- Joined
- Oct 8, 2008
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Hey UCLA applicants,
I got a lot of personal messages regarding my post a couple of days ago. Some people want me to clarify some things about the school and the admissions process that I mentioned in my last post. So here goes…
- Orthodontics is by far the most popular specialty at UCLA with pediatric dentistry being a close second. In some years, it's vice versa. Is research important for specializing? It depends on the program. Let's put it this way…if you do research, it will only help your application when you apply to specialty programs. But if you decide not to do research, it either doesn't change a thing or it can hurt your chances of getting into certain specialty programs. Why limit yourself to programs that don't require research? Many dental schools simply don't have a lot of research positions because they don't do a lot of research. That means if you want to find research at that school, you will be fighting it out with other dental students for a few positions. Either way, someone has to get turned down from that position. The dean of UCLA's dental school, Dr. Park, will tell you that UCLA is a research dental school…plain and simple. After all, he does a lot of research himself. There are tons of research projects going on all the time. You just have to be able to come up with your own research project and lots of faculty would be willing to support you. Some UCLA dental students will complain that they can't find research. The truth of the matter is that they just needed to look in the right places and talk to the right people. After all, when was the last time you heard of a research school who didn't need people to do the research? So if you want to specialize, UCLA is not such as bad place to be.
- The undergrad GPA and the DAT scores need to be considered together. Either is meaningless in the admissions process without the other. I once took 15 final exams in 5 days. So as you can see, the courseload at UCLA is insane. A good GPA lets the admissions people know that you can handle the courseload and you won't have any problems passing your classes. Unfortunately, there are more people with great GPAs than there are spots. You cannot compare the GPAs of two applicants from different schools because the applicants may come from two very different academic environments. The only way you can compare two applicants is by making them take the same test under the same conditions and see who does better. This is where the performance of each applicant on the DAT becomes important. I honestly can't tell you which subjects on the DAT are important. It depends on the person reviewing your application. To be on the safe side, I would try to get at least 20s on each section. But what I do know is that they scrutinize the PAT section a lot. The reason being is that the skills used on the PAT are the same ones used in the clinical skills of dentistry. I've seen some posts claiming that certain subjects of the DAT correlate with good board scores. Although that may be true, at this stage in your career, the admissions people only care if you will have the skills to be a good clinical dentist. They are not concerned with how you will do on the national boards. That topic is for those who want to specialize and only becomes important after you get into dental school. They want to know whether you will be a good clinical dentist and that means good PAT scores. You have to be a dentist first before you can be a specialist just like you have to learn how to walk before you can run. The academic average score of the DAT just confirms that your undergrad GPA was not a fluke.
- Some people have asked me how often UCLA interviews applicants. Well, the last time I checked, UCLA interviews around 12 applicants per week until they reach 180 interviews offered. That's why interviews are offered way into late February/ early March. If you interview in November and December, you will be interviewing for one of the 88 available spots. It you interview in early January, you're MOST LIKELY interviewing for one of the 88 spots. If you are interviewing in mid-January, you are PROBABLY interviewing for one of the 88 spots. If you are interviewing late January then you COULD be interviewing for one of the 88 spots but also could be interviewing for the waitlist. But you get the hint. The longer you wait to interview, the more likely you'll end up on the waitlist.
- How difficult your interview will be depends on a little bit of luck. Some people get easy interviews with easy questions and the whole interview last 20 minutes and goes smoothly without a hitch. Some people get hard interviews where they get slammed with one hard question after another for almost 2 hours. That's what happened to me folks! The two interviewers ganged up on me like they hadn't eaten in weeks and I was the last piece of meat on Earth. But I still survived and got accepted so all hope is not lost. So hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. You can help yourself by making sure that you appear confident in how you convey why you want to pursue dentistry even if your knees are shaking below the table. Much of it is all about appearances. That's why it's important to be yourself during the interview and not pretend to be the "perfect applicant". I cannot stress this enough. It's natural to want to act your best on interview day but some applicants will overdo it. If you be yourself, you will appear confident in what you say. Like I mentioned in my last post, I saw an applicant get hammered for more than an hour during an interview a few years back because he was trying way too hard to be the "perfect applicant". You do not want to be in the interview that long. The more time the interviewers have to interrogate you, the more likely they will pick you apart piece by piece. You need to leave the interviewers without a doubt that you are genuine in your pursuit of dentistry and they will stop asking you questions.
- Everything I have told you is in response to the private messages that I got after my last post in the interviews section. Many of the things I have stated are straight from the horses mouth. Although the admissions people may be the ones who are reviewing your application, they have also been my dental school professors for the past 4 years. Some of them are my faculty advisors whom I have worked closely with almost everyday of my dental school life until I graduated this past summer and these are things they have told me over the years. I hope my tips give you some perspective of what to expect while going through the admissions process at UCLA. Good luck to all of you who will be my future colleagues in dentistry. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give everyone a good answer to their questions.
