Would you be willing to practice in an underserved or rural area? Be honest with me.

Honesty under a question with an obvious 'right' answer. They can tell when you're performing.

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

The trap

An unqualified 'absolutely, that's my dream' with nothing behind it. Faculty have heard it from hundreds of applicants who went straight to the suburbs. A qualified honest yes beats an unqualified hollow one.

How to structure your answer

Answer honestly → the reasoning behind it, including the constraints → what you have actually done → what would make it possible.

If the honest answer is 'I don't know,' say that and say what would decide it
Name the real factors: debt, family, spouse's career, isolation, professional support
Point to what you've already done rather than what you'd like to do
Know the mechanisms if you're interested: NHSC loan repayment, FQHCs, state programs, IHS

A weak answer

What most people say

Absolutely, yes. That's honestly a big part of why I want to do this in the first place. I've always wanted to work with underserved populations and I think that's where dentists are needed most right now. I'd love to end up somewhere rural where I could really make a difference for a community that doesn't have many options.

The obvious right answer, delivered without a single constraint or commitment behind it.

A stronger answer

What lands

Qualified yes. Two summers I drove out to a free clinic in a farming county on Saturdays, mostly extractions and pain, and I liked that work more than anything else I've done. But the constraints are real. My partner has two years left on a PhD, so we'd need to be within range of a university. And I'll be carrying a lot of debt, which is why I've been reading about National Health Service Corps repayment and community health center positions. That's the mechanism that makes the math work. Yes for the repayment years. After that I genuinely don't know.

A yes with named constraints, past behavior behind it, and the mechanism that makes it possible.

An unconditional yes costs nothing to say. Hers has a partner, a loan balance, and an end date attached.

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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