What are alternatives for predents ?

[atoothdoc]

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What if someone failed his tries to get into dental school due to low undergrad GPA (even with post bac ,Master degree did not do miracle), what can these people do ?

This is my concern, how about trying Pharmacy School ? is Pharm School much easier to get in ?

I am very stressed today, a greatly appreciate your response or just thinking about it

 

[bing12]

I think podiatry is a great alternative is you are looking for similar life style and income potential. two out of the 9 podiatry schools in the country accept the DAT , Temple and NY podiatry school. The avg DAT is an 18 for acceptance. avg gpa for both of the school is about 3.2-3.3. It is 4 years of schooling, followed by a 3 year residency. I did some research on possible back up plans.

 

[eringer]

I have to agree. Podiatry is a great field. Even a score in the mid 20s on the MCAT can warrant scholarships for quite a few schools. Just don't let them know that you already tried applying to dental school.

 

[r8 dds]

Considering there are more pharmacy schools than dental schools, I would say pharmacy - more and more of them are also popping up. I thought about pharmacy as well, since CA schools don't need PCATs. +1.

 

[321931]

Considering there are more pharmacy schools than dental schools, I would say pharmacy - more and more of them are also popping up. I thought about pharmacy as well, since CA schools don't need PCATs. +1.

Pharmacy school is a definite alternative. The GPA/competitiveness is much lower compared to dental schools. That being said, I would NOT go into pharmacy now. There was a high demand/need for pharmacists, but they have gone the over saturation route. In the past year, current year, and upcoming years (2-3), they have planned ~30 NEW pharmacy schools(on top of the already 100 schools). Schools open up, grab 200 or so students WITH LOWER requirements than usual, charge an exorbitant amount for education, graduate the kids, and sit on the student loans. It's a money making business just like LAW school.

They will kill their own market. Most pharmacists now are seeing the effects of the over saturation. I can't imagine how it will look like in 5-10 years. My pharmacist friends all went to residency to make themselves more competitive, because they know all the metropolitan and even rural places are getting saturated. Less hours, less opportunities, more pharmacists graduating, salary cuts soon to follow. I would not pursue this route unless you really love pharmacy.

 

[atoothdoc]

Thank you for your advise to you all: bing12,eringer,r8 dds,Rainee !
Much appreciated ! 🙂🙂

I will work hard to get into post bac, then master degree to enhance my undergrad GPA.


How about work in a dental lab ? What skills are required ?

Anyone thought about doing SAS programming for health care companies sicne you
have Med backgroung and SAS is not hard to learn ? A programmer
should make 7K-10K

NYU has a MS in BIo, Oral health track, I wonder what they prepare you to do ?

 

[atoothdoc]

bing12 tons of congrats for getting into Temple ! Temple used to have post bac until last year, what happened to it ?

 

[bing12]

ty, i have no idea what happened to the post bacc program, i didnt know one existed. sorry for the lack of help.

 

[LaughingGas]

chiro

 

[DrEndo]

chiro

to add to that post, School of witchcraft is also a choice

 

[Machiavelliansm]

teacher's college?

 

[yappy]

MS in bioengineering. Just make sure to pick up the quantitative skills if you're not doing an engineering UG degree.

Back to POD... did you guys find that the salary/pay panned out for that field? I was wondering if it compensated well or if the averages i've seen are inflated.

 

[purplescubagear]

Podiatry! I was pre-dental for the same reason so many are, I like to work with my hands, I like the patient interaction, I want to be my own boss, etc. Podiatry has all of that. However, podiatry is much less saturated, I applied to one Pod school a few weeks ago (5 months after the application cycle opened) and I got an interview!
Also consider this-
1. Getting a 3 year residency after pod school (to be certified in rear foot and ankle surgery) is doable for an average student.
2. A podiatrist is a specialist who specializes on EVERYTHING on a specific part of the body, so the work is diverse. (YouTube podiatric surgery)
3. Earning potential not as good as dental specialist but better than general dentists. (though factors such as practice location and competition are huge.)
4. Getting into pod school is not as competitive (~800-1,000 applicants/yr for 9 schools)
5. It is a fantastic health profession! very rewarding.

