Inside Tufts Dental School Admissions: with Dr. Gottlieb

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.

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Welcome back to the Dental School Guide Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Tanner Townsen, and today we have the Dean of Admissions with Tufts University, Dr. Gotle, with us today. Dr. Gotle, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

We are super excited to have you on today. So, just to start out, Dr. Gotle, we'd love to kind of hear your background of how you ended up at Tufts and where you've been previously in your dental career, but give us a little bit of background about yourself and how you came to be the Dean of Admissions at Tufts University.

Great. So, um, I'm a general dentist, and I love being a dentist, and I love being with patients, and I love teaching. So, as a general dentist, you do a lot of teaching in clinic, but it's also very rewarding to give back to that profession and spend time with students. So, I was able to combine my two passions of teaching and doing dentistry as a faculty member. I actually started in academics very quickly after graduation and having my own practice. I came back as a part-time faculty member and slowly transitioned into a full-time faculty member with having faculty practice also at the same time. In my journey, I followed my passion to do certain things in academics, and I'm very passionate about using technology in academics, and that kind of brought me into different pathways and careers within academics. I started at UPenn as a faculty member, then I went to VCU as a faculty member, and then started gaining more and more leadership positions. I was at UBC as their Associate Dean of Admissions and Students, and when I went back to the States, I was very fortunate to have the position of Associate Dean of Students and Admissions at Tufts Dental, which I love, and I would highly recommend to people to check us out.

Awesome. Well, it sounds like you've kind of been around like dental admissions and dental schools for a long time, and a variety of schools, which kind of gives you a cool background and knowledge specifically on what life is like as a student, but also as applying to as a predental student. So that's awesome. So let's talk a little bit about Tufts first and what makes Tufts such a great place to attend. So, what are some things, like just big broad things that you feel in your course of travel through the States and Canada at different dental schools, what makes Tufts so unique?

Yeah, that's easy. Tufts is really a place where a lot of different people come together from all different places and around the US and the entire world. Because the school is the second largest school in the state, it has the ability to house a lot of people. And so, with having that opportunity, we do accept people with different backgrounds, diverse backgrounds, and with so many experiences, it's just unbelievably amazing to have those conversations and to meet so many people who are different. They come together and study towards the same goal, which kind of brings everybody on the same level. There's not much competition that is negative in the environment because everyone is just so unique and brings in their own perspective. So, I love the people who are here. It is a little bit of a tricky question because I love all my schools that I've been to, and I love all the students, and dental students are amazing wherever they are. So, I do want to put in a good word for those who are listening and choosing the dental profession as their selected career because this is a really beautiful profession. It's not easy, but whatever dental school you end up in, I envy you for starting this journey, but I also want to tell you it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be really very rewarding. So, at Tufts, what I feel is a very welcoming environment, very inclusive environment. There are a lot of resources, student support resources, and that's part of our university mission, and it does provide a lot of services to students whatever programs they're in. So, we are a relatively small university, but the dental school is very big, so we get a lot of support from the central university as well as the Boston campus, which is the Health Campus where the medical school and all the health campus professional schools are. We have a veterinary school as well, which is unique. Not all health centers have that, so we do bring different perspectives and a lot of support for our students in terms of well-being and wellness and mind-body connection as well.

Wow, that is awesome. I think the student services of mind and body and things like that, that is something that maybe as students are applying to dental school often don't consider is an important factor to have. So, you had mentioned a couple of them. What are some of the things that those student services provide besides mind and body that students have access to as a dental student there?

