Transcription
Welcome to the Dental School Guide Podcast, your ultimate destination for all things Dentistry. I'm Dr. Tanner Tazm, your guide through the complex world of dental education. Join us as we uncover the secrets of acing dental school admissions, navigating residency programs, and exploring career opportunities. Please share and enjoy.
Real quick, just wanted to make all you pre-dental students out there aware of a resource. If you've ever been worried about getting into dental school or wanting to get into that school of your dreams, then you definitely want to check out a program called Dental School Guide. In the program, we walk you through how to save money, time, and hard-earned cash when applying to dental school. There's so much fluff out there when it comes to resources for getting into school, and we are streamlining all of that with our comprehensive digital course, expert mentorship, and personalized application review services. You'll have everything you need to stand out to admission committees. Take advantage of this amazing resource that will help you increase your chances of getting into dental school. You want to check out DentalSchoolGuide.com. Check it out.
Back to the Dental School Guide Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Tanner Townsen, and today we have the Assistant Dean of Admissions, Robert Casberg, with us. Robert, we are super excited to have you here on the show. How are you?
I'm doing just fine, excited to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
So, Dr. Casberg, he is at Boston University, and so he's going to give us a little bit of insight today about BU and kind of his journey. But first, Dr. Casberg, tell us a little bit about your background, if you don't mind.
Okay. After high school, the Vietnam War was going on, so I decided to join the military. I was in the United States Navy for four years as a hospital corpsman and attached to the Marine Corps for two of those years. After that, I served in the United States Peace Corps for six years on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, working with tribal Filipinos. At the age of 30, I decided I better get an undergraduate degree, so I went to IUPUI, graduated with a Bachelor's of Arts in Anthropology. And I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship to Yale University where I earned a PhD in Anthropology. For familiar reasons, I had to stay in Central Indiana, and there were no jobs for anthropologists in Indiana. So, I ended up doing going into higher ed administration. And one of my talents, I guess, was recruitment. I was recruiting for the basic medical sciences in the School of Medicine, and I just had a forte for minority recruitment, specifically African-American and Latinos. So the School of Dentistry, Indiana University School of Dentistry, asked me if I'd bring my services to them as director of admissions. After a few years, they promoted me to also be the Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. By the time I left, we had brought in the most diverse classes in IU's history. That's probably changed by now, but at that point, we had done a remarkable job. Boston, excuse me, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine offered me a job here in Boston, so I left Indianapolis after 10 years working for IU School of Dentistry and worked at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine for 10 years as the Associate Dean of Student Affairs and the Associate Dean of Admissions. We revolutionized the student body. By the time I left, we had well over 150 Black students in the student body and probably about 130 Latinos, and about 45% of the class came from disadvantaged households as well.
Wow. I was all set to retire at the tender age of 68. Boston University Goldman School of Dental Medicine asked me, told me that they needed my services here, so I decided to, oh, and they told me I didn't have to be a student dean, thank goodness. And so I get to focus on being the Assistant Dean of Admissions, and they made me a very nice offer I couldn't turn down. And I absolutely love my job here. I've been doing dental admissions now for 23 years. It's what I like the most and do the best.
Well, that is awesome. It sounds like you've kind of been a little bit of everywhere from anthropology through the dental pipeline of the different schools, so that is way cool. You have some excellent experience. So, tell us first off, like, as you've kind of transitioned to Boston, how is that? Like, how has dental admissions changed over the years as you have kind of watched it kind of evolve?
When I first started in dental admissions, a good DAT score was a 16 academic average, 16 total science, 16 reading comp. We would take in as low as 14. And outstanding DAT scores in 18. Wow. Okay. That's changed. Look, 23 years later, 23 years later, you have schools around this country that won't even look at an applicant if their DAT is less than a 21. But the content of the DAT has not changed. It measures introductory biology, general chemistry 1 and 2, organic chemistry 1. They cost thousands of dollars to take. And so applicants who come from disadvantaged households, they can't afford that kind of money to take those prep courses. And so you're seeing scores that are 25 academic average. You never saw that 23 years ago. And my question to all my colleagues around the country: If a 16 was good enough 23 years ago, why isn't it good enough now? It's measuring the same thing after 23 years.
