Traditional-vs-Non Traditional Applicants

In dental and other medical/professional schools there is an unofficial categorization of students as either “traditional” or “non-traditional.” While there is not a space designated to identify this on the application, your age, life experience and pathway to school determine the type of applicant or student you will be.

Traditional Student: BLUF: These students come directly from undergrad to dental school. I would estimate that approximately 85% of my class is considered to be traditional students. This student is typically a biology, biochemistry or pre-med major during their undergraduate experience, took the DAT during their Junior year and submitted their dental application between their Junior and Senior year of undergraduate education. As a result, a majority of these students matriculate directly from undergraduate institutions into dental school following graduation. My dental school started in June so they had a few weeks off between undergrad and dental school. To be fair there are variations of this where students take a 5th undergraduate year or a gap year to complete additional suggested classes, improve DAT scores, get more research experience etc. At the end of the day, most of your classmates will be considered “traditional,” and thats ok, this is better for you if you are “non traditional”

Non-Traditional Student: This is me about 20 or so of my classmates. I entered dental school at the age of 33. I exited active duty in September of 2016, after serving 8.5 years as an infantry officer, taking a year to complete science prerequisites courses, working a year at Google and finally finding my way to Dental School. Other non-traditional classmates came from various backgrounds including: medical device sales, advertising positions, dental hygienists, pilots, and some that have been trying to gain acceptance for 3-5 years.

Those of us that come from unique backgrounds, especially the Military have an amazing advantage during the application process and navigating through dental school. The major obvious downside is that we have been out of an academic/educational setting for many years. Specifically, I graduated from undergraduate in 2008, completed 6 classes of prerequisites in Fall of 2016-Spring of 2017, and entered dental school in June of 2018. Extreme culture shock my first two semesters but we can get to that later.

Being Non-Traditional is a good thing and distinguishes you from the masses of pre-med, cookie cutter applicants that are going to dental school because their parents are dentist. This being said you have to know how to properly market yourself to ensure the schools are comfortable with your ability to complete the rigorous 4 year curriculum.