please help me T-T...

[scott326]

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Hello!

I am a third year student at University of Toronto and completing my BSc degree in physiology and human biology. I want to get into dental school and recently, I got interested in applying to US dental schools and have been crazily looking for advice from pre-dent students studying in America.

In Canada, the admission requirements to dental school are quite different.
Only criteria the admission committees look at are your GPA, DAT score and interview. Sounds simple but since they don't look at your extracurriculars. you need to have stellar GPAs to be even considered for an interview (3.85+).

Originally I've been aiming for Canadian dental school so I prioritized academics over other things. Fortunately, I excelled my years and achieved a strong grade point average (3.95~3.97). I wrote canadian DAT a few weeks ago and the results will be coming out sometime in April.

My concern is that, I do not have many extracurricular activities and dental experience. But what I heard was that American schools value your EC as important as your academic performance?

The list of the extracurriculars I have done so far:
1) The Vice-President of South Korean Student Association for a year
2) Member of the club that helps new North Korean immigrants settle
(translation, tutoring,etc) 3 hours a week (only for a year)
3) Private tutoring at high school level (8 hours a week for 2 months)😛aid position
4) currently, helping out the school with admission process (personal statement evaluator)
5) Dental shadowing for 15 hours so far
6) Volunteering at nursing home for 40 hours (during high school though)
7) volunteer note-taker for some of the courses I am taking
8) volunteer teaching position (2 hours a week for two month)

I admit that my EC is not strong and wonder if my strong GPA can compensate for it. I think I did ok on DAT and I carefully predict the scores to be aroudn 20~23 in all the sections.

During the summer I am now considering going on dental mission trip to Honduras where I can practice basic dental clinical care on patients.
Do you think that this volunteer opportunity is worth taking. (it costs $3000 only for 2 weeks volunteering..)

To sum up, I would like to know
1) what are my chances right now? (I'm applying this June and thinking of applying to a few prestigious dental schools (UPenn, Colum, NYU)

2) What improvements should I make? (more dental shadowing? DAT? more volunteering?)

3) How important is an interview?
- I'm a new immigrant and I am still learning English.... so I am very worried about an interview..

Thank you in advance for reading such a long post!

Hope you all enjoy a smell of spring!

 

[yjdentist]

Hello!

I am a third year student at University of Toronto and completing my BSc degree in physiology and human biology. I want to get into dental school and recently, I got interested in applying to US dental schools and have been crazily looking for advice from pre-dent students studying in America.

In Canada, the admission requirements to dental school are quite different.
Only criteria the admission committees look at are your GPA, DAT score and interview. Sounds simple but since they don't look at your extracurriculars. you need to have stellar GPAs to be even considered for an interview (3.85+).

Originally I've been aiming for Canadian dental school so I prioritized academics over other things. Fortunately, I excelled my years and achieved a strong grade point average (3.95~3.97). I wrote canadian DAT a few weeks ago and the results will be coming out sometime in April.

My concern is that, I do not have many extracurricular activities and dental experience. But what I heard was that American schools value your EC as important as your academic performance?

The list of the extracurriculars I have done so far:
1) The Vice-President of South Korean Student Association for a year
2) Member of the club that helps new North Korean immigrants settle
(translation, tutoring,etc) 3 hours a week (only for a year)
3) Private tutoring at high school level (8 hours a week for 2 months)😛aid position
4) currently, helping out the school with admission process (personal statement evaluator)
5) Dental shadowing for 15 hours so far
6) Volunteering at nursing home for 40 hours (during high school though)
7) volunteer note-taker for some of the courses I am taking
8) volunteer teaching position (2 hours a week for two month)

I admit that my EC is not strong and wonder if my strong GPA can compensate for it. I think I did ok on DAT and I carefully predict the scores to be aroudn 20~23 in all the sections.

During the summer I am now considering going on dental mission trip to Honduras where I can practice basic dental clinical care on patients.
Do you think that this volunteer opportunity is worth taking. (it costs $3000 only for 2 weeks volunteering..)

To sum up, I would like to know
1) what are my chances right now? (I'm applying this June and thinking of applying to a few prestigious dental schools (UPenn, Colum, NYU)

2) What improvements should I make? (more dental shadowing? DAT? more volunteering?)

3) How important is an interview?
- I'm a new immigrant and I am still learning English.... so I am very worried about an interview..

Thank you in advance for reading such a long post!

Hope you all enjoy a smell of spring!

You have nothing to worry about! As much as the American schools talk about how important your ECs are, the main things that determine your acceptance are GPA, DAT, and the interview. Even then, your ECs are perfectly FINE. Only thing I am worried about is the fact that you are INTERNATIONAL. But I wouldn't even worry about that too much because your GPA is so high. I just hope you score high on DAT.

To sum up, I would like to know
1) what are my chances right now? (I'm applying this June and thinking of applying to a few prestigious dental schools (UPenn, Colum, NYU)
Your chances are HIGH. 3.9 GPA with a pretty good DAT will get you into pretty much any school (as a US applicant). From what I've observed, Columbia seems to emphasize high DAT score a little more than other schools. I think with a little more research, you will learn that you are a little more qualified than average NYU applicants, but I would definitely recommend you apply to NYU because they have a larger class size than other schools and you will have a higher chance of being accepted as an international student. Consider Tufts and BU.

