*****Official PASS 2025 Endodontic Residency Interviews/Information***

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rb19 said:
How does one secure an "in?" I was thinking of writing a best selling autobiography. Hopefully the story will be compelling enough. Heck, I'll even take depressing and pitiful enough. Shopping some titles. I was thinking, "By word of mouth: the navigation of life's canals"
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Work as a part time faculty at a nearest dental school with a graduate endo program. Show your face to the endo department. If your pre-doc clinic faculties do not like to do endo, then you should aim to be known as the attending who can do pulpotomy/pulpectomy. Then get to know the endo faculties at that school. Take CEs and visit their offices.

I think that would be the best "in" scenario if you do not have any connection. Another way would be to get to know your local endodontist, and then expand your connection from there.
 
patricklin27 said:
Any tips of making my application more competitive next year?


Im 6 years out of school and applied to 15 schools and no interviews.
My GPA in dental school was around a 3.0 and I applied late may this year. No major CE courses or ADAT taken or volunteering

Do you think taking ADAT will help my application? Also considering volunteering at an emergency dental clinic at a dental school and taking multiple CE endo courses. What other suggestions do you guys suggest to do?
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Turn back time, do an AEGD/GPR after finishing DDS, and apply immediately after. If this cycle has taught us anything, it's that more and more programs are leaning towards newer grads with 1-yr PG training programs, and oftentimes not even that.

Jokes apart, in addition to what you have already considered adding, I think LORs from endodontists well-known in academia go a long way at at least getting interviews. That could also be the "in" that has been discussed so much.
 
Dentalfixer said:
Is that official? I heard the rumor but didn’t know if it was true. How are they doing clinics then?
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PD’s come and go. It’s crappy job. As long as the chair is in place and adjunct faculty are around you’re fine. Plus the chair can oversee clinic if they want to. PD is more responsible for lit and curriculum over site. And residents can run that themselves honestly. As long as the article layout has been passed down.
 
redchesus said:
Well, no details were disclosed but the couple of UNC residents I talked to this last meeting didn't seem too warm about him so... this kinda makes sense. I hope it gets better for them.
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UNC has a good reputation as a strong program but I've heard it does have a culture issue
 
FutureDent020 said:
PD’s come and go. It’s crappy job. As long as the chair is in place and adjunct faculty are around you’re fine. Plus the chair can oversee clinic if they want to. PD is more responsible for lit and curriculum over site. And residents can run that themselves honestly. As long as the article layout has been passed down.
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yeah, they only make around 150-170 as director/ chair...not a very desirable job, if you ask me...Some do it because they cant survive in private practice...not all are there because they love teaching....I used to want to become a lowly dental school instructor because i love teaching - luckily , i changed my mind...the world of nerds is not easy...they do eat each other alive...
 
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redchesus said:
The year I applied, went to annual meeting, at the party event the last night, ended up chatting with this random endo while standing in line for drinks, turned out he was there by himself, it was his first AAE in a while and none of this co-residents were there, his former PD happened to walk by and they had a little reunion (I'm just standing there awkwardly) and then he turned to me and said to his PD "This is redchesus, he's applying to your program!" PD (who I think was a little tipsy) grabbed my badge and looked at my name then said "good luck!" and wandered off. But I did get an interview there.

Not saying that this a sure-fire method, but it's the wildest way I
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Torshammer said:
UNC has a good reputation as a strong program but I've heard it does have a culture issue
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to be honest, all endo programs will prepare you to be somewhat competent....the first few years after residency will prepare you more...UNC is 3-year program...so it is automatically considered a way way less desirable...
 
MidwestOwl said:
yeah, they only make around 150-170 as director/ chair...not a very desirable job, if you ask me...Some do it because they cant survive in private practice...not all are there because they love teaching....I used to want to become a lowly dental school instructor because i love teaching - luckily , i changed my mind...the world of nerds is not easy...they do eat each other alive...
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The volunteer part-timers seem to enjoy it the best, because the school needs them (free labor) more than they need the gig, and they get to stay out of all the politics of academia. If I were to teach, that's what I'd do.
 
redchesus said:
The volunteer part-timers seem to enjoy it the best, because the school needs them (free labor) more than they need the gig, and they get to stay out of all the politics of academia. If I were to teach, that's what I'd do.
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yeah, when i was in dental school..the ones that treated the students welll were either the parttimers or the lowly paid clinical instructors...the higher ups dont really care much...they care more about getting promoted....etc..
 
redchesus said:
The volunteer part-timers seem to enjoy it the best, because the school needs them (free labor) more than they need the gig, and they get to stay out of all the politics of academia. If I were to teach, that's what I'd do.
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Yeah, we had a 2 day week retired endodontist. Made like $80K to just joke around with us and teach us little anecdotal aspects of endo. He loved it. I’d strongly consider that to just help pay for a vacation home or something.
 
