Valuable Advice to Applicants

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) website. 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 must 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 to determine if it qualifies the candidate for an interview.

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.