***TMDSAS 2016***

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The interview is one hour long at Houston (or so). They do have your file and they have a list of questions that they must ask. My interviewer liked to just converse for a little and let the questions come organically. There were a few awkward questions that he started off by saying "So I hate to ask this, but...". Some of the questions were pretty generic like what's your biggest strength and stuff like that. One of the harder (but not really unexpected) questions was "What is an ethical dilemma you've faced?". He also asked me what I would do if I was working in a group practice and one of the dentists became addicted to drugs. That was pretty awkward and he didn't seem very satisfied with my answer for whatever reason. For some reason my interviewer was the only one that didn't do hour long interviews. He concluded both of his interviews after 30 minutes which made me kind of uncomfortable thinking I did something wrong. So don't fear if that happens to you! That's just him. Let me know if you were curious about anything else. I'm kinda just writing whatever comes to mind.
 
derek11 said:
The interview is one hour long at Houston (or so). They do have your file and they have a list of questions that they must ask. My interviewer liked to just converse for a little and let the questions come organically. There were a few awkward questions that he started off by saying "So I hate to ask this, but...". Some of the questions were pretty generic like what's your biggest strength and stuff like that. One of the harder (but not really unexpected) questions was "What is an ethical dilemma you've faced?". He also asked me what I would do if I was working in a group practice and one of the dentists became addicted to drugs. That was pretty awkward and he didn't seem very satisfied with my answer for whatever reason. For some reason my interviewer was the only one that didn't do hour long interviews. He concluded both of his interviews after 30 minutes which made me kind of uncomfortable thinking I did something wrong. So don't fear if that happens to you! That's just him. Let me know if you were curious about anything else. I'm kinda just writing whatever comes to mind.
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Thanks for the reply! It was helpful, I'm really just curious about the interview. So, there's only one interview with one faculty basically for about an hour?
 
I haven't heard anything and am starting to feel really worried...do I even have a shot at a pre-dec interview from any school? 🙁

bcpm/overall (on tmdsas): 3.6 / 3.65
DAT: 22AA/20 bio/21 GC/21 OC/24 PAT/21 QR/26 RC
 
I think your stat is great and definitely competitive so I understand why you feel that way ! Do you have any OOS interviews? you have a great chance for private OOS schools!
 
predent816 said:
I haven't heard anything and am starting to feel really worried...do I even have a shot at a pre-dec interview from any school? 🙁

bcpm/overall (on tmdsas): 3.6 / 3.65
DAT: 22AA/20 bio/21 GC/21 OC/24 PAT/21 QR/26 RC
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Man that's rough. No OOS invites? In another thread you said you only had 30 hours shadowing, that greatly reduces your chances at Baylor since they require at least 75 shadowing hours (might be 100 now, not sure).

However, all your other stats look good and luckily Houston and San Antonio interview well past December 1st. Baylor, not so much.
 
Something I've been wondering...

Why do you think that Baylor is able to be more selective than SA and Houston? Baylor interviews fewer applicants, fills most of their class in Dec, and has a lower acceptance to interview ratio than SA and Houston.

If the numbers in the ADEA guide are accurate, Baylor only accepts ~130 to fill their class of ~100, while SA and Houston accept around 200 or more to fill their classes (also ~100).

Considering Baylor has older facilities in a not-so-great area and is slightly notorious for very demanding lab work, what do you think causes this? Is it reputation? Is it because they're cheaper? Are they just scary good at figuring out which applicants will choose them back?
 
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SXCoronado said:
Does anyone know if city of origin is considered? I'm from Dallas and was interviewed their first date, and I've met people from Houston who are interviewed early in Houston's cycle, but have heard nothing from Baylor right now.
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I'm in the Houston area and my first interview was at Baylor, my last (so far?) at Houston.
 
SXCoronado said:
Does anyone know if city of origin is considered? I'm from Dallas and was interviewed their first date, and I've met people from Houston who are interviewed early in Houston's cycle, but have heard nothing from Baylor right now.
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During my Houston interview my interviewer told me that the order in which they interview is based solely on statistics. He said there was a formula that took into account your GPAs and DAT scores
 
My spreadsheet definitely supports the idea that higher GPAs and/or DATs are interviewed first.
 
Yeah so Baylor and San Antonio take a 'holistic' approach to the applications. They thoroughly read the applications and take everything you have to offer into account. They rank you based on that and then send out interviews. (.this is what I have gathered from interviewing at both places). On the other hand, Houston receives the ranks from TMDSAS (yes, TMDSAS sends them a rank) and hands out interviews based that. TMDSAS takes gpa/DAT into account when ranking your application. The good news, if you did really well in school and didn't do many extracurriculars, you have a good chance of getting an interview at Houston. The bad news, you interview will suck.
 
Is Baylor done sending out interviews? And has anyone received any other invites from Texas recently?
 
For pre-December yes. Post December, probably not.

Haven't heard or seen much movement on the invite side of things. Thanksgiving break is only two weeks away and then it's D day... yikes!

EDIT: Nevermind! Someone just posted a UTHSC-SA invite in the interview thread.
 
uht said:
I'm not in state. I called Baylor admissions today. They said if I didn't hear anything from them before the end of November, there is no chance for me to have an interview. Sad
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OOS and thought I had a chance...
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Dentalkid20 said:
Yeah so Baylor and San Antonio take a 'holistic' approach to the applications. They thoroughly read the applications and take everything you have to offer into account. They rank you based on that and then send out interviews. (.this is what I have gathered from interviewing at both places). On the other hand, Houston receives the ranks from TMDSAS (yes, TMDSAS sends them a rank) and hands out interviews based that. TMDSAS takes gpa/DAT into account when ranking your application. The good news, if you did really well in school and didn't do many extracurriculars, you have a good chance of getting an interview at Houston. The bad news, you interview will suck.
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I thought it was Houston and SA that take the holistic approach and Baylor that truly cares about biology classes and volunteering? Guess I was wrong.
 
DentalLonghorn2014 said:
I thought it was Houston and SA that take the holistic approach and Baylor that truly cares about biology classes and volunteering? Guess I was wrong.
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Not saying they don't take that into account as well. But when I interviewed at Baylor they knew everything about me (aka they thoroughly read my entire app). I just had the impression they looked more at my entire application not just my stats when deciding to give me an interview.
 
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Dentalkid20 said:
Not saying they don't take that into account as well. But when I interviewed at Baylor they knew everything about me (aka they thoroughly read my entire app). I just had the impression they looked more at my entire application not just my stats when deciding to give me an interview.
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Ah gotcha. I appreciate the input! 🙂
 
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