I got a lot of personal messages regarding my post a couple of days ago. Some people want me to clarify some things about the school and the admissions process that I mentioned in my last post. So here goes…
- Orthodontics is by far the most popular specialty at UCLA with pediatric dentistry being a close second. In some years, it's vice versa. Is research important for specializing? It depends on the program. Let's put it this way…if you do research, it will only help your application when you apply to specialty programs. But if you decide not to do research, it either doesn't change a thing or it can hurt your chances of getting into certain specialty programs. Why limit yourself to programs that don't require research? Many dental schools simply don't have a lot of research positions because they don't do a lot of research. That means if you want to find research at that school, you will be fighting it out with other dental students for a few positions. Either way, someone has to get turned down from that position. The dean of UCLA's dental school, Dr. Park, will tell you that UCLA is a research dental school…plain and simple. After all, he does a lot of research himself. There are tons of research projects going on all the time. You just have to be able to come up with your own research project and lots of faculty would be willing to support you. Some UCLA dental students will complain that they can't find research. The truth of the matter is that they just needed to look in the right places and talk to the right people. After all, when was the last time you heard of a research school who didn't need people to do the research? So if you want to specialize, UCLA is not such as bad place to be.
- The undergrad GPA and the DAT scores need to be considered together. Either is meaningless in the admissions process without the other. I once took 15 final exams in 5 days. So as you can see, the courseload at UCLA is insane. A good GPA lets the admissions people know that you can handle the courseload and you won't have any problems passing your classes. Unfortunately, there are more people with great GPAs than there are spots. You cannot compare the GPAs of two applicants from different schools because the applicants may come from two very different academic environments. The only way you can compare two applicants is by making them take the same test under the same conditions and see who does better. This is where the performance of each applicant on the DAT becomes important. I honestly can't tell you which subjects on the DAT are important. It depends on the person reviewing your application. To be on the safe side, I would try to get at least 20s on each section. But what I do know is that they scrutinize the PAT section a lot. The reason being is that the skills used on the PAT are the same ones used in the clinical skills of dentistry. I've seen some posts claiming that certain subjects of the DAT correlate with good board scores. Although that may be true, at this stage in your career, the admissions people only care if you will have the skills to be a good clinical dentist. They are not concerned with how you will do on the national boards. That topic is for those who want to specialize and only becomes important after you get into dental school. They want to know whether you will be a good clinical dentist and that means good PAT scores. You have to be a dentist first before you can be a specialist just like you have to learn how to walk before you can run. The academic average score of the DAT just confirms that your undergrad GPA was not a fluke.
- Some people have asked me how often UCLA interviews applicants. Well, the last time I checked, UCLA interviews around 12 applicants per week until they reach 180 interviews offered. That's why interviews are offered way into late February/ early March. If you interview in November and December, you will be interviewing for one of the 88 available spots. It you interview in early January, you're MOST LIKELY interviewing for one of the 88 spots. If you are interviewing in mid-January, you are PROBABLY interviewing for one of the 88 spots. If you are interviewing late January then you COULD be interviewing for one of the 88 spots but also could be interviewing for the waitlist. But you get the hint. The longer you wait to interview, the more likely you'll end up on the waitlist.
- How difficult your interview will be depends on a little bit of luck. Some people get easy interviews with easy questions and the whole interview last 20 minutes and goes smoothly without a hitch. Some people get hard interviews where they get slammed with one hard question after another for almost 2 hours. That's what happened to me folks! The two interviewers ganged up on me like they hadn't eaten in weeks and I was the last piece of meat on Earth. But I still survived and got accepted so all hope is not lost. So hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. You can help yourself by making sure that you appear confident in how you convey why you want to pursue dentistry even if your knees are shaking below the table. Much of it is all about appearances. That's why it's important to be yourself during the interview and not pretend to be the "perfect applicant". I cannot stress this enough. It's natural to want to act your best on interview day but some applicants will overdo it. If you be yourself, you will appear confident in what you say. Like I mentioned in my last post, I saw an applicant get hammered for more than an hour during an interview a few years back because he was trying way too hard to be the "perfect applicant". You do not want to be in the interview that long. The more time the interviewers have to interrogate you, the more likely they will pick you apart piece by piece. You need to leave the interviewers without a doubt that you are genuine in your pursuit of dentistry and they will stop asking you questions.
- Everything I have told you is in response to the private messages that I got after my last post in the interviews section. Many of the things I have stated are straight from the horses mouth. Although the admissions people may be the ones who are reviewing your application, they have also been my dental school professors for the past 4 years. Some of them are my faculty advisors whom I have worked closely with almost everyday of my dental school life until I graduated this past summer and these are things they have told me over the years. I hope my tips give you some perspective of what to expect while going through the admissions process at UCLA. Good luck to all of you who will be my future colleagues in dentistry. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give everyone a good answer to their questions.
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