Another Bachelors or Masters

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PatelDentist

PatelDentist

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I am about to finish my 1st bachelors degree by the spring of 2012. And at this point I am debating between a masters and another bachelors like in Biology or something. My first bachelors is science related. My GPA is average. I am not sure if doing another bachelor is something that I need to do. I am planning on getting a masters in biological science or even something like neuroscience. What I should do for the next year. I plan to apply for the 2013 cycle therefore will have a year in between so my two options are Bachelors in Bio or a 1-Year Master program any comments or advice... 🙂

Thank you for reading! 🙂
 
We need more information. Average GPA has different meanings to different people.
 
You have a good GPA... do you have DAT scores? You may not need to take more courses.
 
pmanning19 said:
You have a good GPA... do you have DAT scores? You may not need to take more courses.
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I will be taking it in Spring for sure. So do you think Masters is a good idea? Will it make me competitive?
 
If you do well on your DAT, have shadowing, EC's, and LORs ready to go, you probably don't need to do a masters. Lots of students apply with a 3.5 or below and are accepted, without doing a post bac or masters. Hard to know really with minimal information. You can search for other "what are my chances" threads and get a general idea
 
pmanning19 said:
If you do well on your DAT, have shadowing, EC's, and LORs ready to go, you probably don't need to do a masters. Lots of students apply with a 3.5 or below and are accepted, without doing a post bac or masters. Hard to know really with minimal information. You can search for other "what are my chances" threads and get a general idea
Click to expand...

Over 100 shadowing hours...still doing volunteering at a dental clinic, but have 50 so far. I know dental schools want you to be school until you get accepted so ....ya.
 
PatelDentist said:
Over 100 shadowing hours...still doing volunteering at a dental clinic, but have 50 so far. I know dental schools want you to be school until you get accepted so ....ya.
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Do you by any chance go to to UCSD?
 
With a solid GPA and DAT, there is really no need for a 2nd bachelors or an MS.

However, if you really feel the need to further your education, then without a doubt do the masters. A 2nd bachelors will really do nothing for you. However, a masters is a higher degree and much more respected. An MS can also be advantageous for future opportunities in: research, academics, and most certainly in dschool admission.
 
UltimateHombre said:
With a solid GPA and DAT, there is really no need for a 2nd bachelors or an MS.

However, if you really feel the need to further your education, then without a doubt do the masters. A 2nd bachelors will really do nothing for you. However, a masters is a higher degree and much more respected. An MS can also be advantageous for future opportunities in: research, academics, and most certainly in dschool admission.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
pmanning19 said:
If you do well on your DAT, have shadowing, EC's, and LORs ready to go, you probably don't need to do a masters. Lots of students apply with a 3.5 or below and are accepted, without doing a post bac or masters. Hard to know really with minimal information. You can search for other "what are my chances" threads and get a general idea
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
doc toothache said:
MS

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=602095
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but this is your conclusion based upon that data? Yikes.

How on earth do you look at that data and extrapolate that there is significance in the claim of a "50% increase" in enrollees with Masters degrees? And even if that information were true, how could you ever present causal evidence that the degree is needed for matriculation. Maybe - if the original numbers were 2 or 3 students per class each year... a jump to 5 or 6 would be your 50% increase. But so what? Therefore, you are more competitive with an MS?

The fact of the matter is that if you needed a Masters degree or any advanced degree to be more competitive as a dental school applicant, a large percentage of each class would be filled with students with said credentials.

At UNC for example - of the 81 student each year - around 5 of those students have a masters degree or other advanced degree. This is is a minute component of the class. Moreover, of those students, the vast majority earned their advanced degree well before ever deciding to enroll in dental school. By and large, Dental School was an afterthought - it was not completed as a proactive attempt to increase competitiveness of one's application.

First of all. You should always direct specific, personal questions to admissions officials. No one will be able to give you catered advice based upon a tidbit of your profile.

Are there students every year that apply with Masters degrees? Yes. Are there reapplicant students who gain admission after pursing advanced education? Yes. But to say that these tracts are the norm or anywhere near the realm of necessary for admission is absolute hogwash.

The overwhelming majority of dental student classes are filled with 4-year Bachelors-Degree students.

