Transcription
Hi, if you're a foreign-trained dentist who's applying to the CAPID cycle in 2026, well, in today's video, I'm going to discuss with you four pillars that I usually discuss with my fellowship students, people who I train uh during the CAPID cycle. And today I'm going to discuss those four pillars with you to help you understand how you can plan better to get accepted in this year at a dental school that you want to.
And if you don't know who I am, my name is Ed William. I'm a foreign-trained just like you. Came to us in 2020, uh, 2016 and then applied uh to about 12 schools during my first cycle and got accepted to four of them. And since 2020, I've been helping other foreign-trained dentists through this platform to get accepted to dental school. And over the past six years, I've been working with people. I was one of you. I went through the same journey uh applying through CAPID, doing my SOP, personal statement, LOA, everything, interviews. And then I've been helping more than a thousand people over the past six years in this process to get accepted. And one of the things that I've learned looking at it now that there is a certain strategy that can help you save time, it can save you money, and it can save you from a burnout.
So a lot of time when I'm talking to students, and at the end of the video, I'm also going to talk about the new TOEFL and how it's different and whether you should take it or not. But uh, I'll tell you in the start that when I'm talking to students, number one thing that I tell all the time to my students or to CAPID candidates is that you have to pick one problem at a time. This is a very long marathon. When you apply to dental schools in the US, you have to give your exams, you have to give INBD, you have to give TOEFL, you have to prepare your personal statement, your letter of recommendation, you have to select schools, and then you have to fill in the CAPID portal. Then you have to fill in the supplemental questions. Then you have to prepare for the bench exams and then the supplemental questions. And it's a lot of things to do, and I usually say it's a 100-mile marathon, and it will burn you out.
One of the key things I'll tell you, number one thing that is, you need to have a strategy and direction. And in the strategy part, number one thing that I'm going to tell you is that you prepare for one mile at a time. And I was right in the place where you were sitting, and maybe you are one of those people who still have to give their TOEFL, or who still are waiting for their letter of recommendation, or trying to figure out their personal statement. And while they are preparing for all of this, they are also so worried about their interview prep, or worried about how they're going to bring the money if they get accepted, or how they're going to figure out their visa. And when you're trying to do seven things at the same time, it just overwhelms you. It's, it's a lot of burden on your shoulder, and it's going to take a toll, and you will feel burned out because you most probably might be studying, or trying to make money, or you have family to manage, and kids, and thinking about all of these things at the same time is going to burn you out. It's going to cause inflammation in your body. It's going to increase your cortisol level. You will feel like you're not sleeping.
So number one thing to take care of all of these problems and minimize them, I will tell you, number one thing that you do is you pick one problem at a time and conquer that. Don't try to do seven things at the same time. If you have to give TOEFL, focus on that. And I keep telling this to all the new candidates, pick one problem at a time and conquer it. What happens if you have to just do your personal statement, or you just have to do your uh, TOEFL? What happens when you prepare for it and you do it at a good level and you're happy about it? It gives you a kick of serotonin. It gives you dopamine, and it gives you a certain confidence that if I can do this, I can do the next thing as well, because God is on my side. And that's the kind of motivation that you need. So number one thing I want you to remember is run for one mile at a time. Don't try to solve seven things right away. It's going to burn you out.
The second thing that I tell people when I'm preparing them for this fellowship program where I mentor them throughout the whole process until they get accepted is that you need to have a strategy. You have to pick schools for about 10 to 15, at least 15 to 20 schools these days. And each school is going to cost you about $300 to $400. So you need to plan financially, and then you need to apply to these schools. Then what you do is you have to pick those 15 schools from ADA directory. If you go on Google and write ADA CAPID directory, it will show you all the schools, how many seats they have. And I have a very long three-hour YouTube video on which schools not to apply. I'll try my best to put it in the description as well. So you pick the schools. Then you have to go and see in each school what uh, things do they require from you. Do they require you to uh, do they require you to take ADAT, like you, like University of Michigan, or do they need a letter of recommendation from a uh, nonprofit organization like Indiana, or are they going to take CASPer, like UPenn is going to take this year? Uh, so you have to know what each of these schools are going to require from you. Maybe some schools want you to have a green card, which you don't have, like Oklahoma.
