Majoring in Economics as a pre-dent?

[ved72]

Overview: Rising 3rd year at UC Davis majoring in Economics (GPA: 3.87). Taking DAT in December. Planning no gap year (should be done w/ all dental prereqs by summer in between 3rd and 4th year, ready for application). Have ~300 hours shadowing (one private practice), ~100 volunteering (various facets), and ~100 hours of research (materials science engineering) currently. Involved in 8 clubs (3 religious / culture, 4 health-related, 1 athletic [boxing] ). Didn't do anything basically during my first year of college (remote, covid), so everything is essentially garnered within the last calendar year.

I'm looking for opinions on Economics as a major for a pre-dents and overall what more can I do besides bumping up all of my respective hours to become more competitive (I imagine it must be even harder to not do a gap year and go straight to dental school both in terms of competitiveness and morale). There was a previous post referencing this topic, but it was ~6 years ago. Any input is appreciated, thank you.

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[Chief's Pineapple]

You can do whatever major you want as long as you graduate and you have the required prerequisites (and good grades for them).

Side note for my own purposes, I don't know why a lot of pre-dents are so obsessed with measuring hours of volunteering/shadowing and getting more and thinking they'll be more competitive because of it. Is it because it's something that can be measured objectively? You can see posts on Reddit and such about people asking about their chances, saying stuff like "GPA is this, DAT was that, and I have X shadowing hours". Like what? Why would you include those with your GPA/DAT in the same line? Why do people make it sound like that number of hours is just as important as GPA/DAT, like THAT is the only thing that can improve/differentiate your application? I haven't even gotten an interview, let alone started, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but your GPA and DAT are the two biggest priorities. THOSE numbers are what gets you in the door for the interviews.

 

[doc toothache]

Trend in Undergraduate Majors 2005-2012

ADEA made a change in the way undergraduate majors are reported. It has dropped math and computer sciences, education, language/humanities/arts, pre-dentistry and other. It has added health professions and related programs, psychology, parks/recreation/leisure/fitness studies, family and...

forums.studentdoctor.net

 

[Toothmountain194]

You will be just fine! I majored in Business Admin and have gotten plenty of interviews so far. It was a fun talking point in my last interview. Just have a strong reason for why dentistry when they ask you about it and study hard for your DAT

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Side note for my own purposes, I don't know why a lot of pre-dents are so obsessed with measuring hours of volunteering/shadowing and getting more and thinking they'll be more competitive because of it. Is it because it's something that can be measured objectively? You can see posts on Reddit and such about people asking about their chances, saying stuff like "GPA is this, DAT was that, and I have X shadowing hours". Like what? Why would you include those with your GPA/DAT in the same line? Why do people make it sound like that number of hours is just as important as GPA/DAT, like THAT is the only thing that can improve/differentiate your application? I haven't even gotten an interview, let alone started, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but your GPA and DAT are the two biggest priorities. THOSE numbers are what gets you in the door for the interviews.

I didn't notice the side note before.

I only read the posts here, but I think the only reason why the number of hours is thought to be critical is that prospective applicants see recommended or required number of hours on program websites. I always emphasize that this is a threshold. Just because your recommended daily allowance of calories every day is 2000 does not mean than more is better.

I don't disagree with you. In the Experiences-Attributes-Metrics model, it is worthy to notice the metrics are at the center/target of the concentric circle diagram.