Unusual non-trad situation

[mintysweet]

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Hello, I'm a nontraditional student who wants to go to dental school. I'm in an unusual situation and so I would really appreciate some advice.


Long story short, I left the US immediately after graduating in 2015. My husband and i moved to a foreign country that is embargoed by other nations to be with his father, who had received a stage IV diagnosis of a very aggressive cancer. We planned to return quickly, but ended up staying until after his father passed away, years later. During this period I was unable to work or continue my education because of my status as a foreigner in that country, despite fighting tooth and nail for years. These three years of stagnation and isolation led to a lot of self discovery and I decided that I really want to become a dentist. Now I'm finally returning to the US and so I'm trying to figure out my path to dental school. The questions I have are:

1) Won't dental schools want to know why I apparently fell off the face of the earth for 3+ years? I accumulated about 300 hours of shadowing and assisting while overseas but I doubt they will count towards US school admission.

2) How to make myself a competitive applicant? I need to take a lot of prereqs, but I was a bio minor so it seems like the most efficient path is to DIY postbacc. How do go about this? Because it appears to be that if I apply to schools as a freshman/second bachelors I will be forced to retake the prerqes I already have, which is pretty redundant.

3) Should I enroll in an online MBA or MPH program so I have something to show for these last three years? I figure at least an MBA might help me run a practice later on. Would either of those programs be looked at favorably by dental schools?



Thanks for your time reading this!

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[sobertiger]

Hey! I was abroad for the last 1.5 years too for family reasons. I also got the majority of my shadowing done abroad. Still did just fine this cycle.

If you're done with your prereqs, just take a bunch of upper div science courses for 1-2 semesters and do well, ace the DAT and you should be fine assuming you have good GPA, EC, PS, etc.

 

[mintysweet]

Hey! I was abroad for the last 1.5 years too for family reasons. I also got the majority of my shadowing done abroad. Still did just fine this cycle.

If you're done with your prereqs, just take a bunch of upper div science courses for 1-2 semesters and do well, ace the DAT and you should be fine assuming you have good GPA, EC, PS, etc.

Thanks! Did you put those hours in your application? And there wasn't an issue?

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[WolfsBane]

Thanks! Did you put those hours in your application? And there wasn't an issue?

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Honestly you are unique and schools like unique. You have a very good reason why you couldn’t take courses and you can somehow weave it into your personal statement. You don’t really need to be authorized to shadow or assist so you are fine in that regard. I would put then in because that’s different (different country) and that shows the type of person you that even in a time of pain and despair you shadowed and volunteered.

 

[mintysweet]

Honestly you are unique and schools like unique. You have a very good reason why you couldn’t take courses and you can somehow weave it into your personal statement. You don’t really need to be authorized to shadow or assist so you are fine in that regard. I would put then in because that’s different (different country) and that shows the type of person you that even in a time of pain and despair you shadowed and volunteered.

Thanks for the input WolfsBane! Do you think it would be worth it for me to start working on an online MBA program until I can start my DIY postbacc in the summer or fall semester? Would schools look at that favorably or would it be considered rather negligible in my application?

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[sobertiger]

Thanks! Did you put those hours in your application? And there wasn't an issue?

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I did include them, yes

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