Legacies in Orthodontics

Started by AlbinoPolarBear
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AlbinoPolarBear

AlbinoPolarBear

Full Member
15+ Year Member
I was googling up orthodontic residency websites, and I ran across this link for UCLA concerning legacies.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/sto...e-admissions-uclas-elite-orthodontics-program

UCLA was investigated since it was a public university, but I was wondering if anyone knew how prominent legacies are at other schools, particularly private schools? Most orthodontic residencies have only 3-5 openings a year, so would it be safe to assume that at least one spot would be reserved for a legacy?

But class rankings, provided to The Bruin through a source who had access to the records, ranked two of the residents in question at 46th and 54th in their classes of roughly 135 dentistry students. Both were far from the top 10 percentile of their class, which is a typical standing for accepted applicants.
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If it happens, it happens. What can you do about it? Work your butt off and secure those 3-4 other non-legacy spots and make a boatload of $$$ and donate so that your kids will have an easier time.
 
ortho lurker said:
If it happens, it happens. What can you do about it? Work your butt off and secure those 3-4 other non-legacy spots and make a boatload of $$$ and donate so that your kids will have an easier time.
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Well, nothing really anyone can do about it, and if you aren't in the position be a legacy (which many of us aren't), it would be curious to know how many spots are actually left over for those who work hard to get there.
 
I don't know the hard statistics. However I have never personally known any orthodontist who did not have some relative before them who was an orthodontist. Never.

It's almost as if every single orthodontist in the U.S. today (of whatever background, doesn't matter) is a direct descendant of Edward Angle.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Angle for those not yet versed in dental history)
 
DentinBond said:
I don't know the hard statistics. However I have never personally known any orthodontist who did not have some relative before them who was an orthodontist. Never.

It's almost as if every single orthodontist in the U.S. today (of whatever background, doesn't matter) is a direct descendant of Edward Angle.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Angle for those not yet versed in dental history)
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I am absolutely the first dentist in my family. I saw the corruption and politics associated with the ortho residency admissions process and it was disheartening to see that I put way, way, way more effort than the legacies for the same result. I use that now as extra motivation to do better than them.
 
ortho lurker said:
I am absolutely the first dentist in my family. I saw the corruption and politics associated with the ortho residency admissions process and it was disheartening to see that I put way, way, way more effort than the legacies for the same result. I use that now as extra motivation to do better than them.
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Ortho program directors, especially in major metropolitan areas, have to watch out for the legacy donors and their kids... alumni donations make up a huge part of their salary.
 
BlueToothHunter said:
Ortho program directors, especially in major metropolitan areas, have to watch out for the legacy donors and their kids... alumni donations make up a huge part of their salary.
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To be completely honest, in my program, 10% of residents had a relative who was an orthodontist.
 
Wow, this is really inspiring for all us non-legacy/flying solo ortho hopefuls......
 
I don't think it's as much of a different percentage of dental students with dental parents than it is with orthodontists/residents.

My dental class was about 15-20/54 and My ortho class was 2/6. The the other classes were 0/ 6 and 1/6.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you made into dental school w/o dental parents, you probably have just as good a shot from ortho w/o ortho parents.
 
Thanks kato, feeling better already!

I have noticed that a lot of residents at my school have family in ortho, but hey what can you do?
 
TeethAreUs said:
ya u do, u have pdf and cdf of Gaussian distribution as an avatar!
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lol. It's the Rogers Diffusion of Innovations curve. Left to right we have Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards.

Among other things, it reminds me to stay on the left side of the curve...
 
Is there really anyone who is naive enough to think that ANY residency program selects its choices based just purely on an applicants academic record??

There will always be a subjective component to who gets offered a position to any residency. Sometimes it may be based on a legacy, other times it may be a situation where during an interview, an application has a personality that the program director or other attending doc's can't stand. That's just a fact of life, since more so than not, a residency director looks to assemble a "team" of residents who will hopefully get along with both the other residents and the attending doctors rather than just who has the best C.V.
 
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