Why did you apply to our school?
Whether you did real homework or mass-applied. They can spot a recycled answer in one sentence.
The trap
Anything that would be true of forty schools — 'strong clinical training,' 'great reputation,' 'diverse patient population.' If your answer survives a find-and-replace of the school name, it's not an answer.
How to structure your answer
Two or three distinctive features → why each matters to you specifically → what you'd do with them here.
- Name specifics: a clinic model, a community rotation, a research center, a named faculty member, curriculum structure
- Connect each to something concrete in your own history
- Mention a person you spoke with if you did
- Say what you'd participate in on campus
A weak answer
The program has an excellent reputation and really strong clinical training, which is what I'm looking for most. I've heard great things about the faculty, and the patient population is diverse, so I'd see a wide range of cases before I graduate. It also seems like a supportive environment, and from what I can tell I'd fit in well with the culture.
Survives a find-and-replace of the school name, which is the test it fails.
A stronger answer
Two things. The extramural rotations, because I drove a mobile dental van for two years, mostly to elementary schools and a shelter, and I want that with a license and a handpiece instead of a clipboard. And the sim lab being open outside class hours, which I asked a second-year about on my tour and she said she's in there most Sundays. That one matters because I'm slower picking up new hand skills than I'd like to be. If I got in, I'd want to be on that rotation schedule early, not fourth year.
Two specifics, one from a person he talked to, tied to his own weakness.
The second answer has a Sunday and a second-year student in it. You can't paste that onto another school's page.
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.
Try one interview freeGet the guideMore fit questions
- What will you contribute to our class?Fit
- If we admitted you, what would you want to get involved in here?Fit
- What other schools are you considering? If we accepted you today, would you come?Fit
- What concerns do you have about dental school?Fit
- Is there anything we haven't asked that you'd want us to know?Fit
- Why should we pick you over an applicant with the same GPA and DAT score?Fit