 

[purplescubagear]

MS in bioengineering. Just make sure to pick up the quantitative skills if you're not doing an engineering UG degree.

Back to POD... did you guys find that the salary/pay panned out for that field? I was wondering if it compensated well or if the averages i've seen are inflated.

Average Podiatrist income is a hard figure to find, it is so dependent on where you practice, if you have a solo practice or a partnership, the saturation of competition etc. If you look at websites like mysalary.com that will show averages that include older part time pods, and pods who only do basic work that do not have certification on rear foot and ankle surgery.
If you do a 3 year residency to expand your skills, and you practice in a place that is not saturated and does not have HMO's then making $170k-$220k+ is not a stretch by any means.
I talked to a podiatrist in my home town who makes over $225k and he said if a first year pod went to a town that was an hour away from his office and set up a practice, a new podiatrist would earn 300k his first year. granted it was a town of 46,000 people that had only 2 part time older pods that didn't do surgery.

 

[476515678234896]

Caribbean medical school or Osteopathic medical school (or podiatry) are good backups for dental school.


I personally would never do podiatry...

 

[peanutb123]

Thank you for your advise to you all: bing12,eringer,r8 dds,Rainee !
Much appreciated ! 🙂🙂

I will work hard to get into post bac, then master degree to enhance my undergrad GPA.


How about work in a dental lab ? What skills are required ?

Anyone thought about doing SAS programming for health care companies sicne you
have Med backgroung and SAS is not hard to learn ? A programmer
should make 7K-10K

NYU has a MS in BIo, Oral health track, I wonder what they prepare you to do ?

Programmer do make 70-100k depending on their experience. But the thing is most companies contract that work out to get it for even cheaper prices. By no means you can make that much alone by sas right of the school. A person with undergrad bio degree's knowledge in medicine can be equally comparable with a person with other degrees, no offense. So anyone(with higher IT knowledge) can do that job if its computer related. Plus, you have to consider if you just conc. on one thing then it might not get you far in real life at least in IT world. They expect you to be familiar with other languages such as java, C++, c#, & .net technologies... then you will be worth something for the companies. otherwise, if you are interested to work in the IT hole, then I would suggest that you look in to systems analyst or business analyst. they both just basically build the system thorough writing and defining things that need to be included in a sys. (oversimplified def.) for these kind of jobs you dont need any programming you just need to know how stuff works and where can you make changes... and you define how to make then to a great detail(oversimplified responsibilities). the other options are QA testing. Where they test the software by writing scripts( there are 2 types: 1. is manual scripts where they tell how to do everything manually in plain english; 2. is automation where you write scripts in programming languages such as vb and run them and they will do the reporting)

these are some of the options for boring work that we do at it field. I highly suggest against it if you have other options but just for the money i say go for it.

 

[Kahr]

Postal employees have it pretty good. Maybe library science? Starbucks and Wholefoods have great benefits and career progression.

 

[yappy]

lol.

Postal employees have it pretty good. Maybe library science? Starbucks and Wholefoods have great benefits and career progression.

 

[Seahawk]

I, like the majority of you would be pretty up the creek if dental school didn't work out, but it will 😀, so just speculating...

But I would use my chem degree for either pharmacy school or chemical engineering

I like my chem degree so much better than bio, seems so much more usable in the real world, the ratio of chem to bio majors must seriously be like 1 to 100.

 

[yappy]

biomed engineering >>> chem engineering

nantech vs paper LOL

I, like the majority of you would be pretty up the creek if dental school didn't work out, but it will 😀, so just speculating...

But I would use my chem degree for either pharmacy school or chemical engineering

I like my chem degree so much better than bio, seems so much more usable in the real world, the ratio of chem to bio majors must seriously be like 1 to 100.

 

[jhanago]

I, like the majority of you would be pretty up the creek if dental school didn't work out, but it will 😀, so just speculating...