Well, I don't blame you. I'm not a huge fan of it either. I think it's just, it's a snapshot in time, and it doesn't show the course of a student's history and how they're going to do over a long period of time. Give me a transcript. Okay. Yeah, a transcript tells you a heck of a lot more.
Yes, yes. Well, first, let's kind of, we'll circle back around to the DAT kind of stuff and how that looks in your guys' eyes to applicants. But tell us a little bit more about Boston University. What makes BU, in your eyes, unique as a school?
Well, it would be disingenuous for me to say this. What makes us unique? Because there are 70 different dental schools, I don't know if they do what we do or not. So I have a blur. I'm going to read here if you don't mind.
Yeah, I think it covers, it covers the highlights of the school. All right. As a student at the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, you will learn the art and the science of Dental Medicine in a cutting-edge facility under innovative and experienced faculty. Start your journey to become a confident, innovative provider on day one. Start hands-on clinical experiences in your first year. Benefit from a low faculty-to-student ratio, one dentist to seven students in the clinical setting and one faculty to 12 students in the preclinical setting. Develop micro-motor skills in a state-of-the-art simulation learning center under the guidance of outstanding preclinical faculty. Gain real-world experiences of a small group practice led by two faculty members who will coach you on all aspects of managing a dental practice. Learn the skills and techniques needed for the future. Care for patients in state-of-the-art treatment rooms, all of which include CAD/CAM, kology scanners, and software needed for one-visit full crown coverage restoration. Perform at least one implant procedure. Receive training in Invisalign. Graduate certified both in Botox and nitrous oxide. You also gain real-world experience while giving back to the community. Complete an eight-week rotation at the end of the first year and a 10-week externship in the fourth year in a real-world healthcare setting like private practices, hospitals, or community health centers. And finally, practice in service learning, or excuse me, participate in service learning and community outreach through school and community-based oral health programs.
Okay. Well, a couple of things I wanted to highlight there that you had mentioned that I think are unique as I've talked with other schools for, I want our listeners to kind of catch, is certification in Botox. That's something pretty unique. Being able to place an implant in school, exposure to Invisalign, that's huge. And then also just having that smaller faculty-to-student ratio is huge. Being able to have faculty that's in your corner that you can go to easily and readily without having to fight, in a sense, fight for their attention. So, tell me a little bit, Robert, if it's okay, what is, how would, what's that two-to-one faculty-to-student experience that they get? Could you elaborate a little bit more on that potentially?
Yes. Let me put it this way. Let me put it this way. Our faculty don't look at our students so much as students as they look at them as dentists in training.
Gotcha. Okay. They're, they're colleagues already. They're in the door. They're the future of the profession, and they'll be rubbing shoulders with other faculty, other dentists for the rest of their life. They're, they're, and so there's this degree of collegiality that exists between the faculty and students that, that really, to me, is not my experience that I've had at the other two dental schools. Now, those are years ago, and things change, but to me, that's remarkable. And I think that they're able to establish that. It's like they're apprentice dentists, okay? And they're able to establish that collegiality, not friendship, okay? Collegiality because of those low faculty-to-student ratios.
Yeah. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, no, I think it does. And then I think that's just one of the huge things that students should be looking for when they're looking for a school because they need to have that apprenticeship experience. And it's kind of hard to have an apprentice experience when there's, there's a lot of other students.
Absolutely. So, remind me, what is your guys' class size currently?
Fore. We bring in 117 DMD students. We do, however, have a very large advanced standing program for internationally trained dentists, and that program is a two-year program, and we bring in 100 students for that program. So every year, we bring in 217 students.
That advanced standing program is a big program. That's really cool that you guys are able to do that. And you know, it's really, really interesting about that is the relationships that the, that those trained dentists who are going through dental school for the second time, so many of them serve as mentors for the students entering for the first time. And a very interesting dynamic you see between the advanced standing students and our four-year DMD students.