So, we offer a lot of support systems within the dental school, in addition to what I was mentioning in the university. Within the dental school, our Academic Affairs and Student Affairs office work very closely to monitor all the students. So, I know I mentioned the size of our school, again, bigger school, more resources, more people, so it's not that you're working with deficiency here. So, we are very well connected with students, starting with the representation of the classes. So, most dental schools will have the executive board, so the president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and those leadership positions communicate very closely with us, the administration, with Academic Affairs, as well as Student Affairs, and we meet with them regularly to hear what's happening in the class. The e-board, as we call them, the e-board members will have, of course, many ways to get feedback from the class, and they will bring it to the administration. So, we'll sit down, brainstorm, how do we resolve this issue, and how do we provide more support for your students? Now, that's on a larger scale. If we have individuals who need help, then Academic Affairs and Student Affairs will sit down with certain specific individuals who come up and say, "Okay, I'm struggling with this course. How can you, or what can I do to get better?" And then we say, "Okay, there's tutoring that you get from Academic Affairs. There's TA sessions that the students get. There's also a really cool program that we started last year, which is the Peer Advisory Group." Including it is a very good question. It is a group of students who were selected in a very rigorous selection process, are there to support students with whatever their needs are. So, there's a, I don't know what learning management system you use, if it's Canvas or Blackboard or another system. So, there's this a course that is designed to be there to have support resources. So, all the peer advisors are listed there with their biography, and as a student, you will go in, log in, you don't have to tell anybody, or it's not tracking your entry, and you will be able to see all the peer advisors, read their bios, and contact them through the system to say, "Hey, do you have some time to talk? I am struggling with something." And it can be personal, it can be academic, it can be related to a faculty member that they are having issues with, or they may be another student. And the peer advisors are trained in providing support, not counseling, but providing support and sharing from their experience, as well as sharing a list of resources that are official. So, here's the counselor scheduling contact, you should contact them. And they also serve as kind of first responders if there's an acute problem. They would let us know, "This student needs a lot of help with some urgent matter," and then we will immediately address that. So, the connection between the students and the administration is very, very strong, despite again having so many. It's not that all the students have issues at the same time, right? So, a student might have a concern one day, and we can address that. Another student, another day. We are here to help the students, and that's something that is very clear.

Wow, that peer advisor thing, that is completely unique. I've not heard of that before in that kind of context. So, I think that is something really cool to kind of give students extra resources to kind of take advantage of and help them along the way. So, that's really neat. So, kind of moving more into the clinical side of things with Tufts in particular, you've got so many students. How do you go about getting, making sure that all of them have the experiences they need to become successful dentists? How often are they in the clinic once they're in the clinic, their third and fourth year? And how are you ensuring that they all have those experiences they need to be prepared?

Yes, so every dental school is charged with certain requirements based on the Commission on Dental Accreditation, which is, you can't really invent your own dental school, you have to follow the direction of the commission. And as such, you have certain competencies that all students have to follow to be able to graduate as entry-level dentists. So, we follow that the same way as all the dental schools do, and most dental schools have a similar structure. So, we are in an urban area, we're located downtown Boston and Chinatown, which means we have a lot of traffic and we have a lot of patients. The students would be, right now, they are divided into three different floors. So, if one dental school has one floor, which just makes it times three, and we have enough space and we have enough faculty to cover each one of these floors. The students are divided into six practice groups. Again, every school would have that kind of structure. I know VCU does as well as other schools around the country, and it's the private practice model. You have a practice coordinator, you have the staff members to support, some assistance, and so on. Ours is currently divided into six different groups. The groups are also, there's a very cool feature that I didn't mention earlier about the support, but I'll mention it in the second. So, the groups are mainly comprised of the third and fourth years, but we actually assign the first-year students as they come in July with orientation, they are assigned to practice groups. So, as you go through your time at school, you already know who your buddies are. And what I mean by that, it's actually, there's a program that's called Vertical Integration Program, short VIP. And with the VIP, you are assigned into a little small family. So, you are, as a D1, you have a D2, a D3, and a D4 who are assigned to the same group. And together, you have meetings, and you actually participate in some endeavors that are academic. And that's another very cool thing that we do, that's called Basics. The program is related to clinical care. The D4s usually present a case, D3s present with them, the D2s do some research and present, and the D1s as well. So, all these experiences create an environment where the D1s already feel part of the clinical groups, and then as they go into the clinical groups, they have the support, and they actually share patients with their vertical buddies. I think VCU also has a similar program to that, so you might be familiar. And so, in terms of the support, there's additional mechanisms. But in terms of the clinical experience, you do have enough opportunities for the students to be exposed to as D1s, D2s, and then participate in D3s and D4s. I also want to mention that we have an externship program where students go out into the community to work in different areas of the country, not only in Massachusetts. We actually have students in Arizona and California, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire, going to different places. So, that's when you obtain additional clinical experience, and the students report that that is something that is completely life-changing, and seeing how they operate in real life. And also, they might be getting a job offer after they're doing all these externships. So, that's a very nice bonus for doing those experiences.