But I would use my chem degree for either pharmacy school or chemical engineering

I like my chem degree so much better than bio, seems so much more usable in the real world, the ratio of chem to bio majors must seriously be like 1 to 100.

Top 1% if you didn't know... 😀

 

[John Durian]

Idk. I have a few friends in pharmacy school and some that are doing internships and the demand is still pretty high. No more 5-figure sign on bonuses though... BUT I would be seriously concerned with the 30 new pharmacy schools opening (especially since pharmacy school classes tend to be larger than dental on average). Supply and demand.

As for podiatry, I have spoken to a friend's uncle who is a pod and he regrets going that route. He makes 6 figures, but he says it's hard work and you gotta be on call. Back then there was no residency but they instituted a 3 year residency a few years, so that's 7 years of schooling. Maybe look into optometry or physical therapy? Much lower statistics and if you're a guy... opto schools are typically like 7:3 ratio of females to males 😉

Pharmacy school is a definite alternative. The GPA/competitiveness is much lower compared to dental schools. That being said, I would NOT go into pharmacy now. There was a high demand/need for pharmacists, but they have gone the over saturation route. In the past year, current year, and upcoming years (2-3), they have planned ~30 NEW pharmacy schools(on top of the already 100 schools). Schools open up, grab 200 or so students WITH LOWER requirements than usual, charge an exorbitant amount for education, graduate the kids, and sit on the student loans. It's a money making business just like LAW school.

They will kill their own market. Most pharmacists now are seeing the effects of the over saturation. I can't imagine how it will look like in 5-10 years. My pharmacist friends all went to residency to make themselves more competitive, because they know all the metropolitan and even rural places are getting saturated. Less hours, less opportunities, more pharmacists graduating, salary cuts soon to follow. I would not pursue this route unless you really love pharmacy.

 

[AwesomeTeeth]

I'm not totally sure why everyone in this thread thinks so highly of podiatry. It's not as FANTASTIC as everyone makes it out to be. You're a doctor but everyone's outside of medicine's going to think you're a chiropractor. And you're going to spend your whole life defending your profession from others.

It's also 7 years of schooling and the same amount of debt as med school. So you spend the same amount of time in school as doctors, but you don't REALLY become one in the end (unless you go into podiatric surgery but most dont/cant/etc). The investment doesn't add up to me.

Trust me, I thought about podiatry as a backup for dental too. So I've done enough research to know that its not as great as some people say. Don't get sucked in by the big salary or low stats, not everyone gets the big $$$ and those who do have to work twice as hard for it.

And you're looking at feet all day. Have any of you seriously seen/smelled other people's feet besides your own? Its seriously an eye opener.

Here my recommendation for backup: PA (excellent pay, writes prescriptions, only 3ish years of school, well respected enough), pharmacy (getting oversaturated though since they're becoming like law and adding schools to make $$$$ off students tuition) and MAYBE optometry.

 

[yappy]

Your reasons for not doing POD dont seem very significant for somone who has investigated it well. You seem to focus on what lay public will think of you (who cares) relitive to the education you have actully received. I think most people care more about pay and health of the profession. Also the debt of POD seems to be cheaper than dentistry per my research.

I'm not totally sure why everyone in this thread thinks so highly of podiatry. It's not as FANTASTIC as everyone makes it out to be. You're a doctor but everyone's outside of medicine's going to think you're a chiropractor. And you're going to spend your whole life defending your profession from others.

It's also 7 years of schooling and the same amount of debt as med school. So you spend the same amount of time in school as doctors, but you don't REALLY become one in the end (unless you go into podiatric surgery but most dont/cant/etc). The investment doesn't add up to me.

Trust me, I thought about podiatry as a backup for dental too. So I've done enough research to know that its not as great as some people say. Don't get sucked in by the big salary or low stats, not everyone gets the big $$$ and those who do have to work twice as hard for it.

And you're looking at feet all day. Have any of you seriously seen/smelled other people's feet besides your own? Its seriously an eye opener.

