Bachelors Degree Necessary

[sonrie]

hello just need some advice on a question. Does not having a bachelor degree hurt your chances of being accepted to a dental school?

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[prydA]

are you in the process of getting one or are you just not getting one period? huge huge difference there. for the former case, it should be fine at most if not all the schools, for the latter case, you might have problems

 

[doc toothache]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=424914

 

[ToofAche]

I don't think schools care about getting a degree. As long as you have the stats. I know lots of people that have gotten into dental school after only 3 years of undergrad and no degree.

 

[Chesnok]

I heard that there are such people but they are 1% of the student class and BS or BA is heavily encouraged to get. I would not risk to fight for that 1%, better other 99% IMO thou.

 

[sonrie]

Thank you!

 

[Major Groove]

It depends.

The reason most students have a Bachelor's is they tend to be older so they are likely to have gotten all the way through college. I would look at the stats as somewhat incidental in that regard, similar to this example:

Less smokers get Alzheimer's disease.

Why? Because they die first.

But given that one sentence you might think smoking will keep you from getting Alzheimers.

It's a pattern, not necessarily a prerequisite that a large proportion of students have a Bachelor's. Not having it will not keep you out.

Likewise, having it will not necessarily get you in.

 

[joh02034]

The percentage of people w/o bachelors is also significantly less than those with it. The most useful stat would be percentage of applicants w/o a degree who are accepted vs. percentage of applicants with a degree.

 

[Frederico Albin]

Last year I went to one of the pre-dent society meetings at VCU, and we had the assistant dean of the VCUSOD talk to us about what kind of applicants they were looking for. I asked her the same question, and she said the the "main" thing they looked at in a applicant without a bachelors degree was "maturity." In this case, they would rely heavily on your extra-curricular activities to see what kind of experiences you have been through.

Fred

 

[razblo]

I'm very curious about this topic, so if anyone else has anything to add it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Jake8]

Just FYI in the past there were cases where people wanted to go on and specialize after dental school but were not allowed to do the advanced work because they had not received their undergrad degree. Makes no sense because you got through school already but it was a strange stipulation they had.

 

[mddang]

No need for a bachelors... Just kill the DAT and keep your GPA up.

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