That is great. So, a lot of schools have those external rotations where they get to either travel within the state or out of the state. How much time are those students able to go? Is some schools say, "Hey, we're just going to have a couple of weeks at a time where they'll go." Is it up to like five months? How long are those students gone? Is it only fourth years too, or is it third years as well?

Great question. We start at the end of third year. Students go, currently they go for five weeks at a time, and then they continue in the fourth year. So, you only go for that rotation. I'm going to, uh, share with the world that we are considering extending those. It's not yet formal, but we are looking into extending those rotations and making them a little bit more, I would say, different, and having additional places and locations to have those rotations in. So, right now, it's mostly community clinics, and we are looking to expand that into additional resources, so our students are exposed to even more, in addition to what we already have.

That is quite nice. That's awesome. So, it's just a single rotation that most students get to go on? Is that, from my understanding, is that correct? So, they would go for five weeks? Okay. Just for five weeks, one time. Okay. Very cool. Well, that is an awesome experience that they get then. Now, when they're in clinic, their third and fourth year, are they in there five days a week? Is it just a couple days a week they have to rotate because you guys have so many students or how does that work out with faculty and the different clinics?

Yeah, you're there when you need to be there. So, you're there five days a week. We actually have evening clinics. So, we have three sessions a day. Yes, so there are more opportunities for the students to rotate through. With the students on externships, we also have students on rotations within the dental schools. Again, this is something that is pretty much standard in schools that have specialties, and we do have all the specialties here at Tufts. Wonderful ability to for the students to be exposed to those rotations on specialties also take away students from clinic, and it happens that when students come to clinic, then they have the opportunity to have seats depending on their patient availability. It's open and available five days a week. First patient starts at 9, and so they have three sessions a day, except for Friday. I think there's no evening clinic on Friday.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I think Friday evening clinic would be a tough clinic to motivate yourself and your patient to get to. So, that's awesome. All right. Well, anything else that you feel like you would want someone to know about Tufts if they were looking into applying to Tufts? What else would you want them to know about?

Well, we are very clinically oriented, but we are a research-based school. So, we offer both angles. Basic science studies are very rigorous because we have all the professors from the medical school teaching our basic sciences. You know, when you are complete with your studies here, that you are very well-rounded in terms of your clinical experience, as well as your medical education or basic science education, as well as having so many peers that you can get referrals from or practice with. We have over 10,000 alumni around the globe, and that's a wonderful network that you can benefit from. I also want to put in a plug for our career center. I don't know that a lot of dental students have that. So, our career center offers opportunities for students to connect with mentors in the community who are Tufts grads, and we have several different mechanisms to connect people. They can either go shadow or partner or get mentorship from. And we have, I don't know how many, maybe like 40 dental organizations that are very active, maybe more. We have like the largest number of dental student organizations in the country, and they are all very, very active. So, if you are looking to help the community around you, this is definitely the place for you.

That is awesome. Okay. Well, we will switch gears here and talk a little bit specifically about the predental students and the admissions process and the interview process and so on. Just to kind of start out, we're going to start out really broad and then we're going to kind of narrow it down a little bit more. But when someone applies to Tufts, walk us through that admissions process from when you first receive the admission, like basically from when you get the application up to when you invite someone for an interview. What does that look like for you guys at Tufts?

So, we recommend that people apply early. Early means probably July is a good time. You know, June is great, but July is still very good. Apply early. Let's say you applied in July with everything you have, the DAT completed, all your courses completed, great. All the prereqs, make sure you check this out before. We are special, we only require one semester of organic chemistry with lab. So, that is okay. And another bonus is that we accept physics from community college. Okay. So, the physics requirements, you can take in community college, and it doesn't.

