Home > For Prospective Students > DDS Program > Admissions Advice
The following advice is very important and cannot be overemphasized.
Where possible and appropriate, it is highly recommended that you follow the
recommendations given.
Apply Early
Every dental school has an earliest date that a person can apply and a
deadline that is the latest date at which a candidate can be considered.
Many have a rolling admissions acceptance policy that works to the advantage
of the earlier candidates. VCU is one of those dental schools where earlier
receipt of the application by the Admissions Office increases the chance for
an interview slot and an earlier evaluation by the Admissions Committee.
Apply Electronically
VCU School of Dentistry highly recommends that candidates apply
electronically through the American Association of Dental Schools Application
Services (AADSAS) web site. There are several reasons for this recommendation
including faster processing of the candidate's application and the reduced
chance of error. All information, including the essay, is submitted
electronically. The only items that may be sent directly in the mail to
AADSAS are the letters of recommendations and the official transcripts.
The web address is www.adea.org.
Apply to AADSAS Prior to Taking DAT's
The belief that a candidate can not apply to AADSAS prior to taking the
DAT is a common misconception. The AADSAS application has a section where
it requests the candidate’s DAT scores. Consequently, candidates often think
this section must be filled out in order to complete the application
successfully. This is not the case; the candidate should just leave this
section blank.
At VCU, we encourage those people described above to apply
early so that the application can be processed and sent to us. We thus become
aware of the candidate’s applying to our school and will wait until the
candidate takes the DAT and we are informed of his or her scores. As a
convenience to the applicant, we allow a testing center copy of the DAT
scores to be faxed to our office. This saves considerable time for us in
evaluating your application.
Our fax number is (804) 828-5288. Once all required materials are submitted
we will evaluate the application.
Retaking the DAT and Taking a DAT Prep Course are Both Fine
Retaking the DAT does not penalize candidates. Remember that the scores the
candidate receives are the results of how the candidate performed on that given
day. Many candidates often take their DAT a second and occasionally a third
time. VCU uses the one single exam with highest set of scores in their
evaluation of the candidate. Please note that previous scores are not eliminated
from your file. There is now a limit of three (3) DAT exams and the time
interval between retaking the exams is 90 days.
Taking a preparatory course such as the Kaplan Test Prep Course is often a
good idea if the candidate needs a method to organize himself or herself to best
prepare for the exam. The belief that an Admissions Committee will look
negatively upon a candidate if they learn that a prep course was taken prior
to the exam is a second common misconception. At VCU we do not feel this way
and often encourage individuals to consider utilizing this resource. One
group that we recommend consider this option is candidates who are not familiar
with examinations administered on computers.
Letters of Recommendations
The pre-health office of each undergraduate college or university has its
own distinct method of handling letters of recommendations. One method is to
have a pre-health advisory committee that interviews the candidate for dental
school and then writes a letter from the committee. This committee letter
often is accompanied by individual letters from faculty who taught the
candidate, or from dentists who can attest to their dental knowledge and
experience. Additionally, an evaluation sheet that rates the candidate
according to specific criteria often accompanies the committee letter.
Advisory committees usually exist at larger institutions that have the
resources and time to conduct this service. A second method is to give
the responsibility of requesting and collecting individual letters of
recommendations to the candidate. A third and relatively new method that
some institutions now are using is to employ the services of a private
company that receives the letters, evaluates and packages the information
received, and then sends them on to their destination.
VCU will accept all the above methods and must have a minimum of three
letters of evaluation, with at least two of them being from science professors,
plus one from a dental practitioner who knows the candidates professional
abilities through direct observation via shadowing or volunteer work. AADSAS
will process the four (4) letters of recommendations and committee letters
and send copies of them in your application folder to all the schools to
which you apply.
We will also accept letters that are sent directly to our office by the
person writing the recommendation. If an evaluation/recommendation form
is needed, we recommend using the
VCU School of Dentistry form, though the use of this form is optional.