Where should you send your dental school application? This is a big and overwhelming question. Here are our tips:
Tip #1 – Buy an ASDA membership (ASDA stands for American Student Dental Association, and memberships can be purchased here). When you purchase your ASDA membership, they will send you a hardcopy of the book “ASDA’s Guide to Getting Into Dental School.” This book lists all the dental schools in the United States. For each school, it lists statistics, year-one tuition, application requirements, undergraduate requirements, and more.
Tip #2 – Go through the book. Personally, I (Sydney Winslow.77) went through the book with post it’s. To start, I put post-it’s sticking up out of the book on every single dental school page.
Tip #3 – Start narrowing down your options. I started narrowing down my options by cost, location, class size, and stats like GPA and DAT scores. If I thought the school was too expensive, I would put the post-it inside the book (not sticking up anymore) and write a money sign so it wasn’t an option for me anymore, and I knew exactly why it wasn’t an option. Next, I did the same for location, statistics, and class size. For example, I didn’t want to go to California or some cities like Detroit so I put those sticky notes inside the book and wrote “location.”
Tip #4 – Still too many schools to choose from? It’s okay. I still had a lot of schools left after I started the narrowing down process. Take it one day at a time. Be picky – if you can’t see yourself there for the next four years of your life, do not apply! Don’t waste your money.
Most OSU pre health advisors suggest applying to at least 8 schools. However, I know people who have applied to only 1, some who have applied to 5, and some who have applied to 12! It comes down to how high you think your chances of getting in are, how much you want to spend, and where you could see yourself living.
With that said, everyone does this process differently. These tips are only to help you if you feel lost. You can do this 🙂