The same 'bases' should be covered no matter what dental school you want to get into:
1. Keep your GPA high
2. Get consistent and relatively high scores on the DAT (if you have one low score, especially if it is QR, just make sure it reaches school's cut-offs)
3. Extracirriculars-Make sure you have some type of leadership activity-all the AdCom people I talked to said it looks better to be part of one club and have a leadership position then to be part of 5 clubs and just be a member....so I guess the idea is to be an ACTIVE member of a club...a pre-dental club at your school would be great....
4. Volunteer at as many places as you can-whether it be healthcare related or not
5. Have a pretty in-depth understanding of the field; both the positives and negatives-they will ask you both in pretty much every interview
6. No matter what anyone says your personal statement DOES matter...it must be well-written and explain your motives for entering the field, your knowledge of the profession, and you should probabaly include how you first became interested....using specific examples while shadowing, etc is always a good idea...but only if these experiences tie directly into what you trying to portray about yourself.
I am sure more people will add things onto this list, but this is the basic list I can come up with quickly off the top of my head. My path to dental school is a little bit different than yours will be since I graduated with a Psych degree and then went back to take my pre-reqs....someone who got accepted right out of undergrad might have a different perspective.
You should definately take advice from as many people as you can....and take what you think will work best for you from each person, and formulate your own plan of attack.
And by the way...Columbia is a great school and I was very impressed when I interviewed there....I was also just recently accepted there as well, but it looks like I will be attending my state school -UNC Chapel Hill instead...
Goodluck!
Im a sophmore and Columbia is now my first choice for dental sch. I know it is one of the better schools and I just want to make sure that Im covering all my bases. Could you guys give me some advice on ways to make myself an outstanding candidate? Would really appeciate it.