Very healthy. Yeah. I, I went to Virginia Commonwealth University, and we had, I want to say, 11 to 13 advanced standing students, and they were a huge wealth of knowledge. I just remember, like, in oral surgery rotation, when I'm like, I'm going to go ask the former oral surgeon like what to do to get this tooth out. So very helpful. I think those advanced standing students are wonderful students as well. So it's really cool that you have so many of them.
How do you feel like your school supports and helps students that are either trying to go into a residency program or they're wanting to go into private practice right away after school?
Yeah, I think we have a great way of preparing students for practice after graduation. And it begins with what we call the Apex program that takes place this summer between your first year and second year. And our students go out and they find a practice. We help them find a practice where they actually work in that practice with extended functions, and they take notes and they come back. And they're divided up into very small groups led by a practicing dentist here, a clinical faculty member, and they exchange the good, the bad, and the ugly that they experienced in those two months outside. And so that's the beginning of trying to understand, okay, what's it going to be like as a dentist? And then we have courses in practice management throughout the next few years. And then the tail end of that is that 10-week externship where all of a sudden, not treating one patient in the morning, one patient in the afternoon, one patient in the evening, you're going to have five, six, seven patients in the morning, five, six, seven patients in the afternoon under minimal supervision. And so they start, our students start to understand the importance of, okay, I need to ramp up my skills in terms of speed. And it's a safe, it's a safe setting because there is supervision, it's just minimal supervision. And then it enables our students to really get confidence in themselves, but also to recognize, oh, I need more help in this area. So when they come back from that externship, they can talk to, like they have very small group practices that we have, they can go to their faculty members and say, you know, in this area, I was, I found myself a little lacking confidence, or my speed wasn't good. Assign me patients to help me build up my skills in this area.
Wow, that's really cool. And then for residencies, we have, I think, I think we have all of the residencies that you can in a dental school. I think even radiology, I believe. Maybe not oral pathology, though. I think we have everything but oral pathology. And so once a student identifies, said, oh, I think I want to do this, they have access to world-class faculty who are pediatric dentists, or oral surgeons, or orthodontists, etc., etc., and faculty who specialize in those areas. And so they can find mentorship in those departments. They're able to do research with faculty who are doing research in those areas. They can become dental assistants for those faculty members outside of the school. The alumni association as well. If you're interested in being an endodontist, you can find, we can find you an endodontist here in the community where, on your free time, you can assist them and be a better applicant based on research in the area, based on experiences in the area, based on your grades, etc.
You just said there was really powerful. There aren't many schools that are actively helping students interact with alumni that are lining them up in that way if they have certain desires and passions. So students, as you're listening, I think that's a key thing to take away that BU is really invested in you, and you are just like Robert said, you are an apprentice dentist, not necessarily a student, which is a key thing to take away.
What are some things that you feel like BU is actively trying to improve about the school, or you guys are working on as a group, as faculty?
AI. AI. AI. In what way? Well, interestingly enough, to help our students is one of the ways. Okay. And we're working with our instructor in anatomy, the professor who teaches anatomy, developing AI modules so that, and I'm not a technology guy, so bear with me. No, I'm not either. So, this program, the faculty member can, using the lectures that she gives and the textbooks she gives, can ask questions that those textbooks will answer the way she wants them answered. If that makes any sense. And so this module, when somebody's studying and they have some questions about some aspect of anatomy, they're in this AI program, and it answers the, gives them the answer that is the correct answer, as you know, textbooks vary and all that kind of thing. And so it's going to be the model for, if it works, for what we want to do with all of our basic science courses as another mechanism to help students learn the material we're teaching. I mean, it was, when I heard this discussion, I wasn't able to grasp it fully, but what the takeaway was, oh my gosh, this is just one more way we're trying to help our students deal with really tough subjects. And anatomy is the best one that we can do right now with it. And if it's successful, we're going to expand it to some of the other areas as well. And then there's other ways AI, I'm sure, in terms of clinical matters that we'll be exploring as well. But it's, that's probably top on our agenda right now, how to use, how to incorporate AI into the curriculum.