FutureDent020 said:
Yeah, we had a 2 day week retired endodontist. Made like $80K to just joke around with us and teach us little anecdotal aspects of endo. He loved it. I’d strongly consider that to just help pay for a vacation home or something.
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just have to be careful with those guys...some are too old to even teach...we have a faculty that all of us tried to avoid...he perf patients' teeth left and right
 
I hope me volunteering at my dental school will help me get in for residency. I just do one morning a week in our endo clinic, but we don’t have a program here. Otherwise it’s just the head endodontist overseeing like 10 students, so he’s always swamped. I hop in and lighten the load, and can take care of any simple issues. Really it’s probably the best thing on my application aside from speaking Spanish.
 
curious to know what is a good GPA for endodontics application in general? maybe the residents here can tell me ?
mine is 3.6, no school rank.
is that low or average? any thoughts???

-endo PD told me for ADAT they are looking at 540 and more. GPA is 3 or more (I doubt that !!).
-A friend applied to orthodontics and she has GPA 3.6 and the program director told her all the applicants have GPA above 3.7 and can not give her an interview for that matter.
 
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AAdentist said:
curious to know what is a good GPA for endodontics application in general? maybe the residents here can tell me ?
mine is 3.6, no school rank.
is that low or average? any thoughts???

-endo PD told me for ADAT they are looking at 540 and more. GPA is 3 or more (I doubt that !!).
-A friend applied to orthodontics and she has GPA 3.6 and the program director told her all the applicants have GPA above 3.7 and can not give her an interview for that matter.
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The PD and Chairs Ive talked to that put an emphasis on GPA usually like 3.8+. But if you have a 3.6 and your rank is top 20 then that's good. This is for coming straight out of school or recent grad.
 
princeafrica said:
The PD and Chairs Ive talked to that put an emphasis on GPA usually like 3.8+. But if you have a 3.6 and your rank is top 20 then that's good. This is for coming straight out of school or recent grad.
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Will that be different for 5 plus years experience?
 
AAdentist said:
Will that be different for 5 plus years experience?
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Sad Please Please Please GIF by myHQ
 
I applied to many programs and I had couple interviews this year. during my interviews: PD asked me if I use microscope and if I did apical surgery!! one of the interviewer told me I do not want high grades! I am looking for passionate applicant!.
one of the program picked their applicant with more than 20 years of experience (doing high end procedures).
but most of the programs picked their residents with one year practice experience and high grade! I heard the PDs care about residents passing the board exam, cares about school reputation. it is not hard to find couple good cases out of 150 cases for the board exam presentation!
looks like experience does not matter like before in previous endo applications.
BUT how you are going to like endo with only doing 10-20 root canals !! I really want to do endo after many root canals procedures, perforations and broken instruments !!
 
Genuine question: why is endo the only residency that wants its applicants to have a ton of experience already doing the thing that residency is supposed to teach them? It's not like ortho wants you to put braces on 20 people before even applying, or OMFS wants you to have placed a single implant. But then for endo everyone is like: OMG you've only done 50 root canals?!!!?? Don't you know harder cases exist???!!!? How could you ever know you want to do this???!!?

I understand they want you to have a better understanding of "what is restorable" I guess, but the RCT # gatekeeping is odd and doesn't happen for any other specialty.
 
Talonslash said:
Genuine question: why is endo the only residency that wants its applicants to have a ton of experience already doing the thing that residency is supposed to teach them? It's not like ortho wants you to put braces on 20 people before even applying, or OMFS wants you to have placed a single implant. But then for endo everyone is like: OMG you've only done 50 root canals?!!!?? Don't you know harder cases exist???!!!? How could you ever know you want to do this???!!?

I understand they want you to have a better understanding of "what is restorable" I guess, but the RCT # gatekeeping is odd and doesn't happen for any other specialty.
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It doesn't.
This cycle is evidence that endo doesn't care about experience any more, let alone endo experience.
 
TargetEndo said:
It doesn't.
This cycle is evidence that endo doesn't care about experience any more, let alone endo experience.
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Maybe some PDs stopped caring, but the sentiment is certainly still there.

Also I'm assuming that is based off vibes and anecdotes since there's like 0 data on nationwide endo applications.
 
