are wondering where I got my data, here is the census site I used: http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/censr-17.pdf

I got the individual dental school data from the ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools 42nd Edition.)

kayo said:

Hello there-

I just had a meeting with the advisor from the pre-dental club I join.
He told me asian students are welcomed in schools in the middle west
because they want to balance the race statistics of the students.

I thought there are tons of asian students applying for dental schools, and
never thought being an Asian could be an advantage..
If that's true, I will consider applying several schools in the Mid west.

I don't think Asians are minorities at dental schools but
I appreciate your thoughts on this thread.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Zahnarzt said:

I originally found this a little hard to believe. I went to a midwest university for undergrad and about 20% of my classmates were asian. So I looked at the stats for different dental schools in the midwest. I did see two schools (Minnesota and Iowa) that had low percentages of asian enrollees so maybe this is true for those schools.

However, it seems like a lot of them have a student body that is well over 10% asian. From 2000 US census figures, the asian population as a whole is only 4.2% of the total US population. I'm not an expert on how affirmative action works, but I'm pretty sure that preference is not given to so-called "over-represented" minorities.

That said, you may want to check with the admissions offices at individual schools just to see what they say. I have been told that there are a lot of ethnicity-based scholarships that are given out by different groups so you may want to check that out.

Good luck with your application!

(In case you are wondering where I got my data, here is the census site I used: http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/censr-17.pdf

I got the individual dental school data from the ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools 42nd Edition.)

Click to expand...

A lot of the midwest schools are also state sponsored so they give preference to their residents, making it more difficult to get in if you aren't a resident, regardless of your ethnicity. Some schools also define "under represented minority groups" as those under represented in dental school and the profession as a whole, not necessarily in reference to their own demographics, in which case Asians are not considered an under represented minority.

Just a few more things to consider and look into. Good luck with everything!!!

Zahnarzt said:

I originally found this a little hard to believe. I went to a midwest university for undergrad and about 20% of my classmates were asian. So I looked at the stats for different dental schools in the midwest. I did see two schools (Minnesota and Iowa) that had low percentages of asian enrollees so maybe this is true for those schools.

However, it seems like a lot of them have a student body that is well over 10% asian. From 2000 US census figures, the asian population as a whole is only 4.2% of the total US population. I'm not an expert on how affirmative action works, but I'm pretty sure that preference is not given to so-called "over-represented" minorities.

That said, you may want to check with the admissions offices at individual schools just to see what they say. I have been told that there are a lot of ethnicity-based scholarships that are given out by different groups so you may want to check that out.

Good luck with your application!

(In case you are wondering where I got my data, here is the census site I used: http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/censr-17.pdf

I got the individual dental school data from the ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools 42nd Edition.)

Click to expand...

Check this out... More numbers on Asians and dental school...

1) Asians account for only 3.6% of the population, but make up (in this survey) 23.54% of enrolled dental students.

Effective recruitment and retention strategies for underrepresented minority students

kayo said:

Hello there-

I just had a meeting with the advisor from the pre-dental club I join.
He told me asian students are welcomed in schools in the middle west
because they want to balance the race statistics of the students.

I thought there are tons of asian students applying for dental schools, and
never thought being an Asian could be an advantage..
If that's true, I will consider applying several schools in the Mid west.

I don't think Asians are minorities at dental schools but
I appreciate your thoughts on this thread.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

A little dated.. but here is a journal article by JADA about the trends in dental school applicants.

http://jada.ada.org/cgi/reprint/135/9/1253

I know certain midwest dental schools, such as UM-Kansas City, has quite a bit Asian-American students attending that dental school. I know because UMKC has some slots for Hawaii students, which many of Hawaii applicants are Asians.

I think the same applies to Creighton's dental program.

I think Oklahoma and Iowa don't have much Asian students there, so you may have a better chance at those schools.

But like somebody said here, they're state dental schools, and they prefer admitting applicants from their state (who pay taxes, and yada yada excuses they have for their admissions policy).

According to the 2006-2007 ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools, p. 12, Table 2-1:

In the 2004-2005 Application Cycle:

"About 47 percent of the 9,433 individuals who applied for admission were enrolled."

Also, 816 Asian students enrolled out of 1,892 applicants to Dental Schools in the US, which would be a 43% acceptance rate for Asians, which would be slightly lower than the overall average.