Wow, that'll be a game-changer if that program works.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that'll be absolutely huge. Well, let's, let's kind of talk a little bit about admissions. You've seen dental admissions for over the course of 20-plus years. So tell us, as you've kind of experienced things, how, how is admissions? Like, how does the admissions process work first at your school that you're at currently, and walk us through that kind of at a broad level view, and then we'll kind of narrow down on a few different aspects of it.
Okay. I review all the applications. All right. Well, let's start from the very, very beginning. I recruit. Okay. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not an admissions officer who sits in the office and makes sure it's a well-oiled machine and taking care of all the nuts and bolts. I put that stuff on my team. All right. And so that's where it really begins. And I want everybody who's listening to this, you need to meet admissions officers. Okay? And if you're fortunate enough to be in a state that has a state school or maybe two state schools, maybe three, depending on where you are, you need to meet with those admissions officers. Some way, hopefully they make themselves available, and they can tell you what they are looking for because we are all very different. And I'm not saying we're right or wrong, we are just different. Okay? So meet your admissions officers, whether it's in a dental day, whether admissions officers show up and do pre-applicant advising like I do, meet with them, get to know them. And it's not that it gives you an inside track, it just gives you knowledge. Okay? And knowledge is power. Okay? So that's number one. Number two, we get all our applications from ADEA. I review every single application that comes through. Right now, I have, I've reviewed 2,633 applications. Whoa. I love the job. It's not easy, but that's what I do. And then I rank them. I rank them as interview ASAP, interview this fall, interview late fall, hold for fall grades, possible interview in the spring, or remove them from the pool. Okay? Those, and I understand that people's futures are in the palm of my hands. I don't take that lightly. So I do a very thorough job when I'm reviewing those applications. All right. Once I give the final review, and we, the ones who are the top of the top, then we decide, okay, who we going to interview? And then we have to sit down and we do a second review. One other person and I review all the top-rated ones first, then interview in fall, etc., etc. And we do another review. Do we really want to interview this person upfront here? Okay? And so we have to winnow that down. Then we do a third review, and that review is we assign the applicants to interviewers. So the interviewers review the applications, and then they set up an interview with the applicant. We do remote because it gives our faculty far more flexibility, and quite frankly, it gives the applicants far more flexibility. If you are invited for an interview, you are also invited to attend one of our showcase events. We do a showcase event one Sunday every month, September, October, November, December, January, February, March. And I, I really at first, I was a little standoffish. I'm not a remote guy. I prefer person-to-person. But because of that flexibility, it's really good for our applicants. But it also enables them to attend the showcase, not worried about the interview. And my experience for 20 years, when we interview people on the same day, we're trying to showcase the school. Most of the applicants are just worried, can't even eat lunch because they're worried they're going to have lettuce between their teeth or something. All right. So it really helps the applicants come here to the showcase and just focus on, okay, what's this school about? And our showcase is a student-driven event. There's very little faculty or staff involvement. The student panel is unhindered by faculty or staff being in there. The students give tours of the school. We have student organizations. And so it gives, I think, a great opportunity for applicants who are genuinely interested in the school to find out more about the school. Then, near the end of, excuse me, in December, we go through all the interview results. We have a small subcommittee, there are five of us, and we divide up all the applications and give them an initial score of top priority, high priority, priority, waitlist, or remove from the pool. And then we sit down and we share all those, and then we discuss each applicant again. It's a fourth review, or is it a fifth review? I've lost track. It's actually the fifth review. So it's a time-consuming process, but they're like many biographies, autobiographies, I guess I should say, and they're really fascinating. And it really, really bodes for the profession. Well, I see some of these tremendous individuals who are applying to dental schools. So, and that's how we do it through December. Then in January, I really focus on interviewing applicants who have done a semester or two of a Master's program. I'm a big believer in Master's. By the time I left Tufts, 54% of the student body, we brought in 204 a year, 54% of the student body had completed a pre-professional master's degree. And so in January, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they excel. Oh my gosh, do they excel. So January, I pretty much devote to applicants who have finished a summer and or a fall of graduate coursework, interview them. I'll still have plenty of seats open. February's probably, you got to interview in February with us. It's probably going to be for the alternate list. February and March. So that's very general how we do admissions here.