Here my recommendation for backup: PA (excellent pay, writes prescriptions, only 3ish years of school, well respected enough), pharmacy (getting oversaturated though since they're becoming like law and adding schools to make $$$$ off students tuition) and MAYBE optometry.

 

[215]

[Deleted]

 

[John Durian]

So I did a good amount of research into many fields back when I was a lost young'un. Here is a summary of what I found to be the negatives of each profession:

-PODs: high debt, 3 year residency, limited scope (although they are trying to expand) to feet/ankle, on call, long hours (if you're in for surgery)

-Pharmacy: high debt, on your feet all day, have to deal with insurance all day, too many schools opening, no chance to open your own business when you have to compete against corporate entities (ie, Wal-Mart $4 Rxs)

-Optometry: high debt, insurance reimbursements are really low, competition high from corporate entities (ie, Lenscrafters)

-Physician Asst: semi-high debt, difficult to enter private practice (ie, Physician supervision required in most states), need a TON (years and years) of previous experience as a EMT/Paramedic/healthcare to even apply and have a shot to get in

Honestly, I would go with hygiene, PA, or nursing if you want to be in healthcare and not go the DDS/DMD route. I didn't list the negatives of medicine because you generally have to have statistics equal if not higher than dental to get in.

 

[AwesomeTeeth]

Your reasons for not doing POD dont seem very significant for somone who has investigated it well. You seem to focus on what lay public will think of you (who cares) relitive to the education you have actully received. I think most people care more about pay and health of the profession. Also the debt of POD seems to be cheaper than dentistry per my research.

I'm not saying you're going to receive a bad education or anything. POD has some great schools (DMU, ASDOH). They also have some junky schools (New York, California one). But I think bottom line, people aren't going to respect you as well as someone with an MD/DO. And public opinion does matter when you start your own office. Unless you become a podiatric surgeon and work in the hospital. And we know how competitive that's going to be. Look, this is what I hated about podiatry when I was researching it on the SDN Podiatry forums or everywhere. People ALWAYS argued about it. I wouldn't want to join a profession where everyone argues about the validity of my science/profession/career. You can try to change their opinions, but everyone deep downs rarely changes their ideas.

And I did give you a a reason besides public opinion. Expected pay and health of the profession isn't quite what it appears to be at first. But don't take my word for it, do some more research. That's what everyone should do. Sorry if I come off as totally hating on podiatry. It's a good science/field of medicine. I just don't think it would be a good alternative for several reasons.

 

[AwesomeTeeth]

-Physician Asst: semi-high debt, difficult to enter private practice (ie, Physician supervision required in most states), need a TON (years and years) of previous experience as a EMT/Paramedic/healthcare to even apply and have a shot to get in

Not 100% sure you're right about the tons and tons of experience to get in. I know some people who got into very very good PA schools and they had about as much experience as a dental school applicant. Nothing too crazy.

 

[John Durian]

I think that depends on what you mean by "as much experience as a dental school applicant." I'm looking around and I see a good amount of people getting into dental school with 100-200 hours of dental related experience, which can be achieved in as little as 3-6 months if you put enough hours in. And all we do is observe.

This is a quote from UCD's PA school: "A minimum of two years direct (hands-on) patient care experience is highly recommended."

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/fnppa/req-clinical-exper.html

Not 100% sure you're right about the tons and tons of experience to get in. I know some people who got into very very good PA schools and they had about as much experience as a dental school applicant. Nothing too crazy.

 

[basra89]

anyone know of any schools that offer post-bacs for dentistry? or are they more bias toward medicine?

 

[John Durian]

Are you from Northern California? If so, I hear UCSF is associated with USF and they have a postbac program that's dental related.

anyone know of any schools that offer post-bacs for dentistry? or are they more bias toward medicine?

 

[Kahr]

Not 100% sure you're right about the tons and tons of experience to get in. I know some people who got into very very good PA schools and they had about as much experience as a dental school applicant. Nothing too crazy.

