How hard is dental school?

[gs234]

I'm just curious, but how hard is dental school? I mean if you study really hard can you pull off good grades (3.75+ gpa)? How likely do people get 4.0's during a semester and is something like that really rare?

Only reason I ask is I know someone who was really smart in college (3.8gpa, 21 DAT) and they struggled their first year of school. I mean they passed all their classes but they told me they didn't do as well as they would have liked. I guess this person wanted to be at the top of their class and they are in the middle or something. Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.

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[lemoncurry]

dental school is HARD. do not kid yourself into thinking it will not be because you did well in undergrad. There is no comparison; dental school is a whole new level of hard. The biggest problem is that there is just not enough hours in the day to get all your projects done AND study AND go to class from 8 to 5.

 

[jeffity]

The GPA correlation doesn't always work out. And the gap from B to A you hear about is true. As mentioned, it's a whole different game. It's hard, but obviously doable. Attrition rates for D1s from 2000 to 2009 went from 3% to 1.9%. And that's from out of ~4000 - 5000 enrollees. And about 50% of those were for non-academic reasons. There are a ton of factors involved in just how hard it will be. It's a wild, wild ride.

 

[bing12]

to get straight A's= difficult. To get B or C's, fairly easy as long as you put in some effort. its not as bad as I thought it would be.

 

[xbite]

I think the difficulty will vary from school to school, and also from person to person.
I have some less intelligent friends who are doing well at their schools, but can't explain standard concepts. I also know people who struggled during undergrad, but are now killing it.

Personally, so far...I find dental school testing to be significantly easier than undergrad. What I find to be difficult is the amount of material that we go through in a short period of time. For example, in undergrad, the material you'll spend an entire semester learning for embryology, you might cover in 10 hours in dental school. Stuff piles up and it's like trying to sip water from a fire hydrant.

Just prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

 

[jigabodo]

I'm just curious, but how hard is dental school? I mean if you study really hard can you pull off good grades (3.75+ gpa)? How likely do people get 4.0's during a semester and is something like that really rare?

Only reason I ask is I know someone who was really smart in college (3.8gpa, 21 DAT) and they struggled their first year of school. I mean they passed all their classes but they told me they didn't do as well as they would have liked. I guess this person wanted to be at the top of their class and they are in the middle or something. Anyway, any thoughts would be appreciated.

If you just want to pass, dental school really isn't any harder than college. If you want to get a 3.5+ or stay in top 10% of your class, you will need a little bit of luck on top of a ton of work.

 

[UCSFx2017]

If you just want to pass, dental school really isn't any harder than college. If you want to get a 3.5+ or stay in top 10% of your class, you will need a little bit of luck on top of a ton of work.

If your school is strictly Pass/Fail then is it equally hard for everyone because no one is or cannot be vying for a +3.5 GPA or top 10% of class?

 

[iralex801]

From the 3 years I've been in dental school, I've determined that it depends on what you want. If you want to specialize, you're going to need all A's, which is very hard to do. As someone mentioned before, if you don't, passing is easy. Almost everyone passes dschool once accepted.

As for pass/fail, don't most have it has honored/pass/fail? (correct me if I'm wrong). So, technically it's a nicer way of saying you got an A, B/C, or you failed. If you want to specialize, better honor those courses.

 

[UCSFx2017]

From the 3 years I've been in dental school, I've determined that it depends on what you want. If you want to specialize, you're going to need all A's, which is very hard to do. As someone mentioned before, if you don't, passing is easy. Almost everyone passes dschool once accepted.

As for pass/fail, don't most have it has honored/pass/fail? (correct me if I'm wrong). So, technically it's a nicer way of saying you got an A, B/C, or you failed. If you want to specialize, better honor those courses.

most schools do pass w. honors/ pass/ fail when they are pass fail. so yeah it is like A, BC, DF

For UCSF, the first two years are strictly pass/fail.

 

[AlbinoPolarBear]

For schools that are pass/fail, other parts of your application to residency are scrutinized, such as research and board scores.