Well, that was a great explanation. I've got multiple questions off of that, which is what I'm hoping we can get to them. So first, with those Master's students, I've noticed every admissions team has a different opinion whether Master's, post-bacc, you know, it's got to be a biomedical science Master's program. What's your opinion? What have you seen the most success in in the course of your career with post-bacc?
I really, I really like the pre-professional Master's because they replicate the first semester of dental school, minus the pre-clinical training. I mean, they usually have anatomy, they usually have physiology, they usually have biochemistry, sometimes histology, microbiology. And I love them. And what I do is I ignore the undergraduate GPA. That's yesterday's news. I'm not interested in it. Who knows what was going on in your life? Probably nothing good if you did poorly as an undergrad. So I don't hold that against you. Now, some of my colleagues, they will combine the Master's GPA with the undergraduate GPA, and if it falls below a certain threshold, maybe a 3.3, maybe a 3.0, they won't give you an interview. But I don't do that. I just look at what your grades are in that Master's program. And I have, I won't mention the name in this podcast, but there are probably a dozen or so Master's programs across the country that I think are really first-rate, that I've had a lot of success with. And probably six of them, actually four of them, stand out among all the others. And those, they're my go-to. And I will tell you, both at all three, IU, Tufts, and here at BU, it's probably a 95, 96, 97% success rate, four-year graduation rate for those Master's programs. And so I'm a big believer in them. Some of them are just one year, it's one size fits all. Some of them can be two, three, four terms, depending on what those, what the director sees in your transcripts. And what I do at the end of an application cycle, I send an email out, well, my staff sends an email out to all the unsuccessful applicants, and if they want me to meet with them via Zoom, I will go over their application with them. And most of the time, it's recommending them to do, not all the time, but most of the time, I'll say, okay, you need to do a pre-professional Master's. If you really want to do this, you need to do a pre-professional Master's program, and here are the ones that I suggest.
Wow, that's some awesome advice. It's really great that you're willing to sit down with those students and do that because that's a lot of work. That's a lot of extra work.
But when you think about it, it's, I think I have the best job in the world, helping people realize their dream for a career in dentistry. And I just, I get a lot of satisfaction out of it.
That's awesome. So, when you were talking about you do that initial review, I can imagine how taxing that initial dive into the two to three thousand applications is. Walk us through kind of what you are notating when you're going through. I know it's a holistic thing.
Yeah, yeah. But it's easy to talk about. It's very easy to talk because first thing, you must look at our grades. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's the bottom line. You must look at grades. Okay. And I've noticed grades have really been improving over the last 23 years. And I used to say that, look, if you can get a 3.3 or higher cumulative GPA and a 3.3 or higher biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics GPA, which addresses they calculate that, your chances of getting into a dental school are going to be pretty good. But you never want to be at that minimum. And I'm going to stress that even more so now. The further you can get above those two 3.3 thresholds, the better. And I would suggest to all applicants and pre-applicants, the schools you're most interested in, you want to look at what was the average entering GPA for this summer's class. And I'm going to read you ours. The average for those who held just undergraduate degrees, the average cumulative was a 3.72, and the average biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics GPA was a 3.67. All right. So you see that's quite a bit higher than that minimum threshold of a 3.3. And so you don't want to be below that average if you can help it. You have to shoot, you have to aim high. You need to aim high. I'm not a big DAT guy, already spoke on that, but our average DAT scores were fairly low, about a 19.8, I think, for academic average, about the same for total science. Reading comp's an important one, though. And our reading comp was actually a 21. It's the only test on the DAT that I think has any credence. And so I'll say, I don't mind saying this, I can be criticized for it, it's okay, I'm old, doesn't matter anymore. If somebody has a 3.8, 3.9, 4.0 GPA and they've taken a rigorous course load, I'll go as low as a 15 academic average, 15 total science, but I don't like to go lower than an 18 reading comp. All right. All right. So for the students who entered our school with a master's degree, and there were 46 of them, their average graduate GPA, get this, was a 3.8. Wow. And their average graduate biology, biochemistry, chemistry, physics GPA was a 3.77. Wow. And so when you enter that