Yes, sorry, I might interrupt you from time to time. I'm so sorry about that, Dr. Gotle. With regards to the prerequisites, how many prerequisites do you really want to see that a student's completed? So, you obviously, this happens every single year, and often from a class like students are still in their senior year finishing up classes. How many of those prerequisites do you want to see them having finished before they apply?

Ideally, they would be missing like one or two courses. Okay. So, majority of the courses, majority would be good. Very commonly, people leave like the last physics course or the biochem. Those are a little bit more, I wouldn't call them anything. So, those courses, they are usually left for the end. But a lot of people are now more aware of the prereqs and they would take them all before applying.

Great. Thank you for kind of elaborating on that. So, once you get that application from the students in either June or July, ideally would be considered early, what does that process look like of reviewing the application? You guys have a team that kind of sifts through them to determine, "Hey, these are applicants that kind of meet our criteria, and these ones that don't." How does that work?

Yes, so we have multiple reviewers, and we review all of our applications. We are very proud that we receive the most applications of any dental school in the US, and it is kind of understandable. We have a larger class, so we are able to accommodate more students. So, we are very thankful for the candidates for being interested in our school, and I want to reassure them that we do review all the applications. So, it takes us a long time, but we are working very hard to make sure that we take care of everyone as they come in. So, if you applied earlier, you will be reviewed earlier. As we review the applications, we would identify those who meet our mission. That is, we don't look at your GPA. Or, let me rephrase it, we look at everyone holistically. So, the fact that you have a really good GPA and DAT is great, but it's not enough. So, we want to make sure that you will be a good fit for what I just mentioned before, which is student organization involvement, helping the community around us, being diverse, bringing in different perspectives of things. And so, to review that, that will be taken into consideration.

So, sorry about the intermission there, but going back to what you were saying, Dr. Gotle, you had mentioned you look at people holistically. So, even if you have a 25 or 40, doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get in. You really look at the applicant as a whole. So, as you are going through the process, what do you guys look at first? Is it the personal statement that you guys look at first? Is it the community service? What aspect of the application do you look at first?

Yes, great, great question. Because all parts are equally important. We would follow the order of the application, basically the way that AADSAS summarizes everything for us. So, whatever the candidates see as following that application, you can see what the application looks like on our end. So, that PDF with all the different colors, you will be able to see a copy of what we see. We just have a little bit more functionality with these different numbers, and we can sort them and look at them comparing with between multiple students or applicants. Very importantly, we look at the personal statement, for sure. This is something that we learn a lot from, and we learn about the motivation of students. We look at people's backgrounds, where they're from, where they went to college, how their academic experience has been. So, let's say you don't have a 4.0, you have a 3.2, but that is a combination of a first year not so good of a performance, and then when you went to second, third, and fourth year in college, or if you are in a rising senior, then we can see that second and third year you got all A's, and you took a very big curriculum, so many courses, but also upper-level courses. So, we would say, "Okay, it's a 3.2, but actually, it is something that we can parse out and say you will be ready for our rigorous curriculum in dental school," and then we would consider that. So, we won't consider the grade per se, we need to see what actually happened. Now, if you have a certain major and you had to take all the prereqs separately, that's added to your experience and to your time. And also, what if you were a student athlete? What if you were working full-time because you had to pay tuition? What if something happened and you told us that in one of the questions that something personal happened and you want us to take that into consideration? Or there's so much that a student has to offer except for just numbers that it's very easy to only look at the entire thing and not just parse it out. We do at Tufts look at shadowing and dental-related experience a little bit more carefully because of our very clinically oriented school. We want to make sure that when you come in, you're really committed to dentistry, you know what to expect, and you have that kind of experience to rely on because when you go to clinic, it's fast-paced, and you really don't have time to start from scratch. So, we want to have that specifically looked at at Tufts. Also, because of the volunteering and the community-oriented approach, we want to see that you've been doing something meaningful to yourself and meaningful to the environment and the people around you. So, volunteering to be certain things that are not as helpful to others, but maybe they're helpful to you, may not be as appealing. However, if you've been doing research, that's something that we also look at because of what I mentioned. We are very happy to support students to pursue research. So, that's something that we look at. So, I can't point out one thing, but maybe just a few things that I mentioned are a little bit more looked at.

