Let’s talk about school selection! Dental school application process is really expensive. So, if you apply to too many schools, you will end up spending too much money. On the other hand, if you don’t apply to enough schools, you might not get an interview (and an acceptance offer).
So, in this post, I will shed some light on school selection and how we think about it:
We recommend creating a list of 13-15 schools that are good fit for you. You should have three types of schools in your list :
a) schools that you can EASILY get into (EASY)
b) schools that are at YOUR LEVEL (REACH)
c) schools that are beyond your reach (STRETCH)
You should pick 50% easy schools, 30% reach schools, and 20% Stretch schools.
Applying to too many easy schools is not ideal. Neither is applying to too many stretch schools. In addition, at least apply to 10 schools. Your chances at getting accepted decreases if you are applying to fewer schools.
That said, if you are applying to dental schools, you may find the following categories helpful.
American schools that are most friendly towards low science DAT score (under 18)
- Howard,
- Meharry,
- Western, and
- University of Puerto Rico
Schools that are most friendly to students with Low science GPA (below 3.4)
- Howard (science GPA avg 2.96)
- Western (sGPA 3.11)
- AT Still University, Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health (sGPA 3.28)
- Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine School of Dentistry (sGPA 3.28)
- Midwestern Illinois (sGPA 3.33)
- Boston U (sGPA 3.3)
- University of New England (sGPA 3.24)
- Tufts (sGPA 3.19)
- East Carolina University ( sGPA 3.31)
- NYU (sGPA 3.38)
- Meharry (sGPA 3.08)
- Puerto Rico (sGPA 3.29)
- Roseman ( sGPA 3.17)
- Missouri School of Dental and Oral Health (sGPA 3.37)
American schools that are most friendly towards Canadians (accept >=2 students)
Midwestern AZ
USC
Loma Linda(Christian)
UOP
Nova
Midwestern IL
BU
UDetroit Mercy
Rutgers
NYU
Case Western
Temple
Penn
Pitt
Schools that are friendly towards In State students (at least 65% students enrolled are from in-state)
- University of Alabama Birmingham ( instate 68%)
- USC ( instate 83%)
- UCLA (instate 92%)
- UCSF (instate 82%)
- UOP (instate 84%)
- Colorado (instate 65%)
- UConn (instate 65%)
- UFlorida (instate 98%)
- Dental College of Georgia (instate 92%)
- Iowa (instate 72%)
- southern Illinois ( instate 96%)
- UIllinois Chicago ( instate 96%)
- LSU (instate 94%)
- Mississippi (instate 100%)
- East Carolina (instate 100%)
- UNC Chapel Hill (instate 84%)
- Stony Brook (instate 86%)
- Buffalo ( instate 85%)
- Ohio State (instate 89%)
- Oklahoma (instate 69%)
- Puerto Rico (instate 95%)
- Medical University of South Carolina (instate 72%)
- Texas A&M (instate 91%)
- Texas San Antonio (instate 95%)
- Texas Houston (instate 97%)
- UWashington (instate 89%)
- West Virginia (instate 83%)
Schools that allow in-state tuition after the first year:
- UCLA
- UCSF
- UConn
- UFlorida
- UNC Chapel Hill
- Texas A&M
- Texas Houston
- Stony Brook
- Maryland
- UNebraska Las Vegas
- Rutgers
- Buffalo
- Ohio
- Texas San Antonio
- UWashington
Let us know what other categorization you want to see in this post (dentalschoolcoach@gmail.com)