Chances of Reisdency

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Whatthefut

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Hey everyone, I’m a D4 and I’m currently ranked in the lower third of my class. I didn’t put top grades as my priority during dental school - I have a wife and a kid. I sort of tried to balance the two aspects of my life, which led to me having a lower class rank than desirable. I plan on working in general practice. However I am wondering, since I don’t know which aspect of dentistry I will end up falling in love with during practice, I would like to believe that if I ever choose to pursue a particular specialty in the future, after several years of experience, that it would somehow, one way or another, be possible. Now, looking at all these threads, with top ranked students wondering if they stand a chance at specialties, makes me wonder do I ever stand a chance at any specialty in my life? Is me being in the lower 1/3 of my class basically a death sentence? Is there anyone here that was in my position that eventually got into a specialty? I’m not talking about OMS, since that’s a clear outlier. But throughout dental school I’ve been interested in many different aspects but still don’t know what area I am particularly passionate about, which will probably come with time. I just want to have some hope that if I do ever wish to pursue further education, that it will be possible. By the way, I’m in a Canadian dental school. Our classes are much smaller than most dental schools in the states. So you can imagine being in the lower third of a class of 35 students is much different than being in lower 1/3 of a class of 120. Is that something that admission boards consider? Thank you!
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I’m a firm believer that if you really want to make something happen that you can. Worst case maybe you need to do some type of intern year at a program and/or really work on directing your working life to match what’s desirable in an application. On the other hand, if you’re not interesting in making some sacrifices for what you want, then yeah the odds may not be in your favor. Dentistry is already super great though and you can learn a ton about a ton of areas without needing to specialize and thus not needing to put your personal life on the back burner.

Most specialties are not too difficult to get into if you’re willing to move to a random location and/or willing to pay high tuition. Doing well on standardized tests (e.g. GRE, ADAT, CBSE) is another way to offset a lower class rank.
 
Whatthefut said:
Hey everyone, I’m a D4 and I’m currently ranked in the lower third of my class. I didn’t put top grades as my priority during dental school - I have a wife and a kid. I sort of tried to balance the two aspects of my life, which led to me having a lower class rank than desirable. I plan on working in general practice. However I am wondering, since I don’t know which aspect of dentistry I will end up falling in love with during practice, I would like to believe that if I ever choose to pursue a particular specialty in the future, after several years of experience, that it would somehow, one way or another, be possible. Now, looking at all these threads, with top ranked students wondering if they stand a chance at specialties, makes me wonder do I ever stand a chance at any specialty in my life? Is me being in the lower 1/3 of my class basically a death sentence? Is there anyone here that was in my position that eventually got into a specialty? I’m not talking about OMS, since that’s a clear outlier. But throughout dental school I’ve been interested in many different aspects but still don’t know what area I am particularly passionate about, which will probably come with time. I just want to have some hope that if I do ever wish to pursue further education, that it will be possible. By the way, I’m in a Canadian dental school. Our classes are much smaller than most dental schools in the states. So you can imagine being in the lower third of a class of 35 students is much different than being in lower 1/3 of a class of 120. Is that something that admission boards consider? Thank you!
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What specialty are you wanting to pursue? Makes a big difference if you’re wanting do ortho vs peds.
 
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PreDentTechySon said:
What specialty are you wanting to pursue? Makes a big difference if you’re wanting do ortho vs peds.
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I'm actually not sure. Definitely not peds. Perio and ortho are quite interesting to me and I could see myself enjoying them. I also like endo but haven't gotten much experience in it yet to fully know. Do you mean that ortho would be impossible to pursue in my position? What about perio and endo?
 
Whatthefut said:
I'm actually not sure. Definitely not peds. Perio and ortho are quite interesting to me and I could see myself enjoying them. I also like endo but haven't gotten much experience in it yet to fully know. Do you mean that ortho would be impossible to pursue in my position? What about perio and endo?
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Perio is the least competitive out of those but some programs are still hard to get into. It’s possible to make up for mediocre grades with good LORs and demonstrated interest (attending perio conferences, CEs etc)
 
Svart Aske said:
Perio is the least competitive out of those but some programs are still hard to get into. It’s possible to make up for mediocre grades with good LORs and demonstrated interest (attending perio conferences, CEs etc)
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I always thought that Perio and Pros are equally easy to get into. Consequently, those 2 programs tend to admit a lot of foreign dentists. In my opinion, the procedures that Perio perform are mostly surgical, thus have a more severe, irreversible consequences, and higher liability than Pros.
 
I actually think pros is easier to match and tends to have more post match spaces. The best positions regardless of specialty are the ones where you pay nothing or very little.
 
AONLINE said:
I always thought that Perio and Pros are equally easy to get into. Consequently, those 2 programs tend to admit a lot of foreign dentists. In my opinion, the procedures that Perio perform are mostly surgical, thus have a more severe, irreversible consequences, and higher liability than Pros.
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I was comparing perio relative to ortho, endo and peds. If you just want to get into any program, all specialties other than maybe OMFS are possible to match into with average grades. There are programs that will be happy to take your money. Disagree with the higher liability of perio unless there is evidence that their malpractice premiums are higher. Perio tends to attract people who don’t want to (or can’t) do operative dentistry.
 
Whatthefut said:
I'm actually not sure. Definitely not peds. Perio and ortho are quite interesting to me and I could see myself enjoying them. I also like endo but haven't gotten much experience in it yet to fully know. Do you mean that ortho would be impossible to pursue in my position? What about perio and endo?
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Every specialty is a little bit different. It is not impossible to pursue a specialty after you’ve graduated with a lower GPA/class rank, but some might be a bit more challenging than others simply because they put more emphasis on class rank. I would honestly say find out what you like and work towards it. Specializing for the sake of specializing is a bad idea in my opinion. I’d find out what you like, see if you can do whatever aspect of dentistry you want to as a GP and if not, go for a specialty. You don’t have a death sentence attached to your name because your grades were less than stellar.
 
Svart Aske said:
I was comparing perio relative to ortho, endo and peds. If you just want to get into any program, all specialties other than maybe OMFS are possible to match into with average grades. There are programs that will be happy to take your money. Disagree with the higher liability of perio unless there is evidence that their malpractice premiums are higher. Perio tends to attract people who don’t want to (or can’t) do operative dentistry.
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I've heard it's possible to match into even OMFS with mediocore or poor grades as long as you kill the CBSE.
 
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