2) What improvements should I make? (more dental shadowing? DAT? more volunteering?)
More dental shadowing with different specialists- periodontists, orthodontists, general dentists... Keep up the good work with GPA.

3) How important is an interview?
- I'm a new immigrant and I am still learning English.... so I am very worried about an interview..
Often what schools want out of interview is to evaluate what kind of person you are in person. I wouldn't worry about your English. I would worry about expressing your interest in dentistry, who you are as a person, and where your passion lies...

 

[scott326]

oh thank you soooo much for your kind, detailed answer!!

but my question is, do American schools go harsh on international students?

like higher g.p.a needed?

I don't have American citizenship but want to study in America..

😡

 

[dentalWorks]

My comments = blue

Hello!

I am a third year student at University of Toronto and completing my BSc degree in physiology and human biology. I want to get into dental school and recently, I got interested in applying to US dental schools and have been crazily looking for advice from pre-dent students studying in America.

In Canada, the admission requirements to dental school are quite different.
Only criteria the admission committees look at are your GPA, DAT score and interview. Sounds simple but since they don't look at your extracurriculars. you need to have stellar GPAs to be even considered for an interview (3.85+).

Originally I've been aiming for Canadian dental school so I prioritized academics over other things. Fortunately, I excelled my years and achieved a strong grade point average (3.95~3.97). I wrote canadian DAT a few weeks ago and the results will be coming out sometime in April.

My concern is that, I do not have many extracurricular activities and dental experience. But what I heard was that American schools value your EC as important as your academic performance?

The list of the extracurriculars I have done so far:
1) The Vice-President of South Korean Student Association for a year
2) Member of the club that helps new North Korean immigrants settle
(translation, tutoring,etc) 3 hours a week (only for a year)
3) Private tutoring at high school level (8 hours a week for 2 months)😛aid position
4) currently, helping out the school with admission process (personal statement evaluator)
5) Dental shadowing for 15 hours so far
6) Volunteering at nursing home for 40 hours (during high school though)
7) volunteer note-taker for some of the courses I am taking
8) volunteer teaching position (2 hours a week for two month)

I admit that my EC is not strong and wonder if my strong GPA can compensate for it. I think I did ok on DAT and I carefully predict the scores to be aroudn 20~23 in all the sections.

During the summer I am now considering going on dental mission trip to Honduras where I can practice basic dental clinical care on patients.
Do you think that this volunteer opportunity is worth taking. (it costs $3000 only for 2 weeks volunteering..)

To sum up, I would like to know
1) what are my chances right now? (I'm applying this June and thinking of applying to a few prestigious dental schools (UPenn, Colum, NYU)
The best thing you can do is to seek out the schools that have a reputation of accepting international students. Michigan, Detroit Mercy, and I believe Nova do this.

2) What improvements should I make? (more dental shadowing? DAT? more volunteering?)
Lets see how your DAT comes out... meanwhile, get some shadowing, this is critical. How are you going to convince your interviewer that you are making a sound choice if you've never seen what dentistry is all about?

3) How important is an interview?
- I'm a new immigrant and I am still learning English.... so I am very worried about an interview..
I met a some international pre-dents on my interview days, some of them spoke good English, others were "so-so", I mean they KNEW English, just their pronunciation was off.... I don't think you need to worry about this much, especially if your Reading comp score is good

Thank you in advance for reading such a long post!

Hope you all enjoy a smell of spring!

 

[MAdental]

With your GPA you should be able to get interviews at canadian universities. Why do you you wana pay 200K extra?

 

[scott326]

well, the thing is that I would like to practice dentistry in my home country ( S.Korea) and surely the prestige of the graduate schools do matter there. Sadly, they prefer American schools to Canadian ones. That is one of many reasons I want to go to American schools : it's worth paying 200K at the end.

but i guess in North America it does not matter much which dental school you go to???

 

[dentalWorks]

well, the thing is that I would like to practice dentistry in my home country ( S.Korea) and surely the prestige of the graduate schools do matter there. Sadly, they prefer American schools to Canadian ones. That is one of many reasons I want to go to American schools : it's worth paying 200K at the end.

but i guess in North America it does not matter much which dental school you go to???

nope, no difference what-so-ever

 

[notin]

well, the thing is that I would like to practice dentistry in my home country ( S.Korea) and surely the prestige of the graduate schools do matter there. Sadly, they prefer American schools to Canadian ones. That is one of many reasons I want to go to American schools : it's worth paying 200K at the end.

but i guess in North America it does not matter much which dental school you go to???

only reason it would matter is if you want to specialize, and even then, it's debatable whether a school that has a higher % of people specialize is actually easier to specialize at, due to the increased competition. (this is aside from a school or two that have less than stellar reputations, which you might want to avoid...)

and too, don't stress over extracurriculars. aim to shadow for 100 hours at dental offices of varying types and you are set. EC's are only important if you have none, and you have a good amount, or if you're a borderline candidate otherwise, which you aren't.