Undergraduate selection

[yogapony]

My stepdaughter is a current HS senior and wants to ultimately go to dental school and do maxillofacial surgery. I'm a veterinarian, so can advise her as far as the basic steps - taking prereq's, good scores on DAT, etc. but she's struggling to choose an undergraduate program that will best meet her goals. She's been fortunate to receive multiple acceptances, from highly reputed schools. But I don't know enough about dental school admissions to guide her between choosing the "name" school that does not have a dental school or the less "impressive" one that does have a dental school. For vet school applications there are opportunities provided by having a vet school at your undergrad that can be a huge advantage, but ultimately it will obviously come down to academic performance and her application. Any advice re: opportunities at an undergrad with affiliated dental program?

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[sobertiger]

Doesn't matter where she goes. Just needs to have a solid GPA and DAT score, along with nice rec letters and volunteer, shadowing experiences. Package that in a nice story and she'll get in somewhere.

 

[artist2022]

The name of the school doesn't matter at all - only GPA and DAT do. Pick the one she'll be able to get a high GPA at, and that is cheap, even if you are footing the bill - dental school is expensive no matter where you go and it'd be better to save what you can for undergrad and put it toward dental school.

Having a dental school affiliated with the undergrad can help with networking/shadowing the dental students in clinic, etc., but she won't be able to do very much and it doesn't guarantee she'd get into that school - it'd maybe give her a very slight advantage, but not much, so don't let that be your deciding factor.

 

[AfterEffects]

GPA and DAT score are by far the most important. It's been 4 year since I've done dental school interviews, but I will say that reputation of the undergraduate program does matter somewhat (very minimally though). When she gets to applying to OMFS, dental schools with established OMFS departments matter a lot.

 

[ToothJockey]

Are you paying for school?

If not, tell her to go the cheapest route possible. Maxillofacial surgery is a minimum 12 years away, the best way to get there is with the least debt


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