Married Acceptance

[georgiadat]

Does it really help if you are married to get into dental school? Ive heard that a few times. If it does, I might make a trip to vegas this weekend!

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[Biogirl361]

how would dental school even know if you are married or not?

 

[georgiadat]

it's on the application. at least the one for medical college of georgia.

 

[Biogirl361]

i just looked on my aadsas pink sheet and didn't see anything about marital status. i have no clue whether or not it would look more or less favorably if the school's in house app or secondary asked you to report it...

 

[accidental]

Some schools include a question about it on their secondary app.

 

[2thDk]

Being married myself, I can say that we really support eachother. My wife has worked 10 hour days making notecards for me to study for the DAT, all while I read and take notes for the DAT.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no idea if it looks good to dental schools, but I can see why it would. I have a STRONG support system. I don't have to waste time on frustrating dates and when I go out to a bar, I go with her. I don't have to worry about impressing other people, I can just relax and have a good time with the one person in the world who I'd most want to be with. It becomes very time effective. When I need to relax I have that freedom. HOWEVER, if someone were in a bad relationship or marriage it would have the opposite effect, so I don't know how adcoms look at it. Sorry, just thinking out loud. I think I confused myself now.

 

[msf41]

When I got married my auto insurance premiums really dropped. Auto insurance companies must see a tangible correlation between marriage and accident avoidance. Single guys are more likely to take more risks. Additionally, I think married people will be more motivated to get through school, because their family lively hood is depending on them. On the down side though, marriage responsibilities can take time away from academics. I have definately made some scholastic sacrafices to spend more time with the wifey.

 

[2thDk]

Well said.

 

[Sprgrover]

When I got married my auto insurance premiums really dropped...

I hate that! I am single and have a great driving record while my wild sister is married, has a lower rate, and is deadly piloting anything with a motor. Yeesh..

As far as being married and your chances of acceptance, I don't think it hurts nor boosts your chances. My being single never came up in the interviews, although so far everyone has asked me how I deal with stress, etc. It seems that this is very important to them as dental students have an onslaught of courses to juggle and endless materials and principles to adsorb. If confronted with such a question you could certainly bring up the topic of your significant other in terms of being a great support base - and that I am sure will bode well for you.

 

[BONAFIED]

This isn't a commentary on whether marriage is a good or a bad thing for dental studets. I just don't think adcoms have the right to ask you if you are married. It is ILLEGAL for a potential employer to ask you this question, why should it be allowed in academia? They only possible result of this question is to profer bias one way or the other. I find it not just a little hypocritical for colleges to lecture the 'outside world' about equal opportunities and social correctness, yet universities are fast becoming our society's last vestige of social engineering and discrimination. Your marital status is none of their FB.

 

[ItsGavinC]

This isn't a commentary on whether marriage is a good or a bad thing for dental studets. I just don't think adcoms have the right to ask you if you are married. It is ILLEGAL for a potential employer to ask you this question, why should it be allowed in academia?

Private schools can ask you anything they want to ask you.

Public schools, on the other hand, fall under the realm of what you are saying.

 

[BONAFIED]

I didn't say they COULDN'T ask you, I said they SHOULDN'T. Hence my bit about the hypocracy i.e. If it's wrong for employers why is it not wrong for schools? +

 

[Darksunshine]

Personally, being female, I think that schools may be asking personal question's like marriage and family to see if you are commited to going to school and like it or not, make judgement's on how your time may be affected in school by your personal choices.

I definetly have gotten this vibe from AZ and PA dental school's I just interviewed with this year. They made comment's like:
Is your family behind you in this move?
My Answer: I wouldn't be here if they weren't.

Also I think they want to know how organized you are and can you handle school and family. In a perfect world this shouldn't matter for higher education or job, but I think it does. I wondered if the asked all the male applicant's there that day the same questions. (Because I asked and more than half of them were married with kids as well.)

 

[2thDk]

This isn't a commentary on whether marriage is a good or a bad thing for dental studets.

Actually, I think the original question was...

Does it really help if you are married to get into dental school?

We are merely giving our opinion, most from experience.

However, after speaking witih my wife about this she brought up that this question is not fair to those with a homosexual orientation. I thought that this was a valid point.

