letter from dentist?

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joonkimdds

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Tuft dental school requires a letter from a dentist that says u shadowed for more than 30 hours. Is it required in other dental schools too? I know many ppl shadowed from more than 1 dentist and I wonder what they r gonna do about this. i was planning to go shadow a dentist other than the one that i did last year.
 
It's not just shadowing. The 30 hours can be spent either shadowing or assisting the dentist. 30 hours isn't very much time...it's less than 4 full work days, so just get it done.

If you can't get the 30 hours done, then don't apply to Tufts.
 
It's not just shadowing. The 30 hours can be spent either shadowing or assisting the dentist. 30 hours isn't very much time...it's less than 4 full work days, so just get it done.

If you can't get the 30 hours done, then don't apply to Tufts.

I was asking if i can shadow more than 1 dentist since Tufts require a letter from a dentist. I know that all the dental school require shadowing hours but that's not what I asked. I asked if they all require a letter from a dentist because I was gonna go to different dentist office this time to get different experience.
 
Well I know Ohio state requires one. I had shadowed 3 dentists/specialists so I sent the signed form from each of them.
 
I would think that would be fine, as long as you can get a letter from both. They are supposed to write how long you have been shadowing them for, so I think it is fine if you have 2 diff letters adding up to 30 + The biggest problem comes in because someone who has only gotten to know you for 10-15 hrs may not be able to write a good rec. I was told it is worse to have a poor rec than no rec at all. Hope that makes sense.
 
In my case I had about 50 hours each for two of the dentists, and then over 250 hours for another....so they knew me pretty well. That is why I included them all.
 
what I meant when I said 30 hours isn't much was that 30 hours isn't a lot of time to shadow just one dentist. Now, if you have kids and a wife and a full time job...then it would be hard, but I don't think you do, so I meant that you should just shadow ONE dentist for 30 hours, get it done, and then if you want to see what other dentists or specialists do, then go and watch them too for a couple hours each.

But if you really want to find out the answer to a question like this, SDN isn't the best place to ask since very few if any ADCOMs come in here. Why not just call VCU and ask them. Otherwise, I suggest you just follow the rule as it seems to be laid out rather than screw over your chances at the school on a hunch.
 
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