Help me Lucus or Eleanna DDS!

[bad_hombre]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hey,

I'm that guy that always asks stuff about UWO and U of T. Right now I'm a second year student at Queen's, and I am thinking about what courses i should take over the next couple of years. Should I focus on taking easy courses to obtain high marks? Or should I take courses that may help me get into dental school i.e. microbiology? Do they like students that have taken a lot of arts courses as well?

I may be worrying too much, but I'd apprreciate your thoughts anyway. Also, do you think that applicants from "tougher" schools are given more consideration than applicants from other universities in the eyes of the admissioins commitees at UWO and U of T? Thanks for your help.

 

[Lucus]

Lets see. Well bascially take easy courses and get high marks. You will learn everything here from scratch. For example, in histology we started right from the basic components of the cell. However, for Western you must complete the required courses, namely human physiology which a lot of people do not take. Here, at U of T, the school has taken physiology and biochemistry out of the course load.
Just try to keep the grades high, and you will be fine. Also, it does not matter which undergrad uni you go to, all the admissions committee looks at are grades, the big GPA; because an easy course at one school might be harder at another, so no distinction is made.
About 95% of our class has BSc or a degree and there are a couple of master students.

Hope this helps....

 

[bad_hombre]

Awesome, thanks a lot.
So I'll be taking biochem for nursing students and 1st year pharmacology as bird courses, among others 😛.

Hey, those with degrees, are some of them only 3 year degrees? As in, not honours degrees?

 

[eleannaDDS]

Hey bad_hombre!

Well, here's my two cents...

It really doesn't matter which university you went to for your undergraduate work... there's no preference or disadvantage to any of the universities in Canada. I do agree with Lucus in your main focus should be attaining the highest GPA possible to give you an edge over other applicants. In UWO's admission info, you'll find that they mention that the difficulty of your program may be taken into account. Now, I'm not too sure how that factors into the admission formula, but one of my classmates was asked by the admissions committee to submit proof after her interview that her program was a "Honours" program. There's also a lot of people who were Biochem majors, if that means anything. My guess is that when the committee members have to select between two people with nearly identical scores (GPA, DAT, interview), they'll look at the level of courses you take. But I wouldn't worry too much about it.

To apply to UWO and actually be considered, you must take some upper-level biological science courses, plus some social sciences or humanities. Check out the web page for the actual details. Make sure you have these otherwise your application won't be processed. The reason why Western requires these biological sciences is because we don't start from scratch like at U of T. Western's DDS Program used to include full-year courses in general physiology and general histology in first-year but they were removed from the curriculum because they decided that it was a little ridiculous to be taking these basic science courses in a dental school. By having applicants take them in undergrad, our entire first-year schedule is focused on dentistry. We take no general courses, but instead have courses like half-year Oral Histology (cells of the oral mucosa, perio ligaments, etc), Oral Physiology (morphology of the oral cavity, etc), Dental Biochemistry (you learn about the dynamics of saliva, etc), Dental Anatomy... By getting the basic science courses out of the way, we have more room for lab work with dentoforms and clinics. There isn't a single class that you take here that doesn't have to do with dentistry.

However, regardless of where you go (U of T or UWO), I do suggest that you take some harder upper level physio/anatomy courses. You'll find that some of your classmates walk into the dissection lab and are already able to name muscles and components of the upper skeletal system without cracking open our text. But don't worry if you can't fit them in... you'll be fine as long as you study a bit 🙂

Take care!

eleannaDDS