However, having said that, a number of people who enrolled did not provide their information, so these numbers may or may not be indicative of the trend today. But it may very well be the best information available right now.

burton117 said:

Also, 816 Asian students enrolled out of 1,892 applicants to Dental Schools in the US, which would be a 43% acceptance rate for Asians, which would be slightly lower than the overall average.

Click to expand...

That's sad. I would have thought that asians, who have the highest average DAT scores, would have a higher acceptance percentage. However, asians are also well represented in dentistry.

burton117 said:

According to the 2006-2007 ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools, p. 12, Table 2-1:

In the 2004-2005 Application Cycle:

"About 47 percent of the 9,433 individuals who applied for admission were enrolled."

Also, 816 Asian students enrolled out of 1,892 applicants to Dental Schools in the US, which would be a 43% acceptance rate for Asians, which would be slightly lower than the overall average.

However, having said that, a number of people who enrolled did not provide their information, so these numbers may or may not be indicative of the trend today. But it may very well be the best information available right now.

Click to expand...

It is also important to take into consideration that Asians are not a very large percentage of the overall US population to fully appreciate these stats.

Overall.....After reading the posts - it made me think that CAUCASIAN applicants should (be given or..) have higher acceptance rate (representation issue) than ASIANS?

...there you go... affirmative action for the majority....

Another point to consider...

According to the ADA, (pages 39-46 of the document below) Asians have the highest DAT mean on just about all sections. This means that it is EXTREMELY competetive just within the Asian population to get into dental school.

http://www.ada.org/prof/ed/testing/dat/dat_usermanual.pdf

As Asians are not considered a minority in the dental school admissions process (this is because a disproportionate percentage of the Asian population applies to dental school), this means that there are even less spots for Asian student without even considering the inter-Asian DAT score competition...

Generallee said:

Yeah, we are not considered minorities at dental schools. However, I'm sure that some of the midwest schools that are predominently caucasian would like to diversify their class so will look to specifically accept asians into their class. I'm not sure exactly how that works...

Good luck!

Click to expand...

not all asians are minorities such as chinese, koreans, japanese, now vietnamese. the asian miniorities now are like laotions, cambodians, thai, philipinos i think and some others.

humm.. Theres already a ton of asians in Michigan (especially koreans), so it doesn't seem like more asians are able to go to school here than either coasts.. but i dunno

I am a Pakistani, but I count myself as an Asian--since Pakistan is in Asia. Would that put me at an advantage, disadvantage or niether. Or, should I put other.

Faisal

Hi guys. I'm Taiwanese, and a foreign student studying here in the US.

I doubt there are any "advantages" for Asians and Asian-Amer for applying to dental schools in the midwest.

Take Univ of Iowa's dental school for example. They mainly select in-state resident, and a friend of mine told me that out-of-state applicants need an average overall GPA of 3.8. You either make that cut or you're out of the Iowa's application pool.

However, there are private dental schools in the midwest, such as Creighton located in Omaha Nebraska, that selects student from diverse geographical regions. My friend's sister who has attended Creigton's dental school is from S Korea.

All in all, a lot of dental school applicants highly select dental schools located on the "coastal" regions, then they would look at dental schools in the south, then select dental schools in the midwest (since it's so damn cold during the winter).

Like someone said before, they need to balance the class out, so they need to take people such as asians or blacks or else it looks really bad on their record.
I applied to 5 dental schools, the ones I got accepted into were in the midwest, those being Minnesota and Marquette, the ones I didnt get into were UCSF, loma linda and Creighton. I guess Creighton was the one midwest that didnt take me.
For what its worth, I totally believe that being asian was a factor into getting into those other ones. I stress factor there.

I'm asian. I'm female
Asian aren't minorities in the medical field. But women are still considered minorities. THey canceled each other out So now my status is the same as that of a caucasion male?????

Is anyone else feeling very insecure about their chances of being accepted into Dental school this cycle?

blue_moon01 said:

I'm asian. I'm female
Asian aren't minorities in the medical field. But women are still considered minorities. THey canceled each other out So now my status is the same as that of a caucasion male?????

Is anyone else feeling very insecure about their chances of being accepted into Dental school this cycle?

Click to expand...

