how competitive is dentistry

[choocoman]

I have a 3.8+ at a top 10 undergrad but am new to pre dentistry (pre DDS?)

not to sound like an ass, but is the application process to the "top" schools just a formality for me? i dont even know what the top schools are, but i want to enter a speciatly and make a boat load of money. and yes, i love teeth, as long as it requires less than 45 hours per week of my time

can i just sign up for the DDS test anytime or is it only offered a few times like the MCAT?

secondly, will any schools accept me with the knowledge that i was premed? all my activities are premed. i've taken the mcat. my LORS are for medical school, but i could probably have those tinkered with. If necessary, i will shadow a dentist or something. Given my CV, my hope is that they simply gloss over my motivations for becoming a DDS, so long as i provide acceptable answers in the interview and stuff

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[choocoman]

to rephrase my question,

would a "top 25" DDS adcom take a former premed with my stats (DDS test not yet taken, but if its like the MCAT, I will probably score upper 90%)

OR

would they take an applicant with numbers 1 deviation lower (~3.5, ~80%) with unequivocal interest in teeths?


is there room for fakers at the top?

 

[JRogoff]

Here are some links that might help answer some of your questions...

Link to class stats for 2002, numbers likely to be higher now, but its a good place to start....
http://lifesci.rutgers.edu/~hpo/dstats.htm

Pre-Dental FAQs
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=95878

A couple of other things...

The test we take to get into dental school it called the DAT, for more information and to register go here...
http://www.ada.org/prof/ed/testing/dat/index.asp

If you have any question after going through these links feel free to ask. Best of luck to you.

 

[Sprgrover]

It has been years since dental schools have been ranked, and unlike medical schools, not a whole lot is riding on the name engraved on your diploma. Some schools do have higher rates of specialization, and that could depend on whether the school offers such programs, if the faculty are really good at certain specializations and stimulate interest in the student body, etc.

As far as having a burning desire to specialize to make mountain of money, I have been told by professionals and dental students alike that mentioning "I want to specialize" during and interview, etc., is like the kiss of death. After all, how can you say the grass is really greener on the other side when you haven't even seen the fence. Schools are interested in producing good general practitioners, for which there is strong need, and grooming a few, select students to graduate into a specialty. Your performance during dental school and the national boards play a big part in this. Pick a school that you like, one that meets your requirements for a community and has a good track record for specializing.

You can take the DAT (Dental Admissions Test - the dental counterpart to the MCAT) virtually any day of the year. Your date of course hinges on when the Prometric test center is open. Some are only open on M,W,F, while others are seemingly seven-days-a-week. The test is administered on a computer, and unlike the MCAT, you get your scores immediately after completing the test.

How far along are you in your pre-dental / undergradute career?

 

[scandalouslj]

Wow I think you might be going into dentistry for the wrong reasons? Why exaclt y do you want to go into dentistry over Med school, becuase you said you loved teeth but if it involved less than 45 hours a week? First and second year you easily spend 70-100 hours studying or working in lab on teeth, do you think you will be able to handle that? Spending 6+ hours waxing up just one tooth?

To answer your question it doesnt seem like you have really investigated dentistry esp if you havent even shadowed a dentist, how do you really know you want to go into dentistry or are you doing it becuase of all the perks you have heard? Becuase sure your grades are great, but im sure the adcoms will be asking the same questions I just asked, they have been doing admissions for years and Im sure they get people like this all the time, and can see through it. Sure youll probably get into some schools, but I would bet on the guy who might have a little lower scores but a lot more dental experience.

 

[coodoo]

and yes, i love teeth

Gee, I wonder why

i dont even know what the top schools are, but i want to enter a speciatly and make a boat load of money.

 

[SloppyJoe]

chooco, did you get rejected by medical schools? Even w/ your 3.8?

 

[hockeydentist]

Interesting post, Chocoman

you start off by mentioning that you have a 3.8 and you're from a top 10 undergrad school. I guess you want someone to stroke your ego!

Let me get this straight, you have a 3.8 and you want to get into dentistry yet you have no idea what schools are the best for dentistry. Obviously your not that smart. Or your undergrad school is not that good if they can't provide you any information.

Man I sound pissed off!


HD

 

[choocoman]

FYI, I am currently applying to MD schools.

