Are my ECs too unrelated?

[Illfavor]

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I'm a non-trad, professional musician doing pre-reqs for dental school. While I think I have a decent list of extracurriculars, the majority of them are not related to dentistry. This is because I was in music school for 6 years, but only have 3 semesters of pre-reqs under my belt. I also work 30 hours a week to support my family, so my free time is just a little limited. I'll summarize my ECs below. I have not taken the DAT but my sGPA is a 4.0 and cGPA is a 3.95. I have a bachelor's and master's degree in music.

Music:
300 hours of community service; dozens of workshops and programs with kids which look more impressive when listed individually.

General:
60 hours of volunteer tutoring

Dental:
20 hours of dentistry-related community service; 70 hours of shadowing (GP, endo, and in free clinic; will be over 100 by June); two pre-dental workshops/simulation courses.

Should I be worried? I want it to be clear that I am committed to dentistry!

 

[OsteotomyOMFS17]

Not at all! I was previously a professional musician as well, and I would say that it definitely worked in my favor. I listed hundreds of hours of music volunteering activities too. All of my interviewers were extremely interested and said that I would have an advantage when it came to manual dexterity.

If I were you, I would try to get around 100 hours of dental related community service (if you can). It sounds like you will be good with your amount of shadowing by the end of the summer as well.

In the end, I had probably 5 times as many music extracurricular hours as I did dentistry hours, but it did not hinder me at all. From my experience (and from talking to others) it seems as though dental schools love musician applicants.

Best of luck to you!

 

[LogOff]

I wouldn't be too worried, smash the DAT and you're good.

 

[Cello]

I'm a non-trad, professional musician doing pre-reqs for dental school. While I think I have a decent list of extracurriculars, the majority of them are not related to dentistry. This is because I was in music school for 6 years, but only have 3 semesters of pre-reqs under my belt. I also work 30 hours a week to support my family, so my free time is just a little limited. I'll summarize my ECs below. I have not taken the DAT but my sGPA is a 4.0 and cGPA is a 3.95. I have a bachelor's and master's degree in music.

Music:
300 hours of community service; dozens of workshops and programs with kids which look more impressive when listed individually.

General:
60 hours of volunteer tutoring

Dental:
20 hours of dentistry-related community service; 70 hours of shadowing (GP, endo, and in free clinic; will be over 100 by June); two pre-dental workshops/simulation courses.

Should I be worried? I want it to be clear that I am committed to dentistry!

I'm also a musician. I earned a BMus actually. 🙂 From the orchestra I used to play with in school, nearly every male cellist has gone on to become a dentist or doctor... I'm sure you've long heard that medical schools love musicians and perhaps wondered if it's not just a old wive's tale, but it's true. Actually, if you do a quick search on these forums you will find statistics which show that the major with the highest acceptance rate to medical school (by far) is music with a 66% acceptance rate. The second highest rate was molecular biology or something with about 44%, which means that music has a 50% higher acceptance rate! Lots of the guys I know who went into d-school post-music said that they were memorable and stood out from the crowd thanks to all of their musical extra curriculars. One of them is now finishing his residency to become an OS and said that being a musician was one of the biggest strengths of his application. You don't get to be an expert at an instrument without volunteering hundreds or thousands of hours to performing, teaching, and developing EXCELLENT dexterity. Good luck! 👍