Pursue additional education because you are passionate about the subject - not to simply increase chances. If you are not truly passionate, I would think you will find difficulty boosting your GPA over an undergraduate record, especially in lieu of increasingly difficult and demanding graduate level courses. Moreover, you would be extending the time before you are completely done with dental school and adding additional education debt.
 
uva09 said:
I'm sorry, but this is your conclusion based upon that data? Yikes.
How on earth do you look at that data and extrapolate that there is significance in the claim of a "50% increase" in enrollees with Masters degrees? And even if that information were true, how could you ever present causal evidence that the degree is needed for matriculation. Maybe - if the original numbers were 2 or 3 students per class each year... a jump to 5 or 6 would be your 50% increase. But so what? Therefore, you are more competitive with an MS?
The fact of the matter is that if you needed a Masters degree or any advanced degree to be more competitive as a dental school applicant, a large percentage of each class would be filled with students with said credentials.
But to say that these tracts are the norm or anywhere near the realm of necessary for admission is absolute hogwash.The overwhelming majority of dental student classes are filled with 4-year Bachelors-Degree students.
Click to expand...

Did by chance the Ozarka water happen to be spiked? Like it or not, for 2007/8 there was an increase in the number of enrollees from 207 to 311 or roughly a 50% increase. You will need to stay tuned to find out how the saga unfolded for 2009-10. An applicant with an advanced degree has a competitive advantage since he/she has proven that he/she can handle graduate level courses. The number of applicants with advanced degrees applying to ds is not readily available, but it may well be equal in percentage to those accepted. No one has suggested that an advanced degree is necessary for admission. The fact that those with a BS account for a larger percentage of the population pool (0.3% of the ~ 1.6 M) vis a vis those with an MS (0.05% of ~650K) and Ph.D. (0.05% of ~67K yearly graduates) may well be a function of lack of interest on the part of those with an advanced degree.
 
doc toothache said:
Did by chance the Ozarka water happen to be spiked? Like it or not, for 2007/8 there was an increase in the number of enrollees from 207 to 311 or roughly a 50% increase. You will need to stay tuned to find out how the saga unfolded for 2009-10. An applicant with an advanced degree has a competitive advantage since he/she has proven that he/she can handle graduate level courses. The number of applicants with advanced degrees applying to ds is not readily available, but it may well be equal in percentage to those accepted. No one has suggested that an advanced degree is necessary for admission. The fact that those with a BS account for a larger percentage of the population pool (0.3% of the ~ 1.6 M) vis a vis those with an MS (0.05% of ~650K) and Ph.D. (0.05% of ~67K yearly graduates) may well be a function of lack of interest on the part of those with an advanced degree.
Click to expand...

I am not disputing your data. If it shows an increase, it shows an increase.

I am disputing your assertion that an increase merits significance with regards to the admission process. Where is your causation?

Just because the numbers have gone up does not mean that earning an advanced degree makes a candidate anymore competitive than a bachelors-equipped candidate.

Your statement that those with advanced degrees are more competitive because they have proven they can handle a comparable workload is largely speculative and far too general. What if the Masters or Phd was earned in a completely unrelated or inapplicable field? What if the student had a poor GPA during his/her studies? This fact would never appear in the type of data presented.

There are far too many mitigating factors in the admission process to ever stretch that kind of data far enough to claim that advanced degrees are the de facto competitive edge for the general applicant population.

It's just speculation. And in choosing a major academic path (referring back to the OP) why would one make a judgement of that magnitude (choosing to earn MS/PhD/et.c) on speculation?
 
People debate the advantages of seeking advanced degrees when discussing candidates with sub-standard academic records moving towards the culmination of an undergraduate degree - the students that may otherwise fail to matriculate.

In that fraction of the dental school applicant population, I think you could make the assertion that earning an additional degree may be of significance. But of course this would only have support if every candidate applying took a trial run at admissions before earning their advanced degree. Certainly there must be individuals with advanced degrees that could have matriculated without the added education beyond bachelors.

But to compare the competitevness of an advanced degree with regards to the entire dental school applicant population (as your linked thread title suggests) - how could you even begin to accomplish supporting that statement with that type of data?
 
uva09 said:
Your statement that those with advanced degrees are more competitive because they have proven they can handle a comparable workload is largely speculative and far too general. What if the Masters or Phd was earned in a completely unrelated or inapplicable field? What if the student had a poor GPA during his/her studies? This fact would never appear in the type of data presented.
There are far too many mitigating factors in the admission process to ever stretch that kind of data far enough to claim that advanced degrees are the de facto competitive edge for the general applicant population.
Click to expand...

