Let me help you guys here!!!
First, as a previous summer enrichment program participant, I would like to share with you that it is not only worth it, but it is extremely rewarding!!
At these dental summer enrichment programs, not only will you get the exposure to actual dental laboratories and clinics, but you'll have the upper advantage in many other areas such as meeting current faculty members, students, and admissions staff. Things I've gained from my summer dental program:
1) Radiograph interpretation (reading various dental x-rays defining calculus, work done on teeth., etc.)
2) Teeth carving from wax (actual assignments for first year students)
3) Teeth wax ups (crowns, bridges, pontics, etc.)
4) dental anatomy course (learned everything about the tooth's histology to anatomy and briefly on occlusion)
5) Get your hands on actual dental instruments to practice/test your manual dexterity (burs, slow speed, fast speed, carvers, Half-Hollenback)
6) Exposure to faculty members (I feel that this is one of the most important reward that I gained from my summer program)
7) Mock patient diagnoses, treatments, and prevention plans
8) Actual do fillings on fake teeth (amalgams and resin composites)
9) Tons of observation times in tons of general procedures and specialties!!
There are just so much more to tell!! You're actually doing a lot of things that a first year dental student would do! Extremely rewarding!
When I showed my teeth carvings from my summer program to my interviews at Temple, not only were they impressed, but they've all personally told that I will have an upper hand in my class cause I've already done it! For my summer program, we had to do two teeth carvings from wax, but I was getting so efficient and excited that I carved 14 different teeth all together (1st molars, 3rd molars, front incisors, 1st pre-molars, 2 pre-molars, canine, lateral incisors form both maxillary and mandibular arches)!! I just went nuts!!! Now these carvings are carved to their specific size just like real teeth! The anatomy of the teeth are the big things here!! Every grove, cusps, root length, defined the CEJ, I'm talking about EVERYTHING must to be exact according to the real tooth and the carving manual! This is one of the reasons why many dental schools have you collect extracted teeth prior to your matriculation as your first assignment so you can have something to model your was carvings to!!
Also, another plus about these summer programs is that you'll get to know some of the current faculty members and students really well. Prior to the end of the summer program, I actually had a professor at the dental school write me a letter of recommendation for my current AADSAS application!!!
At any rate, enough of me telling you guys my awesome experience, here's are some info about these programs!!
For Marquette University School of Dentistry (this is the program that I attended and experienced last summer):
<a href="http://www.marquette.edu/hcop/discollege_programs.html" target="_blank">http://www.marquette.edu/hcop/discollege_programs.html</a>
click on Summer Science Enrichement Program II (SSEP II)
For Baylor College of Dentistry:
<a href="http://www.tambcd.edu/stddev/spep/spep.html" target="_blank">http://www.tambcd.edu/stddev/spep/spep.html</a>
Application for these program are pretty competitive as well! Hope this helped you guys!! I strongly recommend to apply to these programs to improve your future application success chances! Besides these two dental schools, I know there are many more out there. Again, be proactive and do your research!!
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