I tend to think people with 23AAs probably shouldn't be stressing to hard about matriculating

armorshell said:

I tend to think people with 23AAs probably shouldn't be stressing to hard about matriculating

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Normally, but a 23 in AA with a 2.99 GPA and no dental experiences whatsoever ....... see? that's where the insecurities kicked in

blue_moon01 said:

Normally, but a 23 in AA with a 2.99 GPA and no dental experiences whatsoever ....... see? that's where the insecurities kicked in

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I've heard of people getting in without a lot of dental experience. But you still have some time to find some dental experience, volunteer at a local clinic, or cold call some dentists to shadow them. Might even check in with your predent society if you're part of one, or call up a local dental society chapter. Would be good since you're making a huge leap of faith without know what you're getting into. Good luck.

country_fry said:

I've heard of people getting in without a lot of dental experience. But you still have some time to find some dental experience, volunteer at a local clinic, or cold call some dentists to shadow them. Might even check in with your predent society if you're part of one, or call up a local dental society chapter. Would be good since you're making a huge leap of faith without know what you're getting into. Good luck.

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THank goodness I found SDN. I didnt' realize how important some dental experiences are to Dental school. two days ago, I made a few phone calls and now I'm interning at a dental lab ( I started on Friday and get to "pour molding" I forgot the process's name I was concentrating on getting rid of the bubbles . Next week I start building a crown starting with wax. SO excited!)

earlier today, I got to shadowed at a general dental practice. I saw fillings, crowns, and some disturbing x-rays of teeth with the roots being resorbed.

And next week I get to shadow an orthodontist on Tuesday.
I plan on working at the dental lab twice a week and maybe volunteer as dental assistant once a week.

Although at this point, it won't help with the application because I can't update. But it's cool, the exposure is very rewarding so far.

blue_moon01 said:

THank goodness I found SDN. I didnt' realize how important some dental experiences are to Dental school. two days ago, I made a few phone calls and now I'm interning at a dental lab ( I started on Friday and get to "pour molding" I forgot the process's name I was concentrating on getting rid of the bubbles . Next week I start building a crown starting with wax. SO excited!)

earlier today, I got to shadowed at a general dental practice. I saw fillings, crowns, and some disturbing x-rays of teeth with the roots being resorbed.

And next week I get to shadow an orthodontist on Tuesday.
I plan on working at the dental lab twice a week and maybe volunteer as dental assistant once a week.

Although at this point, it won't help with the application because I can't update. But it's cool, the exposure is very rewarding so far.

Click to expand...

The dental lab experience will definitely come in extremely handy in d-school. I know a dentist who did it for years before going off, and she absolutely blew thru wax-ups and mold making, and had time to concentrate on other aspects of school. So it should be really handy.

The dental experiences might help with your interviews, so you can bring it up then if it comes up. Your enthusiasm for dentistry will also serve you well.

bedardjames said:

Like someone said before, they need to balance the class out, so they need to take people such as asians or blacks or else it looks really bad on their record.
I applied to 5 dental schools, the ones I got accepted into were in the midwest, those being Minnesota and Marquette, the ones I didnt get into were UCSF, loma linda and Creighton. I guess Creighton was the one midwest that didnt take me.
For what its worth, I totally believe that being asian was a factor into getting into those other ones. I stress factor there.

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Weird... I applied to both Louisville and Marquette and haven't heard back from either of them. Maybe I'm not asian enough for them

I've applied to many midwest schools, and the only dental schools in the midwest that gave me interviews so far are Indiana and Kansas City.

And yes, I'm an Asian male.

As for your blue_moon, I think being a female gives you an edge over a male applicant.

Being an "underrepresented" female gives you an even better advantage, as I know this hispanic girl who got interviews at Harvard, UoP, Baylor, UCSF, UPenn with 18s and 19s in her natural science on the DAT. Her academic average wasn't also stellar.

which mid-west schools did u guys(Asians) apply to?

Is this not racist for schools to prefer students based on ethnic backgrounds? I mean, I'm a white american male. Whether you are japanese-american, african-american or whatever, how should that make a difference? The way I see it, it is racist for any school to give preference to someone based on their ethnic background. I feel schools should pick the most competitive applicants regardless of race/sex/religion.

haisha ni narou said:

Whether you are japanese-american, african-american or whatever, how should that make a difference? The way I see it, it is racist for any school to give preference to someone based on their ethnic background. I feel schools should pick the most competitive applicants regardless of race/sex/religion.

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Half asian here, so my opinion is half valid. Race can certainly influence admissions at many professional schools, and religion at a few select schools. It's ironic, given the nouveau lipservice of equality in the modern age. Do I think it's necessary ? Not really, but it's how things work, so I'll deal with it.

Univ. of Michigan has a high % of asian applicants. Good school....good program.

Ohio has an asian population of like <5%.

Good luck to you.

Cheers!