Category Archives: Pre-Dental

Scenario: You have just taken your last final towards the last couple of weeks in April and your mind wanders to what you have to do next: Apply to dental school. You go down the checklist. You need to write an AADSAS essay of 1,000 words, you need to take the DAT, you need to log into AADSAS and fill out the application and you also need…4 LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION? WHAT?!?

This process may sound familiar to you and this is exactly what happened to me the first time I applied. I scrambled at the last minute trying and get decent letters from good professors who barely knew who I was. I was unorganized which made the professor unorganized which made my letters of recommendation look unorganized which reflected on me: unorganized.

I will hopefully be able to present to you in this short segment the things to do to get a killer letter of recommendation from the most important auxiliary people in your application: The dentist you shadow and the professors who teach you.

WHO?
EACH SCHOOL HAS ITS OWN REQUIREMENT. Some schools want letters from two professors and a dentist. Some schools want letters from three science teachers (physics, biology, chemistry) and a dentist. Some schools want a letter from a math teacher, a non-science teacher, a dentist and a monkey. You get the point. The AADSAS website has a list of all the schools and the types of letters that they require. Figure out where you want to apply and then go from there.

Once you know who you need to get a letter from then it becomes your job to network with this professor and become their friend. This may not come naturally as some professors can be jaded or reclusive. Try to choose someone who has the reputation of liking their job and bending over backwards to help. Then sign up for their class. The next part is critical. In order to shine to the professor you must show the that you work hard and that you care about the class. How do you do that? Easy. You get an A in the class. Easier said than done, and admittedly, I got B+’s in the professors classes who wrote me a letter. But I worked my tail off striving for the A grade.

I went to their offices for any type of questions I had (real or made up). I was talkative, I joked with them, I participated in class, I TA’ed for them, they knew about my hobbies, my family, my friends, interests and I knew theirs and in the end we did became good friends and we still correspond through email. It is important not to approach the professor to become friends with them purely for the intent of getting a letter of recommendation. Don’t be fake. I tried to become friends with another teacher and our personalities didn’t mesh. When I asked him for a letter of recommendation (first time I applied) he basically handed me a letter that would have been more useful had it been filled with cow manure. I don’t think he did anything wrong nor is he to blame. We just never had a good student/professor friendship and it showed in the letter.

Continue reading →

The simple answer is: “Yes. Many dental schools do not require a bachelors degree.” However, it is becoming more and more difficult to get accepted into dental school and unless you have really good scores (GPA, DAT) or connections (like your dad or brother went to the dental school in question) than getting in will be really difficult to do. It isn’t impossible though.

You can always try though. I applied without a BS degree my first time (didn’t get in) but I figured it was worth a shot. The first time I applied my scores were mediocre. I had a decent GPA (nothing special) and a DAT score that was average, but could’ve been improved on. I received three interviews that year from Minnesota, Indiana and Marquette. I think that had my GPA and DAT score been higher I would have had a good chance of getting into Indiana. My Minnesota interview went horrible. I was waiting in the foyer when my interviewer came out and got me. It was my first interview so I was very nervous. I couldn’t believe it when she took me into the back coffee/break room and sat me down in some crappy old chair and poured herself a hot cup of Joe and asked “So, why not medical school?” After fumbling through that surprise question I knew it was going to go downhill from there and that premonition was set in stone when she ended the interview by saying, “Well thanks for coming out to interview here, but you should ‘keep shopping’.” (The ‘keep shopping’ was referring to me to ‘look for another school because there is no way we are accepting you.) After that debauchery I was more prepared for Indiana and Marquette. I nailed my Indiana interview and Marquette went well too. But come December 1st (the first official acceptance date for dental school) there was no love in my mail box. I didn’t get any love that year at all in fact, but it still was’t a waste of time or money.

It learned valuable information and some good experiences to help me the next year (what to do…what not to do) AND: IF I had been accepted than the monetary gamble would have been worth it.

Continue reading →