The second thing that along with that happens is that uh, you should be picking schools which have a large number of seats, like UCLA, UOP, Colorado, NYU, because your chances of getting accepted gets higher because they have more seats. One of the biggest mistakes I've heard is people say, "I will only apply to schools where they don't have a bench exam." That's what all the, for the lack of better term, all the lazy people are doing, and what happens is usually they lose one year and then they have to apply it next year again. So my, my suggestion is, there are only about five to six schools who don't take, do bench exam. Most of them will make you do a bench exam. And if you're trying to run away from a bench exam, my friend, eventually you have to give the licensing exam, the NBDE. Eventually, you have to do crown preps in your school. Eventually, you have to do crown preps on your patients to pay off your loan. So the thing that you're trying to run away from is what you're going to be doing every day, all day, as a general dentist. So my suggestion is, try to prepare for the bench exam as early as possible because it's going to pay you off even in later years.
The next thing I'll tell you is, once you pick these schools, you should be emailing them. The next thing is, you want to make connections with them. You, the school should know you. Along with that, one of the things that I tell people is, once you did that, the people who are working with me, I start helping them email schools and start working on their personal statements. So, usually I ask them to send me a rough draft, rough pointers, because I would want your original story. I want that to be sent to me, and what I do is I paraphrase it. I rewrite it for you. And along with that, once that is done, then we work on your resume, letter of recommendation. After that, the next strategy is, there's going to be a lot of supplemental questions, right? So you pick the schools who have the first deadlines, like UPenn's deadline, or UCLA's deadline is going to be way at the end of the year, and they are not rolling admission, while NYU or Buffalo will be very early. So what you want to do is you want to apply to those schools early on. So this is the kind of strategy you need to create when it comes to supplemental questions, when it comes to uh, knowing interviews, CASPer, MMI.
The second thing I will say is positioning yourself in the right way. When I say positioning yourself, you want to be, you should know which schools you're going to apply, and you should have financial support to apply. The third thing is, you want to have your family members, or your spouse, or your friends, or whoever's supporting you, know that this is going to be a long journey, and there's going to be freaking ups and downs. This is like a marathon where one day you're running in a desert, next day you're running on the beach, and the next day you're climbing a mountain, and some days you're going to fall down, and you're going to hurt your knee, and the next day you have to get back up and run. That's how it is, sadly. And one of the things I tell people is that you want to be mentally prepared. You want to position yourself. You want to be prepared beforehand. Otherwise, you're going to blindly walk in, and you're going to be reactive. "Oh, I have to do this. I'm going to run after this. Oh, I have to do this, and I have to run after this." And the biggest problem that people do is while they are walking in blindly doing seven tasks, they end up getting distracted by the noise.
When I mentor people, I tell them, do not believe whatever you hear on the WhatsApp group, Facebook groups, because people who really know stuff, they aren't posting on WhatsApp, and they are not going to share all the real information. So a lot of time it can be rumors, it can be disinformation. So you want to stay away from it, or you should be very picky. And sometimes I have a WhatsApp group too, and people would end up spreading a lot of negativity, whining, and crying. And I know it's tough, to be honest. Life is tough. Dental school is tough. Dentistry is tough. The patient who's going to be sitting in front of you getting injected in the mouth, he feels life is tough too. All of us who are immigrants working hard, and even afterward, who are trying to survive or fulfilling their dreams, life is tough. Ask a, ask a mother who's taking care of a kid, she will tell you life is tough. Ask a person who runs a business, life is tough. Ask somebody who's in the hospital fighting for their life, life is tough. And I do believe it is. But you should not act like a victim. A lot of time in the groups, I see people, they start to cry about things, and they create a cloud of negativity. "These schools are robbing us. This is so expensive. The visa, the Trump administration, all of those things." And I know because I, when I came here in 2016, that was the first time Trump got elected. I have seen all the visa issues. But you know what I believe in? If I'm supposed to get it, and if God wants me to get it, no bloody human can stop me. And that's how life works for me, and also for you. And you need to have that belief. So positioning yourself in the right place, being in contact with the schools, and knowing what you're doing step by step is very important. If you get distracted by the noise and your stress kicks in, trust me, it takes a lot of toll, and then you feel, you'll feel that every small task that you do when you wake up feels like a big burden. That's just how when you're in a chronic state of stress, and you will burn out. So I would definitely say avoid that. Plan ahead of time.
