What if you get to third year and find you love general dentistry instead?

Flexibility, and whether you respect general practice — which most of your interviewers are in.

Written by Victoria Young, DDS · NYU College of Dentistry '24 · Penn Dental Medicine

The trap

Any hint that general dentistry would be settling. It's the single fastest way to alienate a room of general dentists, and they will notice the hesitation before they notice your words.

How to structure your answer

Say honestly that it's possible → what you'd find appealing about general practice → how you'd decide → no disappointment in your tone.

Treat it as a genuinely good outcome, not a consolation prize
Name what's attractive about general dentistry: breadth, continuity, autonomy, ownership
Show you'd let clinical experience inform the decision
Keep enthusiasm in your voice

A weak answer

What most people say

That would be completely fine with me. I'm going in with an open mind, and if I end up in general dentistry I'd be very happy — general dentists are the backbone of the profession. My real goal is just to be a good clinician wherever I land, so I think I'd make peace with it either way and do good work.

'Make peace with it' and 'backbone of the profession' both leak that it's second-best.

A stronger answer

What lands

Honestly I think that's more likely than not, and it wouldn't be a downgrade. I spent two years in AmeriCorps doing home repair, and the reason I liked it was doing a roof, some wiring, and a subfloor in one week while knowing the family the whole time. That's general dentistry. Same person for twenty years, and you're deciding what the mouth needs instead of receiving somebody else's plan. You can own the place, too. Endo interests me right now because of one molar retreatment I watched, and I've watched exactly one, which is a thin basis for a thirty-year career. I'd rather let third year tell me.

Treats general practice as the appealing outcome, naming breadth, continuity, ownership.

That room is full of general dentists. One answer describes their job as a fallback; the other describes it as the thing he'd pick.

These are illustrations, not scripts. An answer you memorize sounds memorized — the point is the shape and the specificity, in your own words and about your own life.

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.

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