Admitted

Knowledge of the Profession

Are you entering dentistry with your eyes open about debt, access, technology, and where it's headed?

• What qualities make a good dentist?Your model of the profession, which reveals what you'll prioritize as a student.
• What do you see as the biggest issue facing dentistry today?Whether you follow the field. Many applicants have no idea what's happening in…
• Corporate dental offices — DSOs — are becoming more popular. Do you think they're good or bad for dentistry?Whether you understand the economics you're walking into, and whether you can…
• How is technology changing dentistry? Where does AI fit in?Forward-thinking and comfort with change over a forty-year career.
• What do you know about access to care and dental deserts in this country?Awareness of the field's largest structural problem.
• What's the role of a dentist in a patient's overall health?Whether you see dentistry as isolated from medicine or integrated with it.
• How do you feel about the level of debt dental students take on?Financial realism. Committees worry about students who haven't confronted the…
• What does professionalism mean to you?Your working definition, and whether it extends past dress code into behavior…
• Dental therapists and other mid-level providers are becoming more common in rural areas. How do you feel about that?Whether you can weigh a contested professional issue on the merits instead of…
• What are the actual barriers keeping people in underserved areas from getting dental care?Whether your understanding of access goes beyond 'there aren't enough dentists.'
• 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…
• What role does social media play in a dentist's career today?Whether you understand the modern business and professional reality of the…
• Would you post clinical content online? Where's the line for you?Professional judgment applied to a genuinely gray area, plus your grasp of…
• Do you see yourself owning your own practice one day?Whether you've thought past graduation. Ownership is the traditional path in…