Dental school is equal parts memorizing an enormous amount of material and repeating a physical skill until it's right. Which of those do you find harder?
Self-knowledge about how you learn, and whether you've thought about the two very different kinds of difficulty ahead of you.
How to structure your answer
- 1Pick one honestly
- 2Why it's harder for you specifically
- 3Evidence from something you've already done
- 4How you'd compensate
- Actually choose one — the answer that says 'both equally' tells them nothing
- Give a real example from your own experience of struggling with that kind of learning
- Describe the concrete strategy you use, not just effort
- Show you know the physical skill can't be crammed the night before
A strong answer
What lands
Memorization is harder for me than learning a physical skill. When I was a student athletic trainer, I learned to tape ankles fairly quickly, but remembering the origins and insertions of the muscles in anatomy class took much more work. I tried different approaches and found that digital flashcards and repeated review helped. I know dental school will require a lot of memorization, so I’m glad I’ve learned which study methods work for me.
Picks one plainly, proves the other with taped ankles, and names the study method that worked.
A weak answer
What most people say
Honestly, I think I'd find them both challenging in different ways. Memorizing that much material is daunting, but repeating a physical skill until it's right takes a lot of patience too. I've always been a hard worker, so I'd make sure I put the time into whichever one was giving me more trouble that semester.
Refuses to choose, which is the one thing this question actually asks for.
The trap
⚠Claiming neither is hard for you. Everyone finds one of them harder, and saying otherwise reads as someone who hasn't done either at this scale yet.
Reading it isn't the same as saying it.
Most people can explain a good answer and still fall apart saying one out loud. Admitted asks you all 100 questions in a faculty voice, records you, and scores your pace and filler words.
Try one interview freeGet the guideMore rigor questions
- Dental school is largely what you make of it. The students who come out genuinely good are the ones in the sim lab at nine at night, on their own time, drilling the same prep over and over. Are you prepared to do that?Rigor
- Most of our students were at the top of their college class. Here, half of them will be below average for the first time in their lives. How will you handle that?Rigor
- How do you respond when you put in the work and the result still isn't good enough?Rigor