Transcription
Hi, if you're a foreign trained dentist who's uh recently got an invite from UCLA or preparing for UCLA interview, well, this is the right video for you.
If you don't know who am I, [music] my name is Adra William. I got accepted to UCLA back in 2019. Same time of the year, December when I gave my interview during the time of COVID. I got accepted to UCLA, Colorado, USC, and NYU during my first cycle. And over the past years, I've been making videos for other candidates to prepare prepare. And uh today I want to talk about UCLA. [snorts]
And even though I did not ended up going to UCLA uh when I got accepted, but I had a lot of close friends who went to UCLA, graduated from there and are now uh doing private practice. So I was talking to a few of them recently how people can prepare for their interview. So I'll give you a couple of pointers and at the end of this video I'm going to share some questions that were asked back when I was a student and um and other people shared with me in the previous years as well.
So number one thing I'll tell you UCLA is in LA in California and it's a big city everything's bling bling fancy and it's very aestheticdriven society up there. Even Dr. Stevenson, even when I was in the interview, they they kind of look at people who are good-looking, people who are more uh present, presentable, look professional. Uh so that's one of the things I'm going to tell you right away. UCLA do like people who are more presentable, who are more classy, who are good-looking, can present themsel in a good way, and look confident. They like poster boys or poster girls who are like presentable people. number one thing. So, make sure you invest in your appearance, how you do your hair and clothes and everything.
The second thing I'll tell you is that UCLA overall they like people who are well-rounded. Uh they ask question like tell me about yourself, your previous school, how was it? They like to ask you about your previous training in dentistry. Uh one of the things that they do is when they pick student, they pick a well-rounded number. They like fresher graduate. I'm not saying uh having five, six years of experience is bad, but they like to see people who are fresh in their nature, who have that youth in them that they want to learn, they are excited, all of that. But if you're like somebody, oh, I practiced for 10 years, I I'm I already know everything. Well, they won't like you. So, they like that passionate enthusiasm about learning, about being in US.
One of the question they like to ask, why US? why UCLA and you need to convince them that you really like UCLA. Uh if you have taken Dr. Stevenson's course, if you've been part of Dr. uh there's a Tucker club that Dr. Stevenson is a part of, if you have done any aesthetic work, if you lived in California, you can utilize these things to build up your answer upon. Along [snorts] with that, UCLA interview will ask you personality related questions, but they will also ask you some clinical questions. Along with that they will show you an image of a class 2 and say what can be improved. They can show you uh an picture which there's abrasion and they will say what happened and what material can you use to build this up? What will be the side effect? These kind of things they can ask you.
UCLA overall their interview is very nice. They had a panel of two to three people. Uh they keep it very easygoing. They like diversity. They like people who are confident. Along with that, I'll tell you one thing which you might like, might not like depending on your situation. UCLA is very well known for postgrad. A lot of students who go there ended up going to postgrads. That's very common. And if you like this video, hit the like button, subscribe to the channel by the way.
So one other thing I'll tell you but the downsides when I was back in the days comparing UFC and UCLA the downside is they don't get a lot of clinical patients. So a lot of time the students when they go out for community rotations that's when they see patients because most of the patients who come to UCLA are given to the postgrad students. So as a DDS, you don't get a lot of hands-on training as compared to what USC does or what NYU gets. So a little bit of downside, but doesn't matter much. If you're a foreign trained dentist, you need your DDS. Do not worry too much about it.
Overall, they like your wipe. They want to see your energetic person. uh they do have a boot camp in the start in which they rigorously make you work in the a lot in the bench uh like in the sim lab it a lot of people say it's crazy work you have to work a lot that's pretty tough uh along with that I do prepare people for uh for UCLA preparation I also have videos for clinical questions that can help you but let me share with you some of the questions uh that they have asked in the previous years.
So you can get questions like tell me about yourself, why do you want to come to us? What specialtity do you like the more? What are you looking for in your classmates? What can you add as a team member in your class? They can ask you uh if you wanted to get more exposure in endo uh and or you wanted to get accepted to endo residency and somebody who's less qualified than you uh got accepted. What will you do? uh tell us about your friends, your company, tell us about your dental school in the past year, in the past uh BDS time. They will ask you tell us about how do you balance your social life and personal life. Uh they can show you a picture of a brain or broken teeth or a post and core. They ask me a question on fule. They can ask you about amalgam preparation. Show you one of them and ask you to critique whether it's clinically acceptable. If not, what can you do? They can ask you uh which field of dentistry do you like, which you don't like, what's your long-term plan, what do you think your biggest uh strength in your personality is.
And I've been making a lot of these videos already for interview prep. And I'll post a UCLA video and an interview prep playlist video in my description. And if you're looking for help with your interview prep and you want somebody to coach you who knows how actually to deal with interviews, how to present yourself in a in a professional way that makes you look confident, you can reach out to me. I might try to help out some of the people over the weekend. But u I hope this video helps you and I wish you all the best in this process. Uh do hit the like button. Do write in the comment box if you like it, if you didn't like it. And hopefully I'll see you in a more meaningful video. Thank you.