I was coy in stating my interests in dentistry. And no, I dont need anyone to stroke my ego because I know my stats are above average. I just wanted to know if, given my stats, that sincerity in dentistry will make or break my dental applications. for example, how would you, the genuine predentist, answer "why would you like a career in fixing rotten, crooked teeth"? i, the insincere new guy, would say "i like to help people", which is true, but internally think about what lifestyle dentistry offers, which is more honest.

i havent decided whether to apply or not. i simply dont know how rigorous DDS admissions are (comparable to physician assistant programs? MD programs? pharmacy? optometry?) I've only considered a career in dentistry for about 1 week...so yeah, i'm not that serious yet. I only found out today that harvard and the rest of the ivys have dental schools!

honestly, i dont know if i would find any more satisfaction doing prostate exams as a urologist than as an endodontist....the MD prestige is great, but the day to day job functions are not that different. one career path fixes teeth, the other fixes intestines or eyes, etc

i took a look at the DAT exam today...what the hell are they testing for? folded up paper cubes, which side of the triangle is shorter? i remember taking these standardized tests in middle school. its silly to think they wouldnt take my MCAT score, but whatevers, i guess all of you have to jump thru hoops too.

 

[trypmo]

[size=-1]
(gawd, yet another one?)
[/size]

 

[dragonj]

I am giving you a direct answer here.
If you don't want it don't read further.

Don't try to get into dental school. You won't like it. From the question you posed about admissions into dental school and from your replies to other people who posted messages to you....it seems quite clear this is not the field for you if you want to be happy. Also, I think you would annoy the living crap out of everyone who would be in dental school with you. I say this not to piss you off but just to give you the truth. You came on this forum not for justification but for some information that you were too lazy to find yourself which says a lot. Meaning you already know everything you need to know that's important to you, the rest is just filler....ie: DAT info, salary info, other statistics.
You will be very satisfied going to medical school. Your grades are excellant and your MCAT scores must be really good too so you'll probably get in somewhere. I know a lot of people (some very close to me) who decided to go to medical school and had the same outlook as you and I do not think they would have been happy doing anything else.
If you want a boatload of money and you don't want long hours then you can do dermatology or opthamology. It's gonna be just as hard to get into a dental specialty as it will be to get matched up into the more desirable medical specialties.
Sincerely, J

 

[choocoman]

why is everyone against my thoughts of enterintg dentistry for the lifestyle? are you that much more noble or sincere than i? i cant help question your intentions...

 

[JRogoff]

i simply dont know how rigorous DDS admissions are (comparable to physician assistant programs? MD programs? pharmacy? optometry?)

Did you read anything i posted before? Go back to my previous post and you will see a link to class stats for 2002. With your 3.8 GPA one would think that you could figure out how rigorous dental admissions are from that. Read those other links too, they will enlighten you as to what dental admissions are all about.

 

[bcDDS]

Everybody should just give choocoman a break. Seriously, like any of us are going to save the world one tooth at a time. You don't have to have a love affair with your occupation (although it would be nice). I think that as long as you have a genuine interest in your field and you strive to be good at what you do, you're entitled to have 'other' motives for entering a profession, be it money, lifestyle, or whatever. Those of you that incessantly ask about hours worked, avg salary for the specialties, etc, you obviously have your own motives for pursuing certain paths, so lay off the premature judgements of others. We all have the right to make a living. Perhaps there are a handful of us that are obsessed with teeth, but those are few and far between. Choocoman is a newcomer and may very well be our colleague one day. Instead of berating him because we think our motives are more pure (something I don't buy to begin with), let's welcome him by being a bit more encourgaging.

And to you Choocoman...No, application to the top schools is not just a formality for you or anyone. That question is probably where people were rubbed the wrong way. Believe it or not, there are quite a few applicants just like you and you shouldn't assume anything. But with your GPA, a lot of it will depend on your DAT and your attitude/personality. Just be down to earth, don't bomb your DAT and you'll get admitted somewhere.

 

[choocoman]

Everybody should just give choocoman a break. Seriously, like any of us are going to save the world one tooth at a time. You don't have to have a love affair with your occupation (although it would be nice). I think that as long as you have a genuine interest in your field and you strive to be good at what you do, you're entitled to have 'other' motives for entering a profession, be it money, lifestyle, or whatever. Those of you that incessantly ask about hours worked, avg salary for the specialties, etc, you obviously have your own motives for pursuing certain paths, so lay off the premature judgements of others. We all have the right to make a living. Perhaps there are a handful of us that are obsessed with teeth, but those are few and far between. Choocoman is a newcomer and may very well be our colleague one day. Instead of berating him because we think our motives are more pure (something I don't buy to begin with), let's welcome him by being a bit more encourgaging.

And to you Choocoman...No, application to the top schools is not just a formality for you or anyone. That question is probably where people were rubbed the wrong way. Believe it or not, there are quite a few applicants just like you and you shouldn't assume anything. But with your GPA, a lot of it will depend on your DAT and your attitude/personality. Just be down to earth, don't bomb your DAT and you'll get admitted somewhere.

bc, thanks for your positive post. Jrogoff, the FAQ is excellent, thank you.