Master's, I'll say, you know, if you can get a 3.3 graduate GPA, you're probably okay. That's going to be low. I think because think of those averages, and you don't want to be too far below those averages. So you look at the academics, you must look at those. All right. The worst thing you could ever do, in my opinion, is to say, I'm going to take a chance on this guy. I'm going to gamble on her. Maybe she can do it. Maybe no, no, no, no, no. It's $99,000 a year here. I'm not going to gamble on anybody's future. And so I have, I must look at those GPAs and the course loads very, very seriously because when we grant an interview, I'm saying to you, I strongly believe you can make it through dental school. Okay? And that kind of falls on me. So if somebody enters dental school and they have a high GPA, and for some reason, they can't make it through, at least I can say, look, I read the tea leaves correctly, I thought, but it was up to you to perform at that same level. So that's the boring stuff. The grades are the boring stuff. Oh, I also look at biology grade, the biology GPA, and biology hours pretty, pretty closely. All right. And it's, look, if you're a chemistry major or an anthropology major, I love those. Okay? I love it. If you're a Spanish major, those are great. Public health are great. But you need to minor in biology if you're not going to major in biology. You need to minor in biology because the first year is heavily, heavily based on the basic medical sciences, and those are biology-based. And so everybody out there, freshman, sophomores, minor in what your passion is, excuse me, major in what your passion is, but at least minor in biology.
Then we go to other things. Now, interestingly enough, one thing that trips up students, applicants, a lot is exposure to the profession. We at BU do not have a minimum. We do not have a minimum. But most schools do, and they are almost always different. I know one school that wants 100 hours of exposure to general practice dentistry in a private practice setting, and it must be shadowing. It cannot be dental assisting. Why? I do not know. What's magical about 100 hours instead of 50 hours? I don't know. At IU, ours was 40 hours, and our students did just fine coming in. All right. Right. So they have all these numbers. I don't know how they come up with them, but they can be very specific. All right. So again, the schools you're most interested in, don't get tripped up because you didn't meet their minimum for what they want for exposure to the profession. And never, never settle for the minimum. It makes you look like a bottom feeder. Double their minimum when it comes to hours. So if they want 100, do 200. But make sure you read those very carefully. For BU, no problem, we don't have a minimum. But for other schools, you make sure you know what they want. We do give points for research, but it's not fatal if you don't have any research. We also give points for something called academic enrichment. It's not fatal if you don't have academic enrichment. I give big points for employment. I think when people are in the workforce, especially at a young age, I think it says a lot about them. Sometimes they had to work, depending on what family they came from. Sometimes they came from privileged families and they wanted to work. Well, that says something important to me also. So most of my colleagues will say to you, don't put employment on your application that you did before college. Employment's employment. I want to know if you're working in high school. So my suggestion is, put all of your employment. Start with the most recent jobs, work your way back through time, all the way through those jobs in middle school, high school. And those admissions officers who want to stop with what you did in college can stop, but guys like me can continue. If you have no employment, it's not fatal to your application. So don't misread what I'm saying. What is fatal to your application is if you have no community service or volunteerism. Okay? That to me is an absolute priority. And in fact, you can earn more points on my grading system through community service and volunteerism than anything. So make sure you put in your community service and volunteerism. It does not need to be all dental-related. In fact, sometimes it looks self-serving if it is all dental-related. So extend yourself. Volunteering and community service makes us better people. Volunteering and community service will make you a better provider. You'll have more empathy for your patients. Let's see. Extracurricular activity is important. I want, I personally really want individuals who've been active in their campus community. Hobbies are not extracurricular activities. Do not put hobbies on the application. They are not extracurricular activities. Now, if they're for micro-motor skills, there's a question about your micro-motor skills, that's where you can put some of those hobbies, but it is not an extracurricular. My job is very difficult going through these applications, and it is just incredibly time-consuming when I have to subtract the hobbies out of extracurricular activities. Leadership is important. It's not fatal if you don't have it. In fact, it's interesting to look