Talonslash said:
Genuine question: why is endo the only residency that wants its applicants to have a ton of experience already doing the thing that residency is supposed to teach them? It's not like ortho wants you to put braces on 20 people before even applying, or OMFS wants you to have placed a single implant. But then for endo everyone is like: OMG you've only done 50 root canals?!!!?? Don't you know harder cases exist???!!!? How could you ever know you want to do this???!!?

I understand they want you to have a better understanding of "what is restorable" I guess, but the RCT # gatekeeping is odd and doesn't happen for any other specialty.
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it doesn't anymore!! you can check the current residents on schools website and it confirms that. high grades and if not high ADAT score required.

maybe experience required for all the specialties and for endodontics in particular because endo requires more hand skills for sure! And with microscope it is even more difficult, the more details you see the more you should do better job!! it is even harder in private practice in some cases when you have to do re treat through crowns, deal with ledges, broken files, perforations and...
OMFS: I did more extractions that RCTs during my AEGD, many GPs are doing wisdom teeth extractions and implants by attending courses. for ortho it does not matter that much since it is very different than general dentistry, a whole new world!
 
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Talonslash said:
Genuine question: why is endo the only residency that wants its applicants to have a ton of experience already doing the thing that residency is supposed to teach them? It's not like ortho wants you to put braces on 20 people before even applying, or OMFS wants you to have placed a single implant. But then for endo everyone is like: OMG you've only done 50 root canals?!!!?? Don't you know harder cases exist???!!!? How could you ever know you want to do this???!!?

I understand they want you to have a better understanding of "what is restorable" I guess, but the RCT # gatekeeping is odd and doesn't happen for any other specialty.
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50 RCTs is a good number relatively LOL! for this year at least !!
 
AAdentist said:
it doesn't anymore!! you can check the current residents on schools website and it confirms that. high grades and if not high ADAT score required.

maybe experience required for all the specialties and for endodontics in particular because endo requires more hand skills for sure! And with microscope it is even more difficult, the more details you see the more you should do better job!! it is even harder in private practice in some cases when you have to do re treat through crowns, deal with ledges, broken files, perforations and...
OMFS: I did more extractions that RCTs during my AEGD, many GPs are doing wisdom teeth extractions and implants by attending courses. for ortho it does not matter that much since it is very different than general dentistry, a whole new world!
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Yea, I don’t think they necessarily care about endo experience. I don’t care how many root canals you’ve done because everything will change once you start residency. But it’s nice for directors to get people with experience because they don’t want to spend time helping residents get over the initial hump of just being a provider. Dentistry is hard and the more experience you have the better/ quicker you are going to be at certain things. That makes their job teaching you solely endo a little easier. Plus if you are quick at consulting patients, removing decay, restoring teeth, you’ll be quicker with patients and ultimately be able to study more or see more patients. So it just benefits everyone.

Now experience doesn’t mean everything either. You can have experience and still be really bad at general dentistry and endo. And you can have no experience and come into residency like a rock star. So it depends what experiences directors and chairs have had. My chair just had a military guy come through who was highly recommended who has been brutal so now he’s 2nd guessing that whole route. So one resident experience can make a program pivot on who they accept.
 
FutureDent020 said:
Yea, I don’t think they necessarily care about endo experience. I don’t care how many root canals you’ve done because everything will change once you start residency. But it’s nice for directors to get people with experience because they don’t want to spend time helping residents get over the initial hump of just being a provider. Dentistry is hard and the more experience you have the better/ quicker you are going to be at certain things. That makes their job teaching you solely endo a little easier. Plus if you are quick at consulting patients, removing decay, restoring teeth, you’ll be quicker with patients and ultimately be able to study more or see more patients. So it just benefits everyone.

Now experience doesn’t mean everything either. You can have experience and still be really bad at general dentistry and endo. And you can have no experience and come into residency like a rock star. So it depends what experiences directors and chairs have had. My chair just had a military guy come through who was highly recommended who has been brutal so now he’s 2nd guessing that whole route. So one resident experience can make a program pivot on who they accept.
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Can i use your comment for “WHY YOU ? “ question. !!!
Lol!! Just kidding!
I agree with you.
 
Talonslash said:
Maybe some PDs stopped caring, but the sentiment is certainly still there.

Also I'm assuming that is based off vibes and anecdotes since there's like 0 data on nationwide endo applications.
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They care about the soft skills you get from practicing, they don't care about endo experience. At least with my PD he doesn't want you to have TOO much endo experience because he wants to teach you the "right" way.

