Help me trim down my list of dental schools please?

[jetbot33]

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EDIT: Help me TRIM/EXPAND the list please. I am open to anyone's help.

Stats:
3.66 GPA
23 AA
22 TS
19 PAT
good personal statement, 4 good letters of recs
100+ hours of general shadowing, 72 hours of specialty shadowing
144 hours of dental assistant volunteering
CDA, ADA, tooth waxing experience

Schools:
University of Pacific
UCSF
UCLA
Western
USC
Roseman
University of Washington
OHSU Dental
Tufts Dental
Boston University
Las Vegas
University of Colorado
NOVA
University of Florida
Buffalo??
ASDOH
Midwestern Arizona
University of Utah
UCONN

I've bolded my top choices. I'm a California boy and I absolutely love California and the diversity here. I would prefer to be in a program that focuses on practical hands-on experience to create very well-trained dentists as well learn in an environment full of great, nice faculty and students. I would definitely prefer to stay in the west coast, especially California (OR Utah because I love Roseman).

I've been recommended 2 Pennsylvania schools, Buffalo, UCONN, maybe Creighton??, Columbia??, all the Texas schools?? What do you guys think? Recommendations? Information on these schools I'm confused about? I've looked into these schools on here to get a little bit of an idea and it seems like you guys like them..? But then again it seems like everyone on this forum likes every school so it's kind of hard to tell which schools I should actually apply to.

Anyways thanks guys. Hope you can help!

 

[SrJulio]

Take off UW, since you are not a WA resident


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[jetbot33]

Take off UW, since you are not a WA resident

I've seen people say that about UW on this forum too. Is it because they only accept like 3 students from out of state? Does this apply to the other state schools I listed as well..?

 

[Likkriue]

Who reccomendEd the Texas schools? The OOS for them is extremely low.

I would take off buffalo Florida and Washington of you really want to trim it down.

With your stats you have a good chance for your top choices.

 

[tyjacobs]

University of Pacific
UCSF
UCLA
Western
USC
Roseman
University of Washington --> remove
OHSU Dental
Tufts Dental --> replace with upenn
Boston University --> replace with columbia
Las Vegas
University of Colorado
NOVA --> remove
University of Florida --> remove
Buffalo?? --> remove
ASDOH
Midwestern Arizona
University of Utah
UCONN

 

[VBLR3]

Florida is not OOS friendly. You have good stats, but Florida only accepted 1 person from California last year.

 

[jetbot33]

Who reccomendEd the Texas schools? The OOS for them is extremely low.

I would take off buffalo Florida and Washington of you really want to trim it down.

With your stats you have a good chance for your top choices.

A dentist of mine actually said Texas would be nice to go to. Additionally, I've read on here that Texas is very good for dental. Did I read something wrong or something..? I had no idea OOS was so low. Whenever I look at doctoothache's guide, I see that out of state school acceptance rates generally for all schools is between 5-10% so i'm having a hard time understanding of a school is OOS friendly at all.

How bad is the OOS acceptance for Texas? Bad enough to take out?

University of Pacific
UCSF
UCLA
Western
USC
Roseman
University of Washington --> remove
OHSU Dental
Tufts Dental --> replace with upenn
Boston University --> replace with columbia
Las Vegas
University of Colorado
NOVA --> remove
University of Florida --> remove
Buffalo?? --> remove
ASDOH
Midwestern Arizona
University of Utah
UCONN

Why should I not apply to Boston or tufts? I was told they were great. Are they not? Or is the OOS acceptance just extremely low?

Also why do you recommend Columbia? I don't know much about it besides people seem to like it as do people like all the dental schools I search for on here lol

Florida is not OOS friendly. You have good stats, but Florida only accepted 1 person from California last year.

That bad huh? I should probably not apply then. Thanks man. How do I get that kind of information by the way? The doctoothache's guide kind of shows an acceptance rate for out of state between 5-10% for all schools so I can't really conclude any differences. Maybe I'm just a noob lol







•
Should I apply to Pennsylvania schools by the way? I've heard they're good.

 

[VBLR3]

That bad huh? I should probably not apply then. Thanks man. How do I get that kind of information by the way? The doctoothache's guide kind of shows an acceptance rate for out of state between 5-10% for all schools so I can't really conclude any differences. Maybe I'm just a noob lol

That information was given to me at my interview.

 

[Likkriue]

Texas schools take 99% instate.

 

[xerxes106]

Applying at Utah and UW out of state is just throwing away money. Utah is 95 percent in state.
Almost the same thing for OHSU and Colorado since they're wiche.

Unless you have 200+ hours of underserved population volunteer work, ASDOH is also going to be throwing away money.

Focus on the Cali schools if I were you.

 

[jetbot33]

That information was given to me at my interview.

Thank you. I will take Florida out. You are referring only to Florida right? Or NOVA as well? I hear NOVA is OOS friendly

Texas schools take 99% instate.

Thank you. I found more posts saying that as well. I'll take the Texas schools out.

Applying at Utah and UW out of state is just throwing away money. Utah is 95 percent in state.
Almost the same thing for OHSU and Colorado since they're wiche.

Unless you have 200+ hours of underserved population volunteer work, ASDOH is also going to be throwing away money.

Focus on the Cali schools if I were you.

Thank you as well. I'll take out WASH. I'll take out Utah as well. I didn't know OHSU and Colorado were so unfriendly to OOS. Hmm.

Is ASDOH really that serious about underserved volunteer work?? Oh man. I hear that only 24% are from in state according to Applicationdata.xls I got from this forum. Weird.

idd remove tufts and bu and replace them with columbia and penn as tyjacobs suggested

Why would you remove tufts and bu though? I read on the application data they are very OOS friendly. Am I mistaken? Also why do you recommend Columbia and Penn if you don't mind? Is Pitt or Temple any good for Pennsylvana?