at the leadership position. Sometimes you're thinking, okay, wait a minute, is this really leadership, or did you, this is a little bit of a stretch here or something like that? Employment, and I want to be very clear about this, it's impressive to me personally when I see somebody who has worked as a dental hygienist or a dental assistant. But I weigh it equally with shadowing. So don't feel like, oh my gosh, I'm at a disadvantage because all I've done is shadowing. Maybe in terms of your understanding of dentistry, you're going to be a little bit of a disadvantage, but in terms of the application process, you will not be at a disadvantage. And like I said, some dental schools, they just want shadowing. They don't want, and it's mind-boggling to me, but that's what they want. There is another question that is fatal if you don't answer it, and that's the question about micro-motor skills, your manual dexterity. If you want to be a dentist, you got to talk about your hand skills on that question. If it's blank, I consider it an incomplete application. Sorry, I can be a tough guy sometimes. Old school. All right. There is a question that people answer incorrectly quite a bit, and that's a question that goes something along these lines: Was your education ever interrupted or unduly impacted by factors other than deficiencies in conduct or academics? If you had to work more than 24 hours a week as you're going through school, you need to check yes on that question because working so many hours a week will impact your ability to participate more widely, broadly, and deeply in extracurriculars, and probably impacts your GPA a little bit. All right. So it's not just the interrupted part, it's also impacted adversely. And so think about that carefully as you're filling out that application. If you speak more than one language, make sure it's on the application. I give points for being multilingual, not at the beginner level, though. You have to be advanced or intermediate. But list all your languages. Is there anything else? I don't know. Probably was.
Next question.
No, that was extremely thorough, Dr. Casberg. I appreciate that. That was awesome. Question I had, you kind of touched on it a little bit already with your guys' showcases that you do monthly. Walk us through some of the topics. You said you have a student panel on there, you do a tour. Anything else that you guys discuss in those showcases that typically students want to know?
Yes. We introduce, I introduce myself, of course. I just have a small role in it because I'm just the admissions team, right? But then our students, who is a charismatic guy, Joe Calibrese, Dr. Joe Calibrese, he gets up there, and he's fantastic. He talks about his journey getting into dental school, he talks about his dental school journey, he talks about why he is in academic dentistry. Gives a, and it's very uplifting and motivational because you see, wow, this guy got through all this, and he's, look where he is. He's an associate dean of students now. And then we have our Dr. Dunham, who is our assistant dean of diversity, equity, inclusion. He gives his story. He also went through BU Dental. He had private practice for a lot of years and then came to academic dentistry. Just a big-hearted man, a wonderful human being. And he talks about his story. And again, it's another way for our applicants who are going to be interviewed, or have been interviewed, to say, wow, these are the individuals who are in the administration of the school. This is great. And they make themselves available when there's lunch. And then we divide the applicants up into small groups. There's a student panel. We try to get first, second, third, fourth-year students when we can. They answer students' questions about the good, the bad, the school. And that is your job, applicants. You need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly of every school you're applying to because we're not all perfect. I mean, we just, we don't do everything perfectly. And so you want the students, personally, I'm supposed to sell the school to you. I'm going to be more honest than most, but still, I've got to sell the school to you. The students are going to tell you what they love about the place, what they hate about the place. If they could change one thing, what would they change? If there was something they wouldn't change, they wouldn't change this. And so the student panels are very important. Then there's lunch. Then there's an activity fair. We do invite one of the branches of the military to participate in that activity fair. If you can get your way paid through college for dental school, all the expenses paid, and you get a stipend of $2,500 a month, I'd take it because I'm German-American, and so I have this German gene in me that likes to avoid debt. But they talk to you about their HPSP program. And then the various student organizations, the affinity groups, and all that, they talk about what they do. And then there's a tour of the school. You get to go on a tour of the school. We show off our clinics and the technology we have. And then the day ends in meeting with Dr. Dunham and Calibrese one more time to ask questions about what they do, about the school, etc., etc.
