# of applicants

[Dr.BadVibes]

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Hey, does anyone know the total number of applicants in a year? And does anyone know how much more the number is expected to be for this application cycle? Cause my father met with the dean of Buffalo and he said that usually 70% of all applicants get accepted somewhere. Obviously that percentage is gonna go down since there are so many more applicants, but I wanna estimate by how much! Thanks!

 

[mathnerd]

Roughly half of all applicants will get in somewhere. There are approximately 4000 openings in all dental schools for the 8000+ applicants. The newest ADEA Guide to Dental Schools will have the latest info.

 

[ItsGavinC]

Both of those statistics are way off.

The 70% number is grossly inflated (just ask your health professions advisor), and the "roughly half" theory isn't any good because not all 8000 applicants apply to all schools.

Even then, schools choose those applicants who are more qualified. So even if 8000 applicants applied for the 4000 spots evenly, there would still be some applicants who wouldn't get a single acceptance, and others who would perhaps get 20+ acceptances.

 

[Brand]

I'm totally missing something. How is it that half the applicants don't get in? If there are 8000 individual applicants and 4000 open spots, doesn't this mean 4000 get in and 4000 don't?

The 70% is way off though. Like gavin said, just ask a predent advisor. Or, look at the ADEA statistics.

 

[Comet208]

Brand,
you are assuming that all the applicants apply to all the schools. But that is not what is happening.

Comet

 

[Brand]

LOL. I am so not understanding. I mean, there are 8000 applicants (people) and 4000 of those go to dental school. The other 4000 don't. Thats 50%. How does applying to all schools make a difference? Half will still get in.

If I am off some how, be kind.

 

[ItsGavinC]

If all 8000 applicants applied to all the schools (4000 positions), then the acceptance rate would be ~50%.

However, some applicants only apply to a couple of schools. Others apply to 20+ schools.

For example, let's take hypothetical applicant #220. For theoretical reasons, let's assume that schools #32, 37, and 48 would be more than willing to give applicant #220 an acceptance. Applicant #220 only applied to 8 schools, however and none of the schools (#1-#8) gave him an interview or an acceptance.

His personal statistics will show that his success (so to speak) was 0/8, or he had zero acceptances out of 8 schools. Had he applied to schools #32,37, and 48, he would have had three acceptances. If he had substituted those schools in place of some of the eight he did apply to, his acceptance rate would be 3/8. Likewise, if he merely added those schools to his original application list, his ratio would be 3/11. And certainly, his ratio could be 3/54 if he had applied to all of the available schools.

Our point is that although there are seats available for 50% of applicants, the statement that "roughly half the applicants" will get accepted somewhere is not true unless ALL applicants apply to ALL schools.

What about the guy who applies to 7 schools and gets in at all of them? He has a 100% acceptance rate. The guy who applies to 19 and gets in nowhere has a 0% success rate.

 

[ItsGavinC]

That last post was probably more confusing than helpful. Let's think of it this way:

The national rate of people getting into at least ONE dental school out of all that they applied to is slightly below 50%. This is where the 8000/4000 comes into effect.

Hoever, this is NOT to be confused with the 5-15% acceptance rate that most individual dental schools have.

So, unless you apply to ALL the schools, that 50% may not work for you. You could apply to 10 schools and not fit the criteria for the 5-15% that they have, resulting in no acceptances.

 

[dds4]

It's simple. Half of the applicants ARE accepted. That doesn't mean YOU have a 50% chance.

 

[Brand]

I'm slow but I got it. About time.

Thanks!

 

[Dr.BadVibes]

so is 8000 the number from previous years?? What do u think the number will be for this application cycle?

 

[ItsGavinC]

Originally posted by dds4
It's simple. Half of the applicants ARE accepted. That doesn't mean YOU have a 50% chance.

I knew that somebody would come along and save me from my insane explanations.

Thank you much!

 

[mathnerd]

Ha ha ha! (Evil laugh)

My post worked wonderfully. Sorry about the confusion. The ADEA book I have states that ~8000 people apply. Itsgavinc is right: Your odds are not 50%. There is much more to consider. If everybody applied to all schools, then maybe it would be that situation.

My odds are 0% at some schools and maybe 50% at others. Who knows for sure. I'll know even better next year. I crunched #s for days calculating stats and figures and as a rule of thumb 25% of a schools applicant pool gets interviewed and 10% get accepted. Some schools have to accept more because the first 10-20% of accepted people turn the school down to go to elsewhere. The stats are garbage. There are lies, damn lies, and stats. Don't fall prey to them.

 

[eight143]

The school I'm going into soon had well over 1000 applicants for their 90 spots. So if you apply to only one school, mathematically you only have less than 10% chance of getting in.

My advice: Make sure you apply to enough schools and have a couple were you know you have a GREAT chance of getting in. That might mean that you will have to apply somewhere you don't really want to go (may have valid reasons), but hopefully wanting to be a dentist will supercede any of those reasoning. It's only 4 years, it's gonna go fast. After that, you can whatever you want.