Prerequisites

Okay everybody here we go. I started off at UVA knowing exactly what career I wanted and have been lucky enough not to have a major change like most people do in college. There is alot of advice going around on what major a predent should choose. The majority (just over 51%) of accepted students are Biology majors, like myself. Of course, this isn't the only way to get into dental school. In reality, as long as you have the required prerequisites and a few upper-level sciences peppered into your schedule (more on this later) you will be fine. I shadowed a dentist who was a Psychology major at UVA and matriculated to VCU School of Dentistry.
From my point of view, I am very happy to have chosen biology. Not only was I well on my way to completing a major after finishing my prerequisites, but I also had a number of rewarding upper-level classes that helped me on my DAT. To be perfectly honest, I may have had a higher GPA in another major, but gaining that extra knowledge from tough upper-level science courses was well worth it.

General Prerequisites:
2 semesters of Intro Biology w/ lab
2 semesters of Inorganic Chem w/ lab
2 semesters of Organic Chem w/ lab
2 semesters of Physics w/ lab

These care of and still leave time to finish a completely unrelated major. However, if you have extra time, these courses are reccommended and sometimes required at certain dental schools. Biochemistry, Microbiology, Anatomy and/or Phisiology, Infectious Diseases, Cell Biology, Genetics, Histology and Statistics are a few.

Of these, I think my infectious disease class was the most interresting and helpful with preparing for the DAT. If you are at UVA, I highly reccommend it. Overall, these tough science classes will test you to your limits and are a great indicator for how you do in dental school. Adcomms love to see good grades in these courses.

During your first couple of years, you really need to start working on those extracurriculars early. Join the Pre-Dental club, volunteer in the community, try going out for intramural sports, find a passion and probably most importantly, shadow a dentist. Generally, there is no set number of hours that you need to spend. However, it is my experience that some schools like Tufts require documentation of 30 hours. This is a very small number though. I would say anything between 80-200 hours of shadowing a general dentist is pretty much standard. Anything after 200 is gravy. This should be the meat of your shadowing experience. Get to know a couple of dentists and really spend some long hours at their practice. You want to be absolutely sure that this is what you want to do. In that time there, ask the dentist tons of questions about the job, the work and the environment, etc. This is a learning experience for you. In addition to a general dentist, it is also a good idea to shadow a specialist from one of the major fields such as orthodontics, prosthodontics, oral surgery, etc. I shadowed a local dentist for over 100 hours and it was a great experience. I am also going to be an intern at the hospital dental dept for the academic year starting this August. More to come...