I like that. So, in terms of the dental experiences, let's talk about those dental experiences again, because you said that was a key aspect of what you guys look at at Tufts. Over your years at Tufts and other schools that you've worked at, what are some dental experiences on applications that have really stood out to you, like, "This person's going to be really well-prepared"? I really like that and seeing that on an application.

Great question, because even with that answer, there's a lot of nuances. So, I can't just say, "Just be a dental assistant." Do not just, but if you want to be a dental assistant, or if you want to shadow, certain things, there's a great difference between two people who shadow the same practice. So, one person might write about their experience in one way, and the other person will write differently, that would show me completely different takeaways from those experiences. As a shadowing candidate, you need to be involved, you need to be actively engaged in what's happening in the clinic. And if you're not allowed to, then maybe find another clinic. But I'm not saying you have to treat patients, it's just you should show the dentist how interested you are in this profession. Going to participating in shadowing experience, I would recommend being showing or internally being interested in the activities and understanding what's happening. So, when you are providing information on the application, you can actually talk about what it meant to you. So, I'm going to a dentist and I'm writing about it in my application. I could say, "I shadowed Dr. Joe from this date to this date, 8 hours a day. I have 140,000 hours," and I think it's great. Or you can say, "Okay, I shadowed this dentist. The dentist was mainly focused on this kind of patient population. Within this population, I noticed that there was a continuously showing a certain disorder that the dentist was interested in helping out. They also volunteered, and I came, I went with them during their volunteer time, and this is what I learned from that experience, and it really made a difference in my plans for the future by XYZ," depending on how you're perceiving that experience of shadowing. You can tell us about that in the application. So, having 1,400 hours of shadowing, and then when I interview you, I ask you about what you learned, and you say, "I didn't learn much." That's not helpful. So, you might be invited to interview because, "Oh, you have so many hours," but we want to see that you benefited from that. So, don't make it up, but if you did, we want to see what you learned from that. So, the most interesting application I've read this year, well, I read a lot, but it was every shadowing experience, they learned something different, and they made a point to write about it, and they took the time to not copy-paste all the shadowing. It was different, every word was different, and I was like, "Wow, you really took the time. You put a lot of effort into it and really learned from it." So, I think that is something that we love to see. We want to see that it was a meaningful experience. I just want to add to your question that assisting is great, but it's not necessarily. I know not a lot of people, not everyone can have that opportunity. So, you could make your shadowing experience a little bit more meaningful.

Gotcha. That is awesome. That is great advice for students there. Now, in terms of the personal statement, kind of along the same vein of making sure it's unique, what are some things that you feel like are good things to include in your personal statement, whether it be in terms of structure or content, versus things that you would maybe avoid, or you guys see a lot of, you're like, "I don't think you necessarily need that," or it doesn't help you stand out?

Two things. One, that is usually people probably know about it is, do not recite your resume. So, we don't want to see, "I started this at this time, I'm a student in this major, and this is where all my volunteering and shadowing is." Skip that. We want to see why you want to be a dentist, like why is this profession of interest to you? I would caution people these days from going ChatGPT style, "Make my statement look nice," because there's now services that will scan ChatGPT for your ChatGPT connection. You might actually jeopardize yourself, even if you mean well and you didn't mean to, you know, take somebody else's words. So, I would be just genuine and start writing it early. So, don't start with, you know, in June with your application, but maybe even start now, wherever you are in the process, just start writing about why you want to be a dentist, and then you'll come back to it and change it. I'm assuming a lot of people had to write a personal statement for college. You've been through that, you know what it's like. It's quite dynamic, and you want it to be your own, you want it to be original, so we can't find any traces of anything of that anywhere else. But also, we want to get to know you. So, that's an amazing opportunity for you, only 4,000 or 4,500 words to tell us about yourself. That's unbelievable. You can tell us whatever you want, of course, professionally, but it's great. We can see what you're interested in, what your passions are. And so, in terms of how to go about it, maybe find a theme. People like to kind of have a frame, so they start with something and then they end with the same thing, like full circle. That's cute. That's not necessary, but if you want to have that, that's fine. But just tell us about yourself. We want to get to know you.

