How to Stand out as a Competitive Applicant
- April 15, 2021
How can I bolster my application for dental school admission?
While having a high DAT score and a good GPA are really important factors when considering your application for dental schools, there are also other valuable factors.
Dental schools care about extracurricular activities, volunteer work, shadowing or working as a dental assistant, and such real life experiences.
Since shadowing a dentist is a very important factor and experience, we suggest that you search for job opportunities in this field. You can ask the pre-dental association at your school to help you with it.
Participating in research and getting good letters of recommendation would also help in your application.
You can find valuable information and connections through the pre-dental society of your college.
Apart from the points mentioned above, it is also important that you are able to develop a good and sympathetic relationship with the patients and maintaining a good atmosphere between you and them. Providing community services and volunteer work will help prove this point.
How can I stand out as a competitive candidate?
There are requirements and certain criteria that one must have to be competitive like good or above-average DAT score and a GPA and some firsthand experience with dentistry like shadowing and volunteer work that everyone must-have. But apart from these, there are some other things that can help you stand out as a great candidate:
– Strong letters of recommendation
– Having a good personal statement on your life and also how much passion you have for dentistry.
– Over 100 hours of shadowing with several dentists and specialists, more than 100 hours of volunteer work.
– Doing well on the interview and being friendly and confident tone on the interview as well.
If you have a good GPA and DAT score with the factors mentioned above, you will stand out as a great competitive candidate. It is highly recommended that you apply to 15 schools or more to have even a higher chance and wider options.
How many hours of shadowing do I need?
When you are shadowing it is best to have worked with several dentists rather than just one; whether they are general dentists or specialists, it is important to have worked with more than just one dentist. Also, most schools are looking for about 100 shadowing hours.
How to find a dentist to shadow?
It is best to ask your dentist about it first since most of the time they will not tell you no, if he/she cannot help then ask him/her to check if any of his/her dentist colleague is willing to provide this opportunity for you.
You could probably join or contact a pre-dental club in one of the colleges in your area to contact a dentist about shadowing.
Support your ADEA AADSAS application with a resume
According to ADEA, since the application for ADEA is your first chance to present yourself to admissions officers and committee members, it is best to support your application with a resume. In the resume you can talk about your employment, volunteer activities, membership in dental clubs and organizations, educational experiences, research and so on that you have had to give them a better understanding of yourself.
It is good to mention a start and an end date and some important details for each of the experiences you have mentioned.
Although it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare your application, you must be very careful before hitting the submit button. Remember you must review your application and try to make a thorough and correct application, once you hit the submit button you will not be able to edit it later.
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