app. question... work or dental or both?

[onlyahobo]

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Hey guys-
So, on the application it asks for all of your dental experience and then all of your work experience. My current job is in a dental office and while I feel it definitely applies to both work and dental experience it seems like a bad idea to list it twice, as though I'm just fluffing up the application. Any thoughts?

 

[Vicviper]

I did a long term volunteer dental assisting internship in high school, this was the majority of my dental experience other than shadowing of specialists which I did late, but since it was significant in both categories, I put it as volunteering and dental experience. I never got any flack about it. I think it'd important for Adcoms to know that you had a job in college, as well as that you did it while having dental experience, so go ahead and double list, just don't double list anything else though.

If there's a section to denote that you worked there though, in the dental experience section, that's a bit different though. I feel like an old timer now, since I was two whole cycles ago! haha

 

[Atticus]

I think you should for sure put your job in a dental office under both sections. My logic is this... Each school has to comb through thousands of applications. I wouldn't want to run the risk of them not thinking you have any dental experience because you listed your exp under the jobs section (and they accidentally overlook it). If you're paid for it, it's a job. If your job provides dental experience, then it is an activity that should be listed under dental experience.

Don't worry about it being perceived as "fluffing" your application. Now if you had a list of subscription-based honor societies listed in your EC's, then I'd be worried.

 

[BRONJ]

awesome thread. I was wondering the exact same thing. I had a past job as a dental assistant which I already listed under "dental experience" but since it was paid I might now put it under "work experience" as well.

Which sounds like it should be fine since Vicviper did it and got in.

Thanks guys. Just don't over do the double listing? Make sense.

 

[dental wahoo]

yeah i also listed my job under both dental experience and jobs. i wrote different descriptions for each entry though tailored to the section though; for the job section, I focused more on my responsibilities whereas under dental experience i focused more on what i took away from the experience.

 

[onlyahobo]

Thanks for the advice guys, we're a pretty bright group so if our general consensus supports listing it both ways I'm pretty confident we're OK 🙂