Getting a degree in an "unrelated field" does not appear to be a significant factor considering that roughly 50% of the applicants/enrollees are other than bio majors. You are going to be hard pressed to find a holder of an MS/PhD degree with "poor gpa" since no graduate program worth it's hoot will allow a student to earn anything lower than a B. There are other reasons making holders of graduate degree attractive/competitive applicants which could be the topic of a dissertation and certainly beyond the scope of this (pre-dent) forum.
 
uva09 said:
I am not disputing your data. If it shows an increase, it shows an increase.

I am disputing your assertion that an increase merits significance with regards to the admission process. Where is your causation?

Just because the numbers have gone up does not mean that earning an advanced degree makes a candidate anymore competitive than a bachelors-equipped candidate.

Your statement that those with advanced degrees are more competitive because they have proven they can handle a comparable workload is largely speculative and far too general. What if the Masters or Phd was earned in a completely unrelated or inapplicable field? What if the student had a poor GPA during his/her studies? This fact would never appear in the type of data presented.

There are far too many mitigating factors in the admission process to ever stretch that kind of data far enough to claim that advanced degrees are the de facto competitive edge for the general applicant population.

It's just speculation. And in choosing a major academic path (referring back to the OP) why would one make a judgement of that magnitude (choosing to earn MS/PhD/et.c) on speculation?
Click to expand...

never question THE DOC! he knows BETTER THAN YOU! 🙄
 
uva09 said:
People debate the advantages of seeking advanced degrees when discussing candidates with sub-standard academic records moving towards the culmination of an undergraduate degree - the students that may otherwise fail to matriculate.

In that fraction of the dental school applicant population, I think you could make the assertion that earning an additional degree may be of significance. But of course this would only have support if every candidate applying took a trial run at admissions before earning their advanced degree. Certainly there must be individuals with advanced degrees that could have matriculated without the added education beyond bachelors.

But to compare the competitevness of an advanced degree with regards to the entire dental school applicant population (as your linked thread title suggests) - how could you even begin to accomplish supporting that statement with that type of data?
Click to expand...

you never know. many applicants who go for their masters can easily perform their schooling at an easier institution in order to boost their GPAs. When I see students going to d-school with a masters it always speaks volumes about how low their GPA must have been. But remember it can be either the fact that they didnt study hard enough during undergrad or that they may have went to such a hard science based school that it literally killed their GPA.

In theory, no one should need a masters to pursue d-school, but in application there are a lot of mitigating factors that are involved.

PS I wouldnt say that most MS programs are competitive at all. They dont have that many students in them (as compared to students who want to pursue professional school) and for the fact that most students can get into MS programs w/o any problems.
Most Master level courses are very comparable to undergrad classes and some of them are strictly repeats under different titles.
 
doc toothache said:
Getting a degree in an "unrelated field" does not appear to be a significant factor considering that roughly 50% of the applicants/enrollees are other than bio majors. You are going to be hard pressed to find a holder of an MS/PhD degree with "poor gpa" since no graduate program worth it's hoot will allow a student to earn anything lower than a B. There are other reasons making holders of graduate degree attractive/competitive applicants which could be the topic of a dissertation and certainly beyond the scope of this (pre-dent) forum.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how you can draw a direct connection between undergraduate field of study and graduate field of study since there is no widespread data delineating the latter You hit the nail on the head - "50% of the applicants are other than bio majors". Yes, this refers to undergraduate profiles. Since a bachelors is the established standard for matriculation, there is data to further subdivide the undergraduate study by specialization (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, etc.). With regards to your data, an MS is an MS - it doesn't matter what that MS was earned in. The data does not distinguish. Well, hey, I can get an MS in Architecture and I could get a PhD in Philosophy. The data provided would not distinguish. And I fail to see a relevant comparison between dentistry education and architecture...

And I can get a Masters degree from a for-profit online University... again harkening back to my question on the strength of candidate simply based upon an advanced degree. It's all case by case. With should be obvious given that this is admissions.

Without more information - information not currently documented by ADEA with regards to these students with advanced degrees, everything discussed is just speculation. I repeat. It's just speculation.

Maybe you could write a dissertation on the topic... but you'd need quite a bit more data than what was provided in that linked post.
 
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MrAvicii said:
you never know. many applicants who go for their masters can easily perform their schooling at an easier institution in order to boost their GPAs. When I see students going to d-school with a masters it always speaks volumes about how low their GPA must have been. But remember it can be either the fact that they didnt study hard enough during undergrad or that they may have went to such a hard science based school that it literally killed their GPA.

In theory, no one should need a masters to pursue d-school, but in application there are a lot of mitigating factors that are involved.

