How much harder is Dentistry than Optometry?

[MasterStrike]

I am talking about in terms of the DAT/OAT, dental/optometry school, and the boards.

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[notadieselvolkswagen]

A good friend of mine was applying for dental school at the same time I was applying for optometry, we spent the whole summer studying for DAT/OAT together. The tests are very similar except for the OAT includes physics (DAT does not) and the DAT includes this weird spacial recognition/shape identification part. Other than that, the distribution and weight of topics for each test are pretty similar.

The main difference I saw was that there are around ~70 dental schools in the US, but only around 20 optometry schools. Even though there are ~50 more dental schools than optometry schools, I believe it is way harder to get into dental school, just due to the number of applicants. From what I've read, avg acceptance rate in dental school hovers around 5-7%, while optometry is closer to 15-20%, obviously it varies from school to school.

 

[yetbun12]

I think each career presents their own unique challenges in terms of schooling and boards, but I wouldn't worry about what is more difficult, think about what you would want to do as a career. Optometry and dentistry are totally different career paths, so you shouldn't go into one or the other because someone says its "easier". Shadow both docs to get an idea of what you would like to pursue.

 

[chelle111]

I think each career presents their own unique challenges in terms of schooling and boards, but I wouldn't worry about what is more difficult, think about what you would want to do as a career. Optometry and dentistry are totally different career paths, so you shouldn't go into one or the other because someone says its "easier". Shadow both docs to get an idea of what you would like to pursue.

I completely agree with this^

 

[happyOD]

A good friend of mine was applying for dental school at the same time I was applying for optometry, we spent the whole summer studying for DAT/OAT together. The tests are very similar except for the OAT includes physics (DAT does not) and the DAT includes this weird spacial recognition/shape identification part. Other than that, the distribution and weight of topics for each test are pretty similar.

The main difference I saw was that there are around ~70 dental schools in the US, but only around 20 optometry schools. Even though there are ~50 more dental schools than optometry schools, I believe it is way harder to get into dental school, just due to the number of applicants. From what I've read, avg acceptance rate in dental school hovers around 5-7%, while optometry is closer to 15-20%, obviously it varies from school to school.

with more and more new medical and DO schools, the dental school in some part is even harder than into medical school, the ave acceptance rate for dental school is around 5-7%. But the ave. optometry school acceptance（not any specific school) is higher than 15-20%, the total applicant for optometry school is around 2600-2800 for about 1800 seats, based on ASCO and OptomCAS data in 5 years.

The dentist is more about manual work and is very independent of medical doctor and is not easy to be replaced by medical doctor or modern AI technique. But the optometrist is different, an ophthalmologist can do all optometrist does, soon or later with the more and more new medical school students graduate, an ophthalmologist might feel the threat from the optometrist. In some eye clinic which I worked with, technically an ophthalmic technician did most of the work that optometrist does. In future, with the AI technique progress and dabbles in the diagnosis, optometry's future might be affected.

 

[waapo2018]

These Kinds Of Questions Are Always Difficult To Answer.

What May Be Difficult For One Person Might Be Easy For Someone Else.

Someone Would Have To Have Gone Thru Both Dentistry and Optometry To Really Answer This Question.

But I can tell you this, neither of these are “easy”. Both Require Time and Dedication.

The Schooling For Both Is Expensive, Challenging and Time Consuming.

Shadow Both A Dentist And Optometrist, See which one would fit you better and work hard.

 

[JBL0008]

Dental is 10000x harder to get into than Optometry. I applied to both

 

[GypsyHummus]

Did you end up getting into both?

I remember reading something about the OAT of OD schools only needed like 290-300 which is like 40-50 percentile vs dental school needs 20 on DAT which is like 90%ile.

Dental is 10000x harder to get into than Optometry. I applied to both

 

[JBL0008]

Did you end up getting into both?

I remember reading something about the OAT of OD schools only needed like 290-300 which is like 40-50 percentile vs dental school needs 20 on DAT which is like 90%ile.

I applied twice to dental, 2016 and 2017 application cycles. Got one interview the 2016 cycle and two interviews the 2017 cycle. I'm currently waitlisted for both schools right now. Both application cycles for dental I applied to 12-13 schools. After I got rejected from my first interview school in the 2016 cycle, I called their admissions and the dentist in charge of admissions told me to have a backup plan so started shadowing optometry and really enjoyed it. I decided to apply to optometry the 2017 cycle as well and got interview offers to all the schools I applied to. I only went to 3 and got accepted at all of them.

I don't mind sharing my stats either. Undergrad BioMed GPA - 3.01 (struggled with a personal issue). Ended up doing a masters in biology and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. All the schools I interviewed at loved this.

I took the DAT twice. First time 19AA and 17TS, Second time 19AA and 19TS.
OAT took once and got 320 AA and 320 TS.
The DAT and OAT all almost identical besides the switch with physics and PAT sections. I would say the DAT is easier because the PAT section is a lot easier than the OAT's physics section BUT you need a much higher score on the DAT. Honestly in my opinion a 21 is the score to get. I've seen people on this website get waitlisted or rejected with 23 and 24 DAT scores and then I see people with a 290 OAT score get in......
A 300 OAT score is a 50 percentile and a 21 DAT is 91 percentile.

Both are great careers but one is a lot harder to get into than the other. My state has both dental and opt schools and I know the dental gets around 1800 applicants each cycle while the Opt gets around 400. The class sizes are also about the same too.

 

[happyOD]

Did you end up getting into both?

I remember reading something about the OAT of OD schools only needed like 290-300 which is like 40-50 percentile vs dental school needs 20 on DAT which is like 90%ile.

not only the high percentile DAT, the ave. GPA for dental school is 3.8 or higher. Many dental schools require at least 1-year dental shadowing experience.