Dental Degree - United States

United States

In the United States, at least three years of undergraduate education are required in order to be admitted to a dental school; however, most dental schools require at least a bachelor's degree. There is no mandatory course of study as an undergraduate other than completing the requisite "pre-dental" courses, which generally includes one year of general biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, English, and higher level mathematics such as statistics and calculus. Some dental schools have requirements that go beyond the basic requirements such as psychology, sociology, biochemistry, anatomy, physiology etc. The majority of pre-dental students major in a science but this is not required as some students elect to major in a non-science related field.

In addition to core prerequisites, the Dental Admission Test, a multiple choice standardized exam, is also required for potential dental students. The DAT is usually taken during the spring semester of one's junior year. The vast majority of dental schools requires an interview before admissions can be granted. The interview is designed to evaluate the motivation, character, and personality of the applicant. It is often a crucial step in the admissions process.

For the 2009-2010 application cycle, 11,632 applicants applied for admission to dental schools in the United States. Just 4,067 were eventually accepted. The average dental school applicant entering the school year in 2009 had an overall GPA of 3.54 and a science GPA of 3.46. Additionally, their mean DAT Academic Average (AA) was 19.00 while their DAT Perceptual Ability Test (PAT) score was 19.40.

Read more about this topic:  Dental Degree

Famous quotes related to united states:

    “Why doesn’t the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.”
    —W.H. (Wystan Hugh)

    “In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.”
    —Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    “Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”
    —Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)

    “The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    “What lies behind facts like these: that so recently one could not have said Scott was not perfect without earning at least sorrowful disapproval; that a year after the Gang of Four were perfect, they were villains; that in the fifties in the United States a nothing-man called McCarthy was able to intimidate and terrorise sane and sensible people, but that in the sixties young people summoned before similar committees simply laughed.”
    —Doris Lessing (b. 1919)