But even if the class is pass/fail, the profs will know who did extremely well in their class, and who barely passed the class. Get to know your prof on a personal level, like coming to their office hours, ace their class, and you'll get a nice letter of recommendation from them. On hand skills classes, profs will know who has them from those who need a lot of help.

Back to the original topic, I've been in dental school for only one semester, and I echo what everyone has been saying. Once you're in, it's very hard to flunk out, and if you're having trouble, the school will do all they can to make sure you pass. But to be at the top, you need a strong work ethic and some luck. You can have the best hand skills, but if you accidentally nick the adjacent tooth while doing a class 2 prep during an exam, you can go from an A to a C, or even F.

 

[peerless218]

For schools that are pass/fail, other parts of your application to residency are scrutinized, such as research and board scores.

But even if the class is pass/fail, the profs will know who did extremely well in their class, and who barely passed the class. Get to know your prof on a personal level, like coming to their office hours, ace their class, and you'll get a nice letter of recommendation from them. On hand skills classes, profs will know who has them from those who need a lot of help.

Back to the original topic, I've been in dental school for only one semester, and I echo what everyone has been saying. Once you're in, it's very hard to flunk out, and if you're having trouble, the school will do all they can to make sure you pass. But to be at the top, you need a strong work ethic and some luck. Y].

Yap, passing and failing a class II is only .25- .5 mm away.

 

[LifeDevoted]

So which factors play into the luck side?

 

[doc toothache]

Conceptually, some of the pre clinical courses can hardly be claimed to rise to the graduate level; pharmacology has less course material than that found in pharmacy schools. The difficulty for the first 2 years in ds stems from the overload in courses. Think of it as holding down a full time job and having the evenings and weekends to study for 24+ credit hours of courses.

 

[Surgeon_cowboy]

I think the difficulty will vary from school to school, and also from person to person.
I have some less intelligent friends who are doing well at their schools, but can't explain standard concepts. I also know people who struggled during undergrad, but are now killing it.

Personally, so far...I find dental school testing to be significantly easier than undergrad. What I find to be difficult is the amount of material that we go through in a short period of time. For example, in undergrad, the material you'll spend an entire semester learning for embryology, you might cover in 10 hours in dental school. Stuff piles up and it's like trying to sip water from a fire hydrant.

Just prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

 

[diasIItema]

Difficulty will vary from school to school, but it's definitely a steep learning curve. Once you get it, however, it's very manageable, I think. GPA is relative. My school 95+ is an A, so I have a cumulative 3.9 after a few semesters. If 90+ was an A, like in college, I'd have a 4.0 and so would many others. I mean, to earn a 95 you might have a margin of error of two or three questions for an entire course. So yes, some of it is just lucky guessing, especially in basic science courses that are just straight memorization. You either memorized it or you didn't.

If you just want to pass and graduate, then it's really a cakewalk. So it really just boils down to time management, a little lucky guessing, and learning how to prioritize certain classes over others. It probably helps if your professors actually like you, too.

However, I've met some people who were "top of their class" and had close to 4.0's in college and are not that intelligent. So it's really all relative if you're going to compare backgrounds to dental school, the great equalizer.

 

[b0110]

The consensus that I've heard from the people I know in dental school is that it isn't harder than Undergrad material and such, and from that standpoint might actually be even a little easier. With that said, you have a lot more in a much shorter time, which is what makes it hard. They said that the concepts don't seem harder than something you'd learn in undergrad, but just the sheer amount overwhelms you.

 

[jigabodo]

So which factors play into the luck side?

In ULSD, operative is competency based. We are required to pass a number of competencies in operative before we can graduate. Not everyone is going to get the same patients, and that's where luck (among other things) come into play.

A virgin DO on number 5 is obviously going to be a lot easier than a #2 MOBL recurrent decay on composite. There are always an abundance of lesions/patients at school, but the problem is getting the perfect sized, incipient virgin lesions, which are hard to come by.

 

[Timpson]

I think it depends on where you go to school. For me it has almost been a cakewalk so far academically but there have been some challenges clinically. The important thing is to not only pass all your classes but make sure you are learning and getting the experience that will make you a successful dentist after graduation.