What do you mean? I was under the impression that OP was simply seeking advice/opinions from anyone in the predental forum since the post didn’t target a certain type of person.
I had a few friends in undergrad who were predental until they got more experience shadowing and talking with people in the profession and they realized there were better career choices for them. I also shadowed a dentist for years whose wife became a dentist before they implemented shadowing requirements and she realized she hated the field so much that she only practiced for one year after dental school and then went into a different field. I’ve pretty much always known I wanted to go into dentistry, but now that I’ve been assisting for the past 2 years and have a couple hundred shadowing hours, when I look back I truly feel like I hardly knew the profession before those experiences and I’m so glad that I got them. Not everyone needs to assist or shadow that much obviously, but my point is that I’ve realized why schools have shadowing expectations and I’ve realized it’s more than a tedious requirement because it’s actually beneficial for the applicant.
In any case, no, I didn’t post my response thinking that it was “unfair” or having any malicious intent haha it was an effort to be helpful. I wasn’t aware that only current dental students have enough experiences to offer helpful advice, and I personally would enjoy hearing opinions from different types of people if I was OP.