Specializing: What's a good dental school GPA to aim for?

[Incis0r]

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[AirborneDentist]

It depends on what specialty you are looking for.

For ortho/os, you want at least a 3.8 and top 10% of your class. At least.

For the others, I would say a 3.6 would be pretty good. If you are in the top 10-20%, that would be pretty good.

 

[Incis0r]

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[agent2362]

I completely understand that military dental specialties look at the whole package including fitness reports, annual evaluations, letters of recommendation, etc.

However, I have repeatedly heard that dental school GPA and class rank are both very important metrics used to assess candidates.

So, my question is- what is a good GPA to shoot for? I know that a 4.0 is ideal, but I'm looking for the point beyond which a good GPA and class rank doesn't matter anymore- does that make any sense?

I just want a general idea of what to aim for.

So is it 3.8? 3.5? Top 10%? Top 20%?

Thank you!

Depends on your situation, but I think that more years in service + Army extracurriculars (Expert field medical badge, airborne, air assault) + deployments + good ratings can all add up to make up for subpar grades. I know one oral surgeon at my base who had a 3.2 GPA in dental school and another who had 3.0 at Ft. Bragg. In both cases, they spent quite a few years in the service before they were chosen. One female captain I know applied for an ortho position 4 years in row before she was finally picked up off the waitlist. But yes generally speaking if you want to picked up right away out of school, you need to be in the top 20% and top 10% would be an almost guaranteed opportunity for any specialty. The one great exception to this is the Bravo program. Ironically, I've seen people get rejected for the one year AEGD but get picked up the following year for the 2 year AEGD (Bravo program).

 

[Incis0r]

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[vellnueve]

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