Why do you want to be a dentist?

The single most important question in the interview. They're testing whether your reason is specific, personal, and durable — or borrowed from a website.

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

The trap

The trifecta of death: 'I like science, I like working with my hands, and I want to help people.' It's true for ten thousand applicants and memorable for none. Also fatal — contradicting your own personal statement, which is sitting open in front of them.

How to structure your answer

Open with the specific moment or experience that started it → what you saw or did that confirmed it → the thesis of what actually pulls you to this work.

Anchor it in a real experience with a place and a person in it
Name what specifically about dentistry, not 'helping people' — that's medicine, nursing, and social work too
Include something about the hands, the autonomy, or the continuity of care
Make sure it matches your personal statement

A weak answer

What most people say

I've always loved science and I like working with my hands, so dentistry felt like a natural fit for me. I want a career where I can help people directly and see the results of what I do. Shadowing confirmed it. I really enjoyed being in that environment and seeing the difference the dentist made in people's lives.

True for ten thousand applicants this year and memorable for none.

A stronger answer

What lands

When I was eleven I translated for my mother at a clinic in Garden Grove while a dentist explained she needed three extractions. I got about half of it wrong. She was told she could keep the teeth if she came back every three months, she didn't come back, and she lost them anyway. So what pulls me isn't helping in general. It's that in dentistry the fix is physical, it happens in the room while the person is sitting there, and then the same person follows it for twenty years.

A room, an age, a consequence, and a reason that isn't helping people.

One answer explains why anyone might choose dentistry. The other explains why this particular person did.

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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