Dentistry
Preparing for dental school
Dentistry shares most of its route with medicine and differs in ways that matter. Here is what is the same, and what is not.
What is the same as medicine
The admissions test is the same one, sat at the same point in Year 12's summer. Predicted grades work the same way, and dental schools set thresholds much like medical ones. The A-Level requirements are close to identical: Chemistry and Biology are the usual pair, with typical offers from AAA to A*AA and the practical endorsement expected to be passed. GCSE grades are scored by several dental schools in the same way medical schools score them.
So for most of the four years, a dentistry applicant and a medicine applicant are doing the same work. That is why we teach them together.
What is genuinely different
- Manual dexterity. Dental schools ask about it, at interview and sometimes on the form. Playing an instrument, model making, sewing, anything fine-motor and sustained. Candidates who have never thought about it answer badly.
- Why dentistry and not medicine. The single most common dental interview question, and the one most answers fail. A general interest in healthcare reads as someone who did not get into medicine.
- Work experience. Dental practice shadowing is harder to arrange than hospital experience and carries more weight. It needs starting earlier.
- A smaller sector. Fewer schools, fewer places, and a much smaller spread of entry routes, so the list of realistic choices is short and worth being honest about early.
What we can and cannot tell you
Someone on our team has been through the dental application specifically, so the interview practice and the "why dentistry" work come from having answered those questions, not from reading about them. Our tutor base is mostly medical students, so for the subject teaching your child is taught by whoever knows the specification best, which is the right way round.
We will say plainly when a question is outside what we have done. A dental school's current admissions policy is published by the school and should always be checked there.
Where to start
Usually with the subjects: A-Level Chemistry and Biology carry the offer. Application support covers dentistry applicants too, pointed at the dental route rather than the medical one. The free diagnostic is the same hour either way.
How we teach it
- Timed questions from the first lesson. Students who only ever work untimed are practising a different skill from the one being examined.
- Work set between lessons, and marked. An hour a week changes very little on its own. The work in between is where the grade moves.
- A full paper under exam conditions every four weeks. Same timing, same silence, no notes. The score is recorded so progress is a number.
- Written progress to parents every month. What was covered, what the scores were, what we are working on next.
- Groups capped at five, or one-to-one if that suits better.
Start with the free diagnostic
Every student begins the same way: one full hour under exam conditions, marked against the real mark scheme, followed by a written summary of where the marks are going and what we would do about it. It costs nothing, and the assessment is yours to keep whether or not you carry on.