There's also a certain maturity and humility that comes with practicing for long enough to see your own failures come back. We had a resident straight out of school, top of the class, the youngest resident at the time, very confident (gunner in school for sure)... he could NOT take constructive criticism at all, literally could not deal with the fact that he was no longer the best (the rest of residents had been out in practice for 3+ years)... it was a nightmare for the faculty and cringe for the other residents. We don't accept D4s anymore.
 
redchesus said:
They care about the soft skills you get from practicing, they don't care about endo experience. At least with my PD he doesn't want you to have TOO much endo experience because he wants to teach you the "right" way.

There's also a certain maturity and humility that comes with practicing for long enough to see your own failures come back. We had a resident straight out of school, top of the class, the youngest resident at the time, very confident (gunner in school for sure)... he could NOT take constructive criticism at all, literally could not deal with the fact that he was no longer the best (the rest of residents had been out in practice for 3+ years)... it was a nightmare for the faculty and cringe for the other residents. We don't accept D4s anymore.
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I agree with this 100%.
Also, patient management. As a specialist, you often get patients where the tooth might be easy but not the patient it's attached to. A few years in private practice can, at the very least, give you some exposure to handling such patients. Even if you might not be proficient at it, it gives you a sense of how to handle each individual that you're treating. Trying to learn THAT in residency in addition to endo can make the whole experience pretty miserable because it is a given that you will face "special" patients in residency too.
 
TargetEndo said:
It doesn't.
This cycle is evidence that endo doesn't care about experience any more, let alone endo experience.
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Sorry, what happened this cycle that leads you to conclude that? Lots of D4s getting accepted this year?
 
Torshammer said:
Sorry, what happened this cycle that leads you to conclude that? Lots of D4s getting accepted this year?
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Yes. And 1-year GPRs. And LOTS of experienced (3-9years) dentists getting stiffed. Of course, there's programs that specifically ONLY interview people with that kind of experience but far too many didn't.
 
TargetEndo said:
Yes. And 1-year GPRs. And LOTS of experienced (3-9years) dentists getting stiffed. Of course, there's programs that specifically ONLY interview people with that kind of experience but far too many didn't.
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how do you know this?
 
TargetEndo said:
Yes. And 1-year GPRs. And LOTS of experienced (3-9years) dentists getting stiffed. Of course, there's programs that specifically ONLY interview people with that kind of experience but far too many didn't.
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There are definitely schools that prefer younger residents. Me, personally, I was wary of those because they're either big research schools (I'm not a research person nor interested in academia) or they didn't have enough patients so a new grad taking 4-8 hours per tooth matched their patient flow.
 
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AAdentist said:
I applied to many programs and I had couple interviews this year. during my interviews: PD asked me if I use microscope and if I did apical surgery!! one of the interviewer told me I do not want high grades! I am looking for passionate applicant!.
one of the program picked their applicant with more than 20 years of experience (doing high end procedures).
but most of the programs picked their residents with one year practice experience and high grade! I heard the PDs care about residents passing the board exam, cares about school reputation. it is not hard to find couple good cases out of 150 cases for the board exam presentation!
looks like experience does not matter like before in previous endo applications.
BUT how you are going to like endo with only doing 10-20 root canals !! I really want to do endo after many root canals procedures, perforations and broken instruments !!
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Which program just wants passion and not so much grades? Asking for… a friend.
 
TargetEndo said:
Yes. And 1-year GPRs. And LOTS of experienced (3-9years) dentists getting stiffed. Of course, there's programs that specifically ONLY interview people with that kind of experience but far too many didn't.
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It would be nice to have statistics on it to see how much of a trend it really is.

I would wager there are many more experienced dentists with 3-9 years experience applying the past few cycles and they just don’t stand out as much. Good experience with mediocre grades just won’t cut it, the applicant pool is too strong.

Also more gunners coming out of school going for endo that previously would go for ortho, OS, etc perhaps now that endo average income is trending upward?
 
endo135 said:
Endo is seeing alot of OMFS type of applicants (top 1/3 in class, research, leadership, 1 year gpr/aegd) that dont want to do 4-6 years of omfs residency. Even highly clinical programs are accepting more of these candidates. The more experienced candidates alot of times have a military background or public health, not private practice. This has been my observation being a first endo resident
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Is public health experience better than private practice? I don’t think it matters!
 
Anyone applied to case western university? When they will start sending invites?
 
AAdentist said:
Anyone applied to case western university? When they will start sending invites?
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In last year's cycle, they sent interview invites in November, so I wouldn't expect any earlier than late October.
 
Anybody hear anything from Penn? Interviews were completed a couple of weeks ago.
 
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