The next thing that I teach and tell people is the emotional confidence. Somebody I knew went for an interview at a school, and they said, "How good are you in a bench exam?" Even though they did not make that person cut a crown or do a bench exam, they just asked, "How good are you?" And that person was a little bit shy in speaking, and they said, "We don't think you're good enough. You're not good at bench exam." And I was thinking, that's a very, very superficial way of knowing somebody whether they are good at hand skill or not, just looking at their body language and face. And to be honest, that's the reality of it. I tell people that a lot of time these interviews are a drama. They are theater. Nobody can actually know what you've gone through, the fight that you put in, the kind of a person you are, the traumas that you dealt with in 30 minutes. Life is very complex. As an immigrant, you have to do so many things to get where you are. And nobody can understand that in one hour asking you questions. So by the end of the day, you have to give them answers in a confident way that they will accept it.
Now, when it comes to this CAPID process, one of the things I do with my students, with my fellowship students, is that I tell them that we, I need to help you create emotional confidence, not just in the CAPID process, because I have students who got invites, and then they went in and did not pass the bench exam, or sadly, some people had health issues, some people got delayed because they had kids in between, and this can happen. But one of the things I'll suggest you is, you need to create emotional confidence in this process. And as a mentor, that's what I try to do. I tell them, listen, every day is not going to be the same, but you pick one problem and you go after it. The keyword I say all the time on my Instagram, control the controllables. Leave the things that are beyond your control and focus on the ones that you can control. That will give you a sense of uh, control over things. It will give you confidence. And then you should also have faith that there are certain things that I leave it to God. And I fight this too. Trust me, there are things that I wish I could control, things that I wish I could change. But by the end of the day, when I lie down on the bed, I have to fight my own self and tell myself that you have to let it go. They are beyond your control, and let God take over. And this is something we as humans have to deal every day. And the earlier we learn, the better it is. Especially for people who are a certain personality, and which most of you guys are, people who are very dedicated and want to pass the exam, want to show we are the best, and we are like the dominant alpha type personality. Well, it is good to be like that. But then we need to also learn to let go of things. And that's what I'm learning too, like let go. I think that's the beauty of things.
The next thing that I tell people, the fourth pillar that I focus upon is finding mentorship. So there are mentorship programs which I offer, which are paid, uh, and it's a business for me. But you might say, "Adriel, I don't have the money." Well, a lot of people just watch my free videos, trust me. And they have found a lot of mentorship and guidance just through the videos that you're watching. And if you're finding this helpful, I would request you, please hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, or share with another friend. That would be a great help for me and for them as well. But you can also find friends who got already accepted. You can find mentors who got accepted earlier, people who are alumni, people who are currently in the schools. I know there's a Hispanic society in Touro University, and uh, the faculty up there, she's, she's very nice. She helps people. She mentors them. Uh, Dr. Perry has a YouTube channel as well. So there are a lot of people who are trying to help, and I'm not the only one. I feel like I'm the best one, but I'm, there are other people as well. And there are times when you can't afford paid services, which is totally fine. I understand that. That's why I genuinely want to make these videos for those people. And uh, you can look at other places, you can email schools. I personally feel when you have a positive soul and you're looking for solutions, eventually heaven will find you those. That's just how it works. If you're looking for money, God will find you ways to make money.
With all of these things being said, these four pillars, I think should lay down a good foundation as soon as March opens up. The next part with this that I was talking about at the end of the video is that uh, the new TOEFL. So the new TOEFL started this year, and I have students who have given it, and I recently heard one of my fellowship students, she actually scored 118 out of 120, which is a very high score. Back in the days, I got 113. I've heard 115 and 16, but 118 is quite high. And but most of the students are reporting to me that actually this TOEFL is a little bit easier, and it allows you to score higher. So if you're somebody who can afford to give the TOEFL and score higher, definitely go for it. The second thing I'll tell you, University of uh, EOP, Arthur Pacific in California, they are actually requiring everybody to give the new TOEFL if they're going to apply, and maybe down the line, more schools will follow UOP. There might be some other schools who will say, "Hey, we require the new TOEFL, we don't accept the old one." Then you would have to do it in a rush. So right now, if you have the time and money, I would definitely say take the new TOEFL.
The next thing I'll tell you that you could also do is follow me on Instagram. I do weekly Q&A sessions with students uh, where you can ask me questions. And if you're somebody who's looking for paid services, whether you need help with personal statement, letter of recommendation, if you're interested to get help with the fellowship program where I help you throughout the whole process in the CAPID cycle until you get accepted, whether it takes three months, whether it takes longer, I help my students until they get accepted to a dental school through my fellowship program. If you're interested to be a part of that, you can reach out to me. My detail is in the description. And hopefully, I'll see you in a more meaningful video.