podiatry vs dental vs optom vs med

[manvswild]

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i've really enjoyed looking around these forums!
just a quick question:
can someone tell me the order from most to least competitive for entrance into the following types of programs:

medical
podiatric
optometric (eye doctor)
dental

or does it just depend solely on the school itself?

Thanks SO much...just completed my prerequisites as a sophomore at university

 

[songaila]

I think this topic has been covered a millions times. I believe there was a thread about how many applied and how many got accepted. The applications/acceptance ratio. If you use this as a "guide", dentistry is actually the most competitive and podiatry being the least competitive.

As far as admissions goes, I think everyone would agree that Med/Dental are hard to get in. Of course there are schools with lower stats. Optometry school is also not easy to get in. Also, I know some PA or PT schools have very high GPA too.

A couple of podiatry schools are very hard to get in. You need high GPA and decent MCAT to get in. However, for the rest of the podiatry schools, all you need is a pulse. There is absolutely no standard for the rest of the schools. You can do a search on this forum and you will find out which one. I think it is damaging the profession.

It is very very hard to get into any med/dental/opt(besides Howard, meharry.etc puerto rico) with a below 3.0 or an extremely low test scores. However, for SOME podiatry schools, there is no standard and you can submit any test scores.

I hope that answers your questions.

 

[PMSIII]

i've really enjoyed looking around these forums!
just a quick question:
can someone tell me the order from most to least competitive for entrance into the following types of programs:

medical
podiatric
optometric (eye doctor)
dental

or does it just depend solely on the school itself?

Thanks SO much...just completed my prerequisites as a sophomore at university

I didn't apply to the other schools so i can't really asess the "competitiveness". In fact, you're not going to find too many people who applied for medical, podiatric, optometry, and dental schools at once to give you a fair asessment.

As far as minimum requirements. Its fair to say that MD/DDS are on top due to high demand and amount of applicants, optometry and podiatry will follow and this will vary from school to school - as some schools have high standards and others have significantly less requirements.

For your situation, just worry about getting good grades and investigating which route you want to take - and pursue that route. All professions that you listed above are fine and rewarding - so shadow docs, do some personal reflecting (soul searching, etc), and then pursue a route. Good luck.

 

[Shann9989]

I understand where you're coming from Manvswild, I too am in the great debate of undergraduate pre-med pre-podo yada yada. My heart belongs to podiatry however. Its VERY tempting to go after whatever is the least competitive BUT DO NOT DO THAT. You will always kick yourself for not going after what you REALLY want to do just b/c its "competitive." If you want MD, go for it, if you don't get in you can reasses your options, strengthen your application by going to grad school/research etc and reapply, the average accepted applicant in md schools is 25 now so it takes more than one shot a maybe a little more life experience. Don't go podiatry because its easier to get into....go into it because its one of the few health professions where you get to be the surgeon AND the primary....or that its a field tha'ts growing and you really want to help expand and give it a good name. Good luck and I feel your pain!!