Thanks guys.

 

[Likkriue]

Thank you. I will take Florida out. You are referring only to Florida right? Or NOVA as well? I hear NOVA is OOS friendly



Thank you. I found more posts saying that as well. I'll take the Texas schools out.



Thank you as well. I'll take out WASH. I'll take out Utah as well. I didn't know OHSU and Colorado were so unfriendly to OOS. Hmm.

Is ASDOH really that serious about underserved volunteer work?? Oh man. I hear that only 24% are from in state according to Applicationdata.xls I got from this forum. Weird.



Why would you remove tufts and bu though? I read on the application data they are very OOS friendly. Am I mistaken? Also why do you recommend Columbia and Penn if you don't mind? Is Pitt or Temple any good for Pennsylvana?

Thanks guys.

You could keep them, I mean thats if you want to trim the list. Pitt and temple are great OOS.

 

[DC206R]

Take out ASDOH unless you have 400+ volunteer hours with underserved communities.

 

[VBLR3]

NOVA is OOS friendly. I was only referring to UF. Good luck!

 

[jetbot33]

You could keep them, I mean thats if you want to trim the list. Pitt and temple are great OOS.

Great! Thanks, I will add those 2 schools and hope for the best.

Take out ASDOH unless you have 400+ volunteer hours with underserved communities.

I might have to remove it then. Darn.

NOVA is OOS friendly. I was only referring to UF. Good luck!

Awesome! I'll keep it in my AADSAS then!

Thanks, everyone! You all are so helpful! I really, really appreciate it. Feel free to give me anymore of your recommendations too add/trim as I am a complete noob 🙂

 

[xerxes106]

I think you need to sit down and take a look at the message, curriculum and what each program at the schools offers. You have really good stats. Your comments keep saying "I hear ____ is good" or some OOS statistics. This is 4 years, and a lot of money. You had so many schools on this list that you knew nothing about (ASDOH)......just take a few hours to research yourself and go "oh, school X requires this, school Y is focused on that." Moneyball and OOS acceptance numbers only work to an extant. They all have different requirements and missions.

 

[jetbot33]

I think you need to sit down and take a look at the message, curriculum and what each program at the schools offers. You have really good stats. Your comments keep saying "I hear ____ is good" or some OOS statistics. This is 4 years, and a lot of money. You had so many schools on this list that you knew nothing about (ASDOH)......just take a few hours to research yourself and go "oh, school X requires this, school Y is focused on that." Moneyball and OOS acceptance numbers only work to an extant. They all have different requirements and missions.

I totally agree. The thing is, I have been reading a lot of school's mission statements but for many of them, besides a few, their mission statement is generally something along the lines of creating the best and most curious and compassionate dentists possible. This sounds slightly generic to me especially when I have read this statement in practically every school so I kind of have a hard time differentiating schools. Perhaps I am oversimplifying or not looking into it enough but to me, it seems like the best way to find out about schools is through you guys and at interviews. I mean I know generally that ASDOH has a huge focus on community service but I had no idea they were so strict on the amount of community service you have listed in AADSAS.

But yes, thank you for that. I do need to look into the schools more.

 

[tyjacobs]

A dentist of mine actually said Texas would be nice to go to. Additionally, I've read on here that Texas is very good for dental. Did I read something wrong or something..? I had no idea OOS was so low. Whenever I look at doctoothache's guide, I see that out of state school acceptance rates generally for all schools is between 5-10% so i'm having a hard time understanding of a school is OOS friendly at all.

How bad is the OOS acceptance for Texas? Bad enough to take out?


Why should I not apply to Boston or tufts? I was told they were great. Are they not? Or is the OOS acceptance just extremely low?

Also why do you recommend Columbia? I don't know much about it besides people seem to like it as do people like all the dental schools I search for on here lol


That bad huh? I should probably not apply then. Thanks man. How do I get that kind of information by the way? The doctoothache's guide kind of shows an acceptance rate for out of state between 5-10% for all schools so I can't really conclude any differences. Maybe I'm just a noob lol







•
Should I apply to Pennsylvania schools by the way? I've heard they're good.

You can apply to tufts and bu if you want to --> not sure if you will want to go on their interviews if you get invited by them (because I assume you will get invites from other places)

 

[postpitadh]

How did you shadow for so long 😵. You and your dentist must be very close now ha

 

[Dr.Payne]

edit: true.. True true.

 

[nonociceptors]

Diversity? At UCLA you're joking right??

What are you on about? UCLA, like most California schools, is as diverse as they come. Remember you're not limited to talking with dental students. You've got an entire undergraduate and graduate student body there. Protip: skin color is only one of many types of diversity, and a pretty superficial one at that.

 

[FlowerGirl35]

which dental schools have the most diverse student body? This is important to me as well

 

[nonociceptors]

which dental schools have the most diverse student body? This is important to me as well

By diversity I'm assuming you mean which has the most equal % of every race, and I have no idea, because that's a pointless measure of diversity imo. All dental schools will have a diverse student body, though. Students with different life experiences, from different parts of the country/world, different socioeconomic standings, different sexual orientations, some parents, some career changers, etc.

 

[FlowerGirl35]

By diversity I'm assuming you mean which has the most equal % of every race, and I have no idea, because that's a pointless measure of diversity imo. All dental schools will have a diverse student body, though. Students with different life experiences, from different parts of the country/world, different socioeconomic standings, different sexual orientations, some parents, some career changers, etc.

I wholeheartedly disagree with you.

 

[nonociceptors]

I wholeheartedly disagree with you.

Okay, you've convinced me. Skin color is the single greatest measure of diversity we have. It must suck to see the world through your eyes.