What percentage of dental school applicants are accepted every year?

[DAT_MAN]

I know med school is like 50%. I believe dental school is a little bit higher. Anybody know?

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[collegeboy30000]

Total applicants for 2005: 10,699
Total seats: 4,688

Estimated total applicants for 2006: 12,475


Source: American Dental Education Association

[Its from a PDF that ADEA sent to all pre-health advisors, my advisor forwarded to me.]

 

[xdianaax]

Yeah, i've actually remembered it being lower than half. You have to remember that there are not nearly as many dental schools as there are medical schools, and for the most part a lot of medical schools I have seen have bigger class sizes.

 

[purduephigam]

It's actually much lower than half. I don't have exact figures, but I've heard AADSAS say that this year there were approximately 13,000 applicants. And for roughly 3,500 spots, the math comes to be around 1/3. Given this is a very general, and rounded-off estimation, but keep in mind that the field is becoming more and more attractive; you'll have pre-med kids making the switch to dentistry, and of course the re-applicant pool will increase each year, making the overall applicant pool larger.

 

[Nasem]

It's actually much lower than half. I don't have exact figures, but I've heard AADSAS say that this year there were approximately 13,000 applicants. And for roughly 3,500 spots, the math comes to be around 1/3. Given this is a very general, and rounded-off estimation, but keep in mind that the field is becoming more and more attractive; you'll have pre-med kids making the switch to dentistry, and of course the re-applicant pool will increase each year, making the overall applicant pool larger.

Thats not really adding up...... for 2006 there were about 4600 spots, for this year only 3500??? whys that?

I have looked at the history of dentistry, the largest spike was during 1977-1979 period where the number of applicants was about 16000, during those times the dental schools were accepting close to 6000+ applicants..... Its usually balanced out so that approximatly 35-45% of the students who apply get accepted.... and I bet you, if the number of applicants keeps on increasing, newer and newer schools will start to open up and the number of seats will increase as well.

Think of it as supply and demand lol, more applicants = more seats (eventually)....

 

[jrstephe]

I don't think we are going to see much of a spike in # of dental schools. I think part of the reason there are not more now is to keep the profession exactly that, a profession. If schools start springing up everywhere then the profession will lose its value, and we won't be making as much money and then not as many applying.