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For those who specialized, what is it that you did during dental school that helped you match to your specialty?
Specializing
- Thread starter kiddodent2
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Another one?
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second this
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sadly true, grades. dentistry residency unfortunately doesn't realize this isn't medicine and the first 4 years of dental are not mostly academic. but at least for the next 50 yrs until something will change, its mostly grades, rank etc., great recommendations from the right people are probably gold.
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Yup, most specialty programs look at class rank. Having high class rank can tell a lot about a person:
- He/she works a lot harder than most of his/her classmates.
- He/she is not only good in the didactic portion but in the clinical portion as well.
- If he/she has other things like research, OS externship, being a class president, volunteerings etc in addition to having good grades, it shows that he/she has good time management skill.
- Being a highly responsible person.
- Having positive attitude toward studying.
- Having the ability to think and work independently.
I don’t think I have any of the above qualities. I did, however, study a lot harder than most of my classmates because it took me a little bit longer to read the same material (English is not my first language). I was lucky that I went to a P/F dental school and the only thing that helped me get 7 interviews (out of the 17 ortho programs that I applied to) was my national board part 1 score. I spent nearly 3 months (7 days/week) to study for the exam and I got a 94.
For OS, the programs have to select candidates with high class rank and good CBSE score because they want to make sure that the OS residents can handle med school and pass the USMLE step 1, step 2 and other exams. They have to make sure that their OS residents can handle 60-80/week workload.
- He/she works a lot harder than most of his/her classmates.
- He/she is not only good in the didactic portion but in the clinical portion as well.
- If he/she has other things like research, OS externship, being a class president, volunteerings etc in addition to having good grades, it shows that he/she has good time management skill.
- Being a highly responsible person.
- Having positive attitude toward studying.
- Having the ability to think and work independently.
I don’t think I have any of the above qualities. I did, however, study a lot harder than most of my classmates because it took me a little bit longer to read the same material (English is not my first language). I was lucky that I went to a P/F dental school and the only thing that helped me get 7 interviews (out of the 17 ortho programs that I applied to) was my national board part 1 score. I spent nearly 3 months (7 days/week) to study for the exam and I got a 94.
For OS, the programs have to select candidates with high class rank and good CBSE score because they want to make sure that the OS residents can handle med school and pass the USMLE step 1, step 2 and other exams. They have to make sure that their OS residents can handle 60-80/week workload.
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Sometimes you need a little luck. During DS ... I hung out in the graduate ortho department alot. I helped the ortho residents and the ortho attendings with their research projects and anything else they needed. Yeah .... that's right. I kissed alot of a**. At one ortho program I interviewed at .... the orthodontist on the adcom happen to be one of the attendings I helped out in dental school. He moved to that program a year ago. I'm pretty sure that knowing that ortho attending helped my cause as I was accepted to that stipend paying program.
