Planning Your Dental School Search
The trick to assessing your chances of getting into a particular program is knowing where you stand with regard to the various factors that programs consider when making admissions decisions. A good way to get a sense of how dental schools perceive you is to create a fact sheet with your DAT scores (or projected scores), overall GPA, and GPA in your major (and minor, if applicable). Relevant outside activities, work experience, internships, publications, etc. will also contribute to the overall strength of your application.
Use A Guidebook
The next step is to find a current source of information about dental programs. There are several guides published every year that provide rankings of schools, as well as data about acceptance rates and median GPA and DAT scores. In addition, some rank schools according to their reputations among students, professors, or prominent people in the field.
Put your DAT score and GPA alongside the median numbers of schools that interest you. The comparison will give you a rough idea of where you stand. But remember, DAT and GPA are not the only criteria for admissions. Many other factors like recommendations and "intangibles" like activities and relevant experience can factor prominently into the admissions equation. Once you have some idea of where you fall in the applicant pool, you can begin to make decisions about your application strategy.
Make Sensible Choices
A sensible application strategy will include schools in three general categories:
- Dream schools – places you'd love to attend, but where your chances of acceptance are up in the air or even unlikely.
- Good possibilities – programs you'd like to attend and where your grades and DAT score are close to the median.
- Safeties – schools where your numbers make acceptance likely.
How many dental schools you should apply to is best determined by your strength as an applicant, the difficulty of admission at schools to where you're applying, and the general difficulty of getting into any program in your discipline.
If you're applying to five or six dental schools, pick a couple of dream schools, several in the "likely" category, and one or two safeties.