Schools that heavily consider research

[PittPreDental]

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What schools heavily consider research when applying? I've taken a year off working as a dental research assistant, seeing cleft families, determining the genetic and environmental causes of oral-facial clefting, and I have around 2000 hours of research experience. I wanted to use this as an advantage and apply to schools that considers research very important.

I know schools like well rounded applicants, and I do have great ECs other than research as well (shadowing, volunteering, service to underserved community, leadership. etc. Therefore, what schools would strongly take research into account?

Thanks everyone!

 

[whitepapertree]

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[quigz]

What schools heavily consider research when applying? I've taken a year off working as a dental research assistant, seeing cleft families, determining the genetic and environmental causes of oral-facial clefting, and I have around 2000 hours of research experience. I wanted to use this as an advantage and apply to schools that considers research very important.

I know schools like well rounded applicants, and I do have great ECs other than research as well (shadowing, volunteering, service to underserved community, leadership. etc. Therefore, what schools would strongly take research into account?

Thanks everyone!

Harvard & UCSF!

 

[BrazilianRider]

Pitt, incidentally, is a huge research school. Then I'd say Columbia but I'm not sure.

 

[sjv]

http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/grantsandf...ons/RankListingAcademicInstitutionsFY2014.htm
http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/grantsandf...talSchools/GrantstoDentalInstitutions2014.htm

 

[DetermineDent]

University of Florida, but they are a state school accepting only about 10% OOS

 

[Typical Average Student]

Look into schools that offer the dual PhD programs, they generally like people who have research experience.

 

[PittPreDental]

Grant totals from NIDCR don't really tell you anything in terms of admissions considering research. The students don't bring in all that grant money, PIs do.

 

[PittPreDental]

Look into schools that offer the dual PhD programs, they generally like people who have research experience.

Yeah that's a good idea, I'll look into that.

 

[PittPreDental]

Pitt, incidentally, is a huge research school. Then I'd say Columbia but I'm not sure.

I would LOVE to go to Pitt 🙂

 

[gsquared]

not to thread-jack, but do you guys feel that these schools and assessments apply to all kinds of research? I did one summer of pedagogical research (making a laboratory exercise for undergraduates) and did another summer of pharmaceutical research. Neither of these were directly dental-related...

 

[DetermineDent]

not to thread-jack, but do you guys feel that these schools and assessments apply to all kinds of research? I did one summer of pedagogical research (making a laboratory exercise for undergraduates) and did another summer of pharmaceutical research. Neither of these were directly dental-related...

When I talked to UF about it, they didn't seem to care. They wanted to see if you had a particular passion about something, like research or volunteering and be able to show the same passion for dentistry.

 

[dds2b219]

UCSF, Harvard, Michigan, UCLA?

 

[PittPreDental]

Your last statement that it's the PIs who bring in the money is true. But think about it. If the PIs are good enough to get funded, then their schools must have cared enough about research to recruit them in the first place. Having high-caliber PIs, as evidenced by their funding history, is an indicator of the schools' emphasis on research. If the schools didn't care about research, they would not have bothered with hiring brilliant/well-known PIs. So your first statement is false.

Also, if we assume that schools' offering DDS/PhD programs is indicative of their interest in research, then you will see that such schools are higher ranked in sjv's links, suggesting that grant totals positively correlate with school's interest in research.

Yeah there's somewhat of a correlation between grant funding and the dental schools emphasis on research sure. I'm not saying there is zero correlation. But only looking at how much money each school brought in from NIDCR doesn't automatically indicate that admissions are strongly interested in research. I believe this is more complex than that.
In terms of the amount of grant you receive, this heavily depends on the topic of research. For example, cancer research receives enormous amount of funding compared to any dental research. Schools can be very interested in research, but due to their topic of research they may receive only a limited amount of funding. So I don't see how we can assume that more funding = schools interest in research. Funding is dependent on too many variables such as PIs and the topic of research.
I feel like it may be a better to research each school on their research focus and determine if these areas relate to what I've done.

All that being said, I really appreciate everyone's help and input