That sounds like a jam-packed day. I like how you guys do that on separate days though. I can totally see how students are just totally not focused for that portion of the day if it's on the interview day that they're not catching anything.
There's one other thing we do that I found very unique when I came here. We actually give our applicants, the ones we invite to interview, we give them access to, like we're doing now, it's kind of like a podcast, but it's live. It's with our financial aid people, it's with how in. And so you are able to tap into that at your leisure because we offer those sessions at multiple times throughout the application. I think that that's important. I think some of the things, as we talk to students, they don't think about. They're not thinking about the money at all. They're just thinking, I just got to get into school. And they're not thinking about where they're going to live, just kind of the extra peripheral things that will eventually come together but would be very important things to think about.
Just as kind of, we're closing out here, walk us through your guys' interview really quick, of kind of how students can best prepare, and then we'll close out with just kind of a final question of, you know, any final advice that you have, Dr. Casberg, for students.
Okay. Yeah. The interview is fairly unique to interviewers. And so it's, you know, sometimes they take an hour, sometimes they take a half an hour. And so it would be for me to say, and this is how the interview plays out. My advice about an interview is actually quite simple. I want you to think about what I said earlier today. I have already reviewed 2,600 applications. If you get an interview, and I don't care if it's here, BU, or any place else with this applicant pool, if you get an interview, they're interested in you. Your application has impressed them. Okay? And so you should have a humble confidence. Don't get cocky, don't get big-headed. Especially in the fall, if you get an interview, they're deeply, we are deeply interested in you. And so be confident, humble, a humble confidence approach that interview, and just be yourself. Just be yourself. Try not to have canned answers. I can guarantee you that when I interview, the questions I ask people, they're odd. It's just because I am who I am. It's partly because of my background. And these canned, and it's nothing worse in an interview than I ask a question, but somebody has a canned answer that really doesn't fit the question. Wait a minute. That's not what I asked. All right. So be careful with your canned answers. Listen to the questions, ask them directly, and from your heart. Don't try to anticipate what Casberg wants to hear here. No, no, no, no. You got to be yourself. Be confident and answer from the heart.
I love it. Any final pieces of advice for students as they're going through this admission cycle?
I guess my most sincere advice and strongest advice would be for applicants who are unsuccessful. If dentistry is your passion, if you really, really want to be a dentist, and you have been an unsuccessful applicant, find an admissions officer who will go over your application with you and give you ideas about where you were weak. Most of the time, it's going to be grades, and that's an easy fix. You just, it's expensive, it's time-consuming, but you just need to get into a pre-professional Master's program and earn, try to get as close to an A-minus GPA as you can. And those programs are worth every penny you spend, believe me. Sometimes it's going to be DAT. And you know, if the writing's on the wall, and for whatever reason, you can't get up to where people's minimums are, that's why I hate that test more than anything. It really is a dream buster. Yeah. The more difficult things to fix are, although enjoyable to fix, are community service and volunteerism. Extracurriculars might be too late. Bad interviews, those are tough too. But try to find an admissions officer who can go over your application with you and say, okay, if you really want to do this, these are the things you need to clean up.
I love it. Well, Dr. Casberg, it's been awesome interviewing you. I think you've been a wonderful help for students going through this process, and I think they'll find immense value out of this interview. So thank you so much for joining us on the show.
You're welcome. And again, thank you very much for inviting me. I was honored.
Okay. Well, that is it for today's episode of the Dental School Guide Podcast. We'll catch you all later. Bye.
That's all for today's episode of the Dental School Guide Podcast. We hope you've gained valuable insights and inspiration to fuel your journey into Dentistry. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for more expert advice, inside tips, and engaging discussions. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a review. It would mean the world to us. Until next time, keep smiling, keep striving, and remember, your dental dreams are closer than you think. Thanks for tuning in to the Dental School Guide Podcast.