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whateveryoulike
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I did 200+, and I think that helped. It showed that I knew what I was getting into, and not going to get to Dental School and see that Dentistry was not for me. But I think I am on the high end of shadowing hours.
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whateveryoulike
how many hours did most of the other people at your interviews have?
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whateveryoulike
i was thinking about the added benefit of the third digit (as ridiculous and petty as that sounds, lol) but it might just come down to lack of time since I'm working on research too.
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It's not just a 'third digit'. The most any dental school requires or recommends is 100, therefore if you get 100 shadowing hours, you have met the requirement for every school and can apply anywhere. Off the top of my head, I believe Pitt, NYU, and UW require 100 shadowing hours. Harvard may have that same requirement as well, not sure. UIC recommends 100 shadowing hours.
Do a search of the forum. Doc Toothache posted the exact shadowing hours required by each school a few months back.
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whateveryoulike
thanks bro, I found the post you were talking about and most of the schools I'm applying to don't have a requirement, but the ones that do are set at 40 or below. 🙂 I'll still prob try and go over the 40 since I don't like being at the minimum. A lot of schools have minimum GPA requirements but how often do you see someone even get an interview with the minimum right? better to be on the safe side.
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I know UW pretty much requires at least 100 hours of shadowing/volunteering/working in dental clinic environment.
Edit: sorry, didn't read previous poster
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Remember, job shadowing is a classic case of quality over quantity. You can have 200 hours of job shadowing on your application and have a very limited opinion when it comes to different dentists and their styles of practicing dentistry. Ultimately, when you think you've experienced a broad range of dental philosophy, that should be enough...that could be 40, 200, 20...whatever.
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whateveryoulike
I agree with everything you said. If I were ever making admissions decisions I would look more favorably on an applicant with 10hrs at 10 diff dentists than an applicant with 100hrs at 1 dentist. I shadowed a few dentists for a few procedures before picking the one that I felt had the best philosophy overall.
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Exactly. I've shadowed a few different dentists. One of them is very much in it for the money...one of them is very much in it to have all the fancy gadgets in his office (he just got a new cnc machine for crowns), and the other is in it for the people...He knows his patients pretty well, cuts people breaks on cost when he knows they're on tough times, etc...It definitely helps to get exposed to a bunch of different styles...
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Ya, my dentist that I go to and also shadowed has had one of those for a little while and they are frickin sweet. Its a fun process to watch.
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whateveryoulike
yep, same here. the dentist im shadowing right now has one of those. yeah when i saw his office I commented on all the cool new tools he has and he said "you think thats cool then check this out!" and got excited about showing me the machine. hes the coolest Dentist ive met and is really chill to be around and I got rediculously lucky in finding a solid dentist.