PS I wouldnt say that most MS programs are competitive at all. They dont have that many students in them (as compared to students who want to pursue professional school) and for the fact that most students can get into MS programs w/o any problems.
Most Master level courses are very comparable to undergrad classes and some of them are strictly repeats under different titles.
Click to expand...

"You never know" Yes. Precisely. You outlined one of the many thousands of possible scenarios.

The data does not distinguish. We have no idea if those numbers represent individuals who pursued advanced degrees and then latter decided on dental school or those that pursued advanced education in an effort to boost competitiveness of his/her profile prior to the admissions process.

The bottom line is that a bachelors degree is the established standard for matriculation.

If dental school, which represents a professional terminal degree, is your end goal, then why would anyone opt for advanced education unless he/she had to under some mitigating circumstance(s)?

Ultimately, the irreconcilable lack of clarification in the data is the underlying fallacy facing doc toothache in his linked thread.
 
If the OP has all the prereqs done and will have their four year degree with a 3.5+ I dont see the need in doing more course work. Just get a 20+ on the DAT and you're in good shape.

Why not just work for a year rather than do more course work and more debt. I dont think the 3.5+ is going to hold you back at all if you apply broadly.
 
PatelDentist said:
Over 3.5
Click to expand...

PatelDentist said:
I will be taking it in Spring for sure. So do you think Masters is a good idea? Will it make me competitive?
Click to expand...

Heres the bottom line:

Do you want to go to dental school or do you want to spend more money (and time) in college and earn additional degrees?

Cause a 3.5 coupled with a respectable DAT (something 19+ range) WILL get you into dental schools with little-to-no-struggles.

The end
 
uva09 said:
The bottom line is that a bachelors degree is the established standard for matriculation.
Click to expand...

It is not clear what you mean by "established standard" since there are only a handful of ds that require a BS degree.
 
dentalWorks said:
Heres the bottom line:

Do you want to go to dental school or do you want to spend more money (and time) in college and earn additional degrees?

Cause a 3.5 coupled with a respectable DAT (something 19+ range) WILL get you into dental schools with little-to-no-struggles.

The end
Click to expand...

Agreed.


"It is not clear what you mean by "established standard" since there are only a handful of ds that require a BS degree."

doc touthache, you continue to pick and choose without addressing the underlying fallacies in your line of reasoning and the subsequent, egregious stretch of the data you provided in your recommendation to the OP to pursue a MS.

Notice I used the phrasing "established standard" and not "established minimum". It is the colloquial dental school standard of admission. You are correct, many dental schools do not require a bachelors degree (in hand) to matriculate. This fact is largely irrelevant in practice as the overwhelming majority of D1 Students have at least a bachelors degree in hand at the time of matriculation. Acceptance and matriculation are two very distinct things. For the vast majority of applicants that gain acceptance without a degree in hand (i.e. College Seniors) - their acceptance is unofficially contingent upon completion of the bachelors degree. Again, your data does not appear to distinguish this fact, along with many of the other issues previously introduced. Not all Masters are created equally. Not all PhD tracts are created equally. And certainly, only a small fraction of the many thousands of available fields of study under said degree paths would provide even the slightest level of relevance to the study of Dentistry, rendering their completion a competitive maneuver as your linked thread so audaciously asserts.
 
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dentalWorks said:
Heres the bottom line:

Do you want to go to dental school or do you want to spend more money (and time) in college and earn additional degrees?

Cause a 3.5 coupled with a respectable DAT (something 19+ range) WILL get you into dental schools with little-to-no-struggles.

The end
Click to expand...

Hey Dentalworks!!! How are you? I was waiting for your response.
That feels good. But here is the thing...either way...my school will pay for my tuition...since is a dual credit program. Thats why I am a bit uncertain..I want to remain in school...so either go for another bachelors or take some dual graduate classes....so whats your advice on that?
 
yappy said:
If the OP has all the prereqs done and will have their four year degree with a 3.5+ I dont see the need in doing more course work. Just get a 20+ on the DAT and you're in good shape.

Why not just work for a year rather than do more course work and more debt. I dont think the 3.5+ is going to hold you back at all if you apply broadly.
Click to expand...



Working is also a good option...thank you!
 
PatelDentist said:
Hey Dentalworks!!! How are you? I was waiting for your response.
That feels good. But here is the thing...either way...my school will pay for my tuition...since is a dual credit program. Thats why I am a bit uncertain..I want to remain in school...so either go for another bachelors or take some dual graduate classes....so whats your advice on that?
Click to expand...

in that case..... and you already have a respectable undergrad GPA.... Go with masters I guess.
 
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