 

[BONAFIED]

You'll have to pardon my egregious digression 2thDK. When I read the original question I saw the phrases: detal school, get into, marriage, & help. So from that, I went off on a wild and far-flung tangent about the completely different subject of marriage, dental school, getting accepted, and whether marriage should matter.

Good thing I didn't talk about car insurance or whether being married helps you be a better student. Because if you split hairs, the original question (awkwardly worded as it was) wasn't about whether being married helps you scholastically. The question implied whether being married will improve your chances of being accepted. Why aren't you harping on any of the other responses? Maybe your fondness for detail spikes only when someone offers an opinion you don't like.

 

[Mr.E]

Private schools can ask you anything they want to ask you.

Public schools, on the other hand, fall under the realm of what you are saying.

Interestingly enough UCLA's secondary application asks you whether you are married, if you have children, and the names of your family etc. (it is available to view on their website).

 

[2thDk]

Chill out, dental schools judge us on many things that others think isn't fair (i.e. geographic location or nationality). There's not much we can do about the hypocrisy, at least not for this cycle. I also happen think that this it is nebulous to base admission on whether or not a person is married. I do agree with your posts, just not your approach.

Does BONAFIED have anything to do with O' Brother Where art thou? If so, good choice.

 

[BONAFIED]

With that perspective, this also wasn't a question about whether or not it should be legal to ask questions about marriage.

Funny you should point that out, especially after 1) I qualified the opinion in my first post with the words "this isn't a commentary on whether marriage is a good or bad thing for dental students" thereby signaling to those who read well that I was going to digress from the topic. 2) In my second post, I admit that I didn't answer the question but addressed a related topic. -I can understand how confusing it must be, #1 was especially nuanced.

There's not much we can do about the hypocrisy

Except maybe point it out, and talk about it for an entire paragraph.

As far as thinking I don't agree with your posts, apparently you're wrong.

Can you offer any other explanation for why you picked my digression from the bunch? -don't answer this, just something to chew on.

No BONAFIED is the name of a guy on a talk show I'm rather fond of. I completely forgot about OBWAT reference. I think it's spelled bonifide in that context. -Now that's a digression!

 

[v&andy_yankee]

a lot of the private dental schools definitely give preference to applicants who are married. it all has to do with the fact that they think married applicants have less distractions (less partying, etc) and the fact that they are married shows that they have maturity. also, one of the private schools stated specificaly that married students have higher retention rates once they are in dental schools.

so to those applicants who are stressing out over every single last brownie point, you know what you have to do!!! maybe in your interview invites you can chat up some nice fellow predents...

 

[Tails you lose]

Um, I can't believe you put your wife to work making flash cards for the DAT.

 

[jheidenr]

...and the fact that they are married shows that they have maturity....

...or that they are insecure, or even immature. If you think that being married makes you more mature, or that people who are married are more mature, you are missing the mark. There may be lots of married students who are accepted to dental school, but don't extrapolate from this that they represent the entired married population. In fact, I think that single predents are just as capable of having and demontrating the qualities that make some married students desirable applicants.

Also, don't fall into the false idea as many do on this forum that being married makes you more mature and somehow more prepared for dental school than the single students.

 

[v&andy_yankee]

<sarcasm>oops i forgot this in my first post</sarcasm>

truth be told, there probably is a correlation between marriage and acceptances, but it's unrelated to the marriage factor and more related to the age of the applicant. older ppl tend to be married, and older ppl tend to be nontraditional students--they have already worked in an actual job for a few years, have masters or ph.d's. all those other factors will weigh favorably.

in my last interview, one of the applicants i spied had a ring, was 30ish, and also had a master's and ph.d. you think his chances of getting accepted will be higher? hell yeah, but it's not because of the ring.

 

[lnn2]

Being married myself, I can say that we really support eachother. My wife has worked 10 hour days making notecards for me to study for the DAT, all while I read and take notes for the DAT.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no idea if it looks good to dental schools, but I can see why it would. I have a STRONG support system. I don't have to waste time on frustrating dates and when I go out to a bar, I go with her. I don't have to worry about impressing other people, I can just relax and have a good time with the one person in the world who I'd most want to be with. It becomes very time effective. When I need to relax I have that freedom. HOWEVER, if someone were in a bad relationship or marriage it would have the opposite effect, so I don't know how adcoms look at it. Sorry, just thinking out loud. I think I confused myself now.

Does she have a sister?