Are there any personal statements throughout the years that you've read that, like, have always stayed with you that stand out?

There was one unique one that talked about a student who was volunteering in a domestic violence hotline, and she talked about some of the things that happened and how she was, it was related to dentistry, and that's kind of how she ended up in dentistry because there were some dental issues. But that was memorable because the situation was so emotional that I remember that. But it doesn't have to be, you know, that's quite unique. People mostly are not doing that. But then we spend a lot of time during the interview talking about her role in that and all kinds of things related to that. So, I think that is one. We also ask for certain essays at Tufts. So, we review them before the applicant is interviewed. So, I have some of those memorable essays taken with me. But the best thing is to see the students then at school, and we can kind of chat about it, and they can talk more about how they wrote it and to understand what motivated them to write it this certain way. So, students actually know how to write very good personal statements. You just need to take the time and make it your own.

I love that. Now, once they've gotten past that initial review, how do you guys go about selecting? It's obviously a holistic approach, but how many students do you guys typically select to interview, and what is your guys' interview format that you guys have kind of employed? Most of the schools have kind of changed somewhat since COVID happened with having to go more virtual, but how do you guys go about picking students and what does that review interview process look like?

Okay, so I'll start with the interview process. Well, we invite between 500 and 600 students to interview for a class of about 200. And the interview process is virtual, mostly. We have a pre-interview virtual assessment, which is called Kira. Many schools are using that. And through Kira, we get to ask a lot of questions that we want to know about before the interview. We review the questions and answers before the interview, and then when we meet with the candidates, we're able to ask follow-up questions or clarify some of their answers, but also ask new questions. So, the interview itself is also virtual, and it's one-on-one. So, it's one faculty member and the candidate. And rarely, we would have a student join or a student interviewer, but mostly we have faculty members who are very experienced admissions committee members interview the candidate. So, the asynchronous, as we call it, the pre-interview virtual is probably about 30 minutes long, and then the virtual interview, which is a live interview, is another 30 minutes. So, overall, I will have about 60 minutes of impression of a candidate. For those who are interviewed, they are invited for visit days, and those usually take place on Fridays, about a week or two weeks after the interview. So, the candidates are definitely invited to come and visit the school and talk to students, see, have a tour, and get to know some of our faculty members. I fail to mention that between the asynchronous and the live interview, we have presentation day, where the students who are interviewing that week, all of them will be together on Zoom and hear different presentations about the school, learn about, you know, student organizations, about our externships, about our financial aid, about our career center, student support resources, everything that is important as a student, as a candidate, when you're considering a school, you will have that session with our admissions team. And it is a small session, so it will be 10, 12 students at a time, candidates at a time. And also, you get an opportunity to talk to students during that small group session. We have multiple of these every week. Our admissions office is unbelievably generous with their time, and they do it over and over, just to make sure that everyone has the ability to ask questions. And we take our interviews very, very seriously, and we've put a lot of time and effort into the process to also both make a good decision, but also we want to make sure our student, our candidates are being respected for their time and their effort to check us out. So, it's very, very important to us that all sides have enough time to examine each other.

That is great. Now, after that interview process is over, after you've had some time, do you guys have like a rubric that you guys grade these candidates on as they're interviewing via Kira and then on one-on-one?