You're probably thinking of the undergraduate level programs. Many graduate PA programs require a large number of hours of direct, full-body patient care experience (usually this translates into 1-2 years of full time work, on top of 2-4 years of education and often licensing to get there), we're not talking volunteer stuff, or dental assisting, etc. And even as a CNA or EMT, preference is almost always given to higher level practitioners, such as RNs, paramedics, PTs, RTs, etc. And even if they don't specifically say we require such and such number of hours, you can bet because of high competition, that those with more experience are going to beat out your odd pre-med/dental applicant who decided to switch. There are other annoyances involved, like the GRE. I do agree however, that PA is a fantastic option in healthcare, I just don't think it should be considered an easy back-up option by any means.

 

[476515678234896]

Look, this is what I hated about podiatry when I was researching it on the SDN Podiatry forums or everywhere. People ALWAYS argued about it. I wouldn't want to join a profession where everyone argues about the validity of my science/profession/career. You can try to change their opinions, but everyone deep downs rarely changes their ideas.

Agreed. I'm actually surprised at how little medicine (MD/DO) is being mentioned as a backup to dentistry on this thread. Going to the Caribbean requires little more than a pulse. Granted the USMLE scores coming out of there aren't too good but DO schools are on average less competitive than dental schools GPA-wise and you can match into an MD residency (albiet with some handicap).

Dentistry kicks everything ass in terms of a good job but I personally would rather be a physician than a podiatrist, optometrist, PA, or nurse (besides the CRNAs. Those guys have it good)

 

[jmt1984]

Agreed. I'm actually surprised at how little medicine (MD/DO) is being mentioned as a backup to dentistry on this thread. Going to the Caribbean requires little more than a pulse. Granted the USMLE scores coming out of there aren't too good but DO schools are on average less competitive than dental schools GPA-wise and you can match into an MD residency (albiet with some handicap).

I agree with this fella, this is the kind of thread that gets the pre-med folks all excited.

I like the PA school option, it is a bit shorter than the other schools mentioned (other than nursing I think), which works well for the older applicants.

 

[John Durian]

Eh, premeds can think what they want. We dents have it good and we don't have to argue about the validity of our field.

The OP seemed like he wanted a realistic back-up option for dent though and the MD route is definitely not an option due to a low under-grad GPA. The DO/carribean option can be a back up but he would still be looking at a 3-7 year residency regardless 🙁

CRNA is a nice option as well, but you have to become a RN first, work full-time for a number of years, and have a decent GPA to get in (or so I hear). And it's CRAZY competitive...

 

[basra89]

Are you from Northern California? If so, I hear UCSF is associated with USF and they have a postbac program that's dental related.

No, I'm from New York and I was looking for plan B options. I was hoping that there were some dental related post-baccs. If anyone knows of any along the east coast if would be a great deal of help. 🙂

 

[ORDPM]

I'm not totally sure why everyone in this thread thinks so highly of podiatry. It's not as FANTASTIC as everyone makes it out to be. You're a doctor but everyone's outside of medicine's going to think you're a chiropractor. And you're going to spend your whole life defending your profession from others.

It's also 7 years of schooling and the same amount of debt as med school. So you spend the same amount of time in school as doctors, but you don't REALLY become one in the end (unless you go into podiatric surgery but most dont/cant/etc). The investment doesn't add up to me.

Trust me, I thought about podiatry as a backup for dental too. So I've done enough research to know that its not as great as some people say. Don't get sucked in by the big salary or low stats, not everyone gets the big $$$ and those who do have to work twice as hard for it.

And you're looking at feet all day. Have any of you seriously seen/smelled other people's feet besides your own? Its seriously an eye opener.

Here my recommendation for backup: PA (excellent pay, writes prescriptions, only 3ish years of school, well respected enough), pharmacy (getting oversaturated though since they're becoming like law and adding schools to make $$$$ off students tuition) and MAYBE optometry.

Podiatry is a great profession. I personally have known many podiatrist for years who love their job and are great at it. I will take their word about podiatry over a pre-dents any day.

Saying Podiatry is as much debt as med school is a lie. Podiatry tuition at Midwestern University is $30,125.... D.O. tuition is $47,742... and DENTAL tuition is $54,278. Do the math. Podiatry tuition is $96,616 less over 4 years than dental at Midwestern. This is a similar trend and many schools.

