Undergraduate Major for Dental School?

For all of those dentists out there...


I am a Freshman in college and am wanting to major in Zoology. I initially thought about Biology, but there are 14 more science classes for biology that aren't even required for admission to dental school. Zoology is more interesting to me anyway, so I think I want to major in that.


Anyway, here are my questions:


What were you majors in college?


Do dental schools look for specific major when selecting people for admission?


Is it a better idea to get a BA or a BS in my major? Or does it not matter?


Thanks!





Diana

Undergraduate Major for Dental School?
Hello Diana, simply put, it does not matter at all what you major in! I majored in Business, but I took all of the pre-reqs required for dental school, i.e. Organic Chemistry (1 year), Biology (1 year), Inorganic Chemistry (1 year), and Physics (1 year). When I say one year, I mean of course 2 full semesters of each. Also, upper level biology classes are recommended, some follow: Cell Biology, Immunology, Histology (a big one!), Embryology, Gross Anatomy, Comparitive and Developmental Anatomy, Neurobiology, and of course the list goes on and on! They know you will not have time to take all of the above courses, but pick a few that are of interest to YOU. Be sure to take Psychology and Statistics, most schools require them. I can not really tell you all of the circumstances, because I do not know which school you are planning on applying to. BA or BS does not matter either! All you have to do is volunteer (community service), make good grades (3.5 GPA or better), score high on the DAT (Dental Admissions Test) and the main ONE is to shadow a dentist. It is really hard to persuade the admissions committee that you want to be a dentist when you have no idea of what it's like. Please do not make this mistake, I sit on an admissions board and these poor people look like fools when they do not know what they want. Also, last but not least, you need to do some research on your own. After all, we are not the ones that will be going through this, you will. I wish you the best of luck and hope all of your dreams are reached. It is hard work, but it is completely worth it in the long run! Hope I helped!
Reply:Hi Diana:


I must say, Dr J. gave you an accurate answer. I also studied with the goal of dental school, so I learned all about it as well as having a lot of college counseling experience in that area. Basically, other than what Dr. J said, you may not have to take all those hard classes to meet the minimum requirements of dental school asmissions, you have to understand that many dental schools like UCLA have very competitive admissions which means that you will need to show (by taking hard classes) that you are the type of student that can really handle it. The admissions counselors look for that too. If you just do the minimum and take the easiest major, you might get lucky and get in, but your chances get slimmer. On the other hand, dental schools don't want every student to be a hard core Bio major, so they will be certain to select somebody different, like someone with law school experience or physics degree. These specialists are needed also in the field of denstistry for less common areas such as research and others. I hope this helps expand your knowledge on the subject. I just didn't want to repeat what others have advised you. BS is generally better though. Good luck!

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