 

[pink-rose57]

yea!

 

[stinkycheese]

My own dentist said to me that she chose dental school over medical school for the lifestyle. I think it's fairly common. Lighten up!

 

[umc27]

i took a look at the DAT exam today...what the hell are they testing for? folded up paper cubes, which side of the triangle is shorter? i remember taking these standardized tests in middle school. its silly to think they wouldnt take my MCAT score, but whatevers, i guess all of you have to jump thru hoops too.

It's called "Perceptual Ability"... as a dentist, you must have it.

P.S. You are a douchebag.

 

[dragonj]

To choocoman,
I didn't mean to piss you off. Really. I even wrote that I didn't want to piss you off. So I'm sorry if what I wrote didn't come off the way I intended. I'm too direct sometimes. Some people like that, some don't.

And no, I don't think we are trying to save the world or anything. And I don't think any of us feel differently than you about the lifestyle thing. If you re-read our comments we don't actually oppose the money agenda.

So.......
the perceptual ability thing IS important for dentistry. But you can get better with practice once you get into dental school. But if you take the DAT, I think good practice for this is from the Scholarware program that most people use when they are about to take the DAT. Even tho you could practice other ways, I think the Scholarware is sufficient because it is the most practical.

but like I said before, if you did great on the MCAT, then the DAT should be fine for you. Probably you just need to find out more about dentistry as a career, work on a really excellant personal statement, ask your profs. to re-do the recommendations and then you have to deal with AADSAS. Shadowing about 20-40 hours is usually recommended. Especially because it is sometimes asked about in the interview.
From what I read in the other threads there are a bunch of people who had applied to med-school and then switch and the adcom. might ask about it so you should prepare something believable for that portion of the admissions process. The adcom people really want to see genuinely interested people when they interview because they think of the admissions process as more of an admissions of people into dentistry as a field. They want to make sure they put great dentists out there. Well, that's what I was told by them anyway.

Ciao, J

 

[Typo]

The problem isn't that Choocoman is considering dentistry over medicine for the lifestyle; it's that he's taking the dental profession quite flippantly, which is what many pre-dental students stereotype as the mindset of med students. When he says:

"i took a look at the DAT exam today...what the hell are they testing for? folded up paper cubes, which side of the triangle is shorter? i remember taking these standardized tests in middle school. its silly to think they wouldnt take my MCAT score, but whatevers, i guess all of you have to jump thru hoops too."

he's basically comparing a test that most of us have busted our asses preparing for to a middle school exam. In a nutshell, what his posts say to me is, "I could go to medical school, but the dental lifestyle is cake, so I'd rather be a dentist. But why do dental schools want me to take their stupid test when I'm way overqualified?"

Regardless of whether he feels this way or not, it still comes across that way, and this attitude is slightly irritating to those of us who are serious about dentistry.

 

[blumnday99]

My thoughts exactly.

The problem isn't that Choocoman is considering dentistry over medicine for the lifestyle; it's that he's taking the dental profession quite flippantly, which is what many pre-dental students stereotype as the mindset of med students. When he says:he's basically comparing a test that most of us have busted our asses preparing for to a middle school exam. In a nutshell, what his posts say to me is, "I could go to medical school, but the dental lifestyle is cake, so I'd rather be a dentist. But why do dental schools want me to take their stupid test when I'm way overqualified?"

Regardless of whether he feels this way or not, it still comes across that way, and this attitude is slightly irritating to those of us who are serious about dentistry.

 

[umc27]

To choocoman,
I didn't mean to piss you off. Really. I even wrote that I didn't want to piss you off.

My intent is to "piss you off." Choocoman, you are an arrogant douchebag, and God forbid you ever become a doctor.

 

[aphistis]

My intent is to "piss you off." Choocoman, you are an arrogant douchebag, and God forbid you ever become a doctor.

Twice calling someone a douchebag in a public thread is plenty, umc27. I'd suggest dialing it back a little.

 

[umc27]

If I have offended anyone by twice using that aforementioned word, my apologies. (Unless I offended Mr. Choocoman, which in that case, I meant it, so the apology doesn't apply to him.)

 

[busupshot83]

If I have offended anyone by twice using that aforementioned word, my apologies. (Unless I offended Mr. Choocoman, which in that case, I meant it, so the apology doesn't apply to him.)

 

[Dr. Rose]

honestly, i dont know if i would find any more satisfaction doing prostate exams as a urologist than as an endodontist....the MD prestige is great, ... QUOTE]

Well, I really hope you won't be doing prostate exams as an endodontist! That could cause a malpractice suit!