The argument about looking at feet all day is weak. Shadow a podiatrist. That is more eye opening. I spent a week in a foreign country assisting in dental procedures, teeth can worse than feet. Trust me.

Watch this. Tell me it's not cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I_JQy2qFVM

Podiatry is not a saturated market. Students just never go to college thinking they want to be a podiatrist, this is because they don't know know about it. Most kids go wanting to go to med school or dental school. Think about it, when did you ever think about it?

Podiatrists are health professional specialists who examine, diagnose, and treat conditions of the human foot by medical and surgical methods.

They perform more foot surgery and provide more foot care than any other group of health professionals in America.

Following undergraduate school podiatrists attend a four-year podiatric medical college, after which they obtain up to three years of Residency training. The professional school curriculum is very similar to that of MD's and DO's, except that from the very first day they emphasize the foot and ankle. Residency training is done alongside Medical Doctors, with rotations including Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Dermatology, Rheumatology, Radiology, and Orthopedic Surgery. By the time a podiatrist enters practice he or she has dedicated up to seven years of training focused on diagnosing and treating the foot and ankle via medical and surgical means.

Podiatry is great, consider it.

 

[Jackson-Ave-Dental]

Podiatry is a great profession. I personally have known many podiatrist for years who love their job and are great at it. I will take their word about podiatry over a pre-dents any day.

Saying Podiatry is as much debt as med school is a lie. Podiatry tuition at Midwestern University is $30,125.... D.O. tuition is $47,742... and DENTAL tuition is $54,278. Do the math. Podiatry tuition is $96,616 less over 4 years than dental at Midwestern. This is a similar trend and many schools.

The argument about looking at feet all day is weak. Shadow a podiatrist. That is more eye opening. I spent a week in a foreign country assisting in dental procedures, teeth can worse than feet. Trust me.

Watch this. Tell me it's not cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I_JQy2qFVM

Podiatry is not a saturated market. Students just never go to college thinking they want to be a podiatrist, this is because they don't know know about it. Most kids go wanting to go to med school or dental school. Think about it, when did you ever think about it?

Podiatrists are health professional specialists who examine, diagnose, and treat conditions of the human foot by medical and surgical methods.

They perform more foot surgery and provide more foot care than any other group of health professionals in America.

Following undergraduate school podiatrists attend a four-year podiatric medical college, after which they obtain up to three years of Residency training. The professional school curriculum is very similar to that of MD's and DO's, except that from the very first day they emphasize the foot and ankle. Residency training is done alongside Medical Doctors, with rotations including Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Dermatology, Rheumatology, Radiology, and Orthopedic Surgery. By the time a podiatrist enters practice he or she has dedicated up to seven years of training focused on diagnosing and treating the foot and ankle via medical and surgical means.

Podiatry is great, consider it.

That is just all in our own humble opinions! Whatever floats our boat right?

 

[ORDPM]

That is just all in our own humble opinions! Whatever floats our boat right?

That is very true. Whatever floats your boat. The majority of the time I was dental assisting I didn't really notice how gross the oral cavity's were. I think most dentist think the same. The mouth became a small project to me rather than just an oral cavity, and so I viewed it differently. The enjoyment of working on something that interested me overshadowed any other opinions I had of the mouth. The same can be said for feet.

 

[MrAvicii]

That is very true. Whatever floats your boat. The majority of the time I was dental assisting I didn't really notice how gross the oral cavity's were. I think most dentist think the same. The mouth became a small project to me rather than just an oral cavity, and so I viewed it differently. The enjoyment of working on something that interested me overshadowed any other opinions I had of the mouth. The same can be said for feet.

if you like feet go for it, but your statement about the $$$ perspective is incorrect. DDS would still make more because instead of 4 years in residency, a DDS would make more money after 1 yr of residency (in states like NY) or big $$$ right after school (for states w/o residency requirements.)

but its not all bout the benjamins.