Hello, I was recently admitted to Oxford College of Emory University off of the wait list and was wondering about the pre-dental opportunities available at the college that are available to students. I am aware that Emory’s main Atlanta campus has quite a lot of opportunity in terms of research and extracurricular activities related to the topic, but I am wary that Oxford does not provide in this area. While it is true that students from Oxford transfer following their second year, I am concerned that a year will not give me ample time to participate in the research and other activities that I wish to have on my transcript when applying to dental school at the beginning of the next year. As of now, I am registered to attend the University of California San Diego next year; students from both of these colleges are consistently admitted to some of the top dental schools in the country, so my concern lies more in the fact that being at Oxford for two years will not give me enough time (or resources) to be involved in all of the pre-dent activities that I may be able to participate in at UCSD. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Maybe just go to UCSD…however, two years (the last two) is enough time. You will be able to do research at Oxford (not to say that is important for pre-dental). Another advantage to Oxford may be that it offers better anatomy and physiology classes, whereas you can take other classes recommended by dental schools on main. But I think UCSD will allow you to hit the ground running, simply because of location (for pre-dental, it usually isn’t the school, but the resources surrounding and whether or not you can get shadowing opps and the like).
Biomedically-related research is still important if you want to get into some of the more research-heavy dental schools. UCSD will definitely have a lot more of those opportunities since their undergrad campus is mixed in with their med school campus and they have a research-intensive medical school (even though their undergrad doesn’t rank as high as Emory, but undergrad rank alone is not very important for dental school admissions). At Emory most of the biomed research opportunities will be on the main campus where the med school is, making it hard to access during the 1st two years at Oxford (you’d have to take a 45 minute shuttle each way which is impractical) unless your research is mostly focused on computer-based data analysis that can be done remotely. This is not to mention that if you’re instate for UCSD, the cost will probably be a lot loss. This is important since dental school is generally very expensive with little financial aid so for many people it would be best to save that money during undergrad.
I suspect it isn’t as important as it would be for say research oriented medical schools. I’m willing to bet other forms of research would suffice and you would not neccessarily need to start it your freshman or sophomore year. Also, rank doesn’t really matter but so much in this case (whether for med or dental) because the two schools are both very reputable and known in the field of science (though UCSD overall ranks a bit higher by some publications for life science sciences, so you will certainly not be at a “prestige” disadvantage attending there). And UCSD is even known for have a strong science education and is as selective as Oxford (I think it is partially the selectivity they consider because it allows them to take the level of competition into account) and thus honestly not far off from Emory (you’re talking about 1300 average vs. 1380…you can bump it up if you self-select those pursuing science degrees…and then likely those in UCSD engineering will be in some of the same pre-health classes for a year or two, so I’m willing to bet the gaps close significantly and OP’s competition is more similar to main campus). Don’t over-rate the “fancy” private school name vs. a very well-known, but new and maybe less ranked school (remember Emory was once like this, and still is to some degree despite having made many strides…ironically the overall reputation of the school in most areas holds up regardless of whether the UG rank falls as it just recently did, mainly because of stagnant selectivity and a growing enrollment). People know the caliber of UCSD…It’s kind of like how prof and grad schools wouldn’t view a qualified Emory student as less than an ND, Vandy, or Rice student despite the other 3 having higher SAT’s. Most schools are familiar with these places and trust that the level of academics are similar. The exceptual schools below rank of 10 are perhaps only JHU, WashU, and NU as they are known to be a bit more intense than normal. I don’t think it necessarily goes by rank more so than reputation. There is certainly a correlation, but there are many exceptions where the reputation is way beyond the ranking would indicate or where reputations are similar despite differences in ranking or selectivity.