We do. We do have certain scales or guidelines that we use for assessing candidates, but the conversation actually happens within the admissions committee meeting, and we have those every other week. And we do a lot of discussion about the candidates, and again, from the standpoint of the holistic review, make sure that we talk about candidates in all different aspects. Usually, after they've been invited to interview, what we talk about is how they perform during the interview, what they said, how it applies to our school and our mission. And so, we don't usually go back and say, "Oh, by the way, their GPA is this and that." We really care about, okay, we invited you to interview, that means we like the file, but do we find your performance acceptable moving forward?

I think that's how a lot of schools do it. I think it's a great way to approach interviews and then the decision-making process from there. All right. So, just kind of in closing, let's, we'll kind of move into some after the interview questions here. Everyone's gotten their interview now, and you guys have kind of made some decisions. What does that process look like for the students that are waitlisted at your school? So, let's say December 15th comes around, and you send out your first batch of acceptances, but there are a bunch of students waitlisted. Do you guys continue to interview after you, like in January and February, or are you guys just solely drawing from your waitlist?

We do continue to interview because we have so many wonderful applicants. We continue to interview all the way through April. Oh, wow. We just finished our, well, I don't know that we finished, but we ended April, and we interviewed. And so, we already have a class full, but we might, you know, decide that we want to have more people on the waitlist who are wonderful and might have an opportunity if it opens up to join our class. Whoever is on the waitlist, obviously, they're still going to be considered, and we will continue to interview after that and offer positions on a rolling basis.

Gotcha. Now, how often, in terms of how much movement is there typically? So, some students may accept to come, they'll put a deposit down, and then their state school or they decide to go to another school, not to pursue dentistry anymore. How much movement does that class roster usually have up until when school starts? I know it's probably different year to year, but is there typically a fair amount of movement, or is there not?

It's usually, you know, once we see March kind of rolls around, that's when things kind of, that's almost set in stone. It's what you said, every year is different. It's unpredictable. Last year, there was no movement. Nobody moved. Oh, really? The year before, there was a lot of movement. So, it's very difficult to predict. People have different options, new schools open. It also depends on where we get our candidates to apply. So, we usually have a lot of people applying to Tufts from Florida and from California. And so, it depends, you know, some people have personal situations where they say, "I can't go to the East Coast after all. I need to stay close to home," or different things that are making it difficult for them to attend here. And we totally understand that. We are not happy about it, but we, of course, want the students to do what's best for them.

That is great. Well, as we kind of wrap up here, do you have any final parting words of advice for people that are going to be applying this upcoming cycle in the next month or two that they should kind of remember and try to bring to the table when they're applying?

So, first is definitely be yourself. Don't try to think what we want to see. Whatever whoever you are, you're good enough, you're great, and we want to get to know you, and we want to see what you're up to and how you feel and what you think. So, don't try to be someone else. We like the diversity, we like people from who have different perspectives. So, that's one. And secondly, if it doesn't work out, if something goes wrong along the way, if you thought you were going to get an A in this course and you got a B or a C, don't be discouraged. Find somebody who can review your application prior to the time of applying and get some advice. Maybe they'll say, "No, that's fine, don't worry about it," or they say, "You might need to retake that." I know pre-health advisors are supposed to serve that purpose, and maybe they could be a help. But I would say, ask, try to find one of the admissions offices that in the schools that you're applying to and ask them. You can definitely email the admissions office. Usually, they get so many emails that they don't necessarily have an opportunity to answer each one. But if you are able to get in touch with somebody in the dental profession to review your application, don't be shy about it. Just ask them, "What do you think? Is this going to be a problem?" Or the dentist that you shadowed, show them that. Don't feel like they're going to judge you or anything if you don't do well. So, try to get advice and follow that advice. And never be discouraged if it doesn't work out. There's always next year. We have amazing students who applied multiple times, and I can't even imagine our school without them. They're just, it doesn't matter at the end of the day how many times you applied, as long as you end up in your destination.

That is excellent advice. Well, Dr. Gotle, thank you so much for coming on the show today, and we are so grateful that we got to hear the perspective of Tufts and what Tufts is looking for in future students and in current students.

Well, that is it for today's episode. Dr. Gotle, thank you once again.

Thank you. Good luck.

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 us 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.