Master’s Degree (SMP) or Post-Bacc for Dental School Applicants

Following the previous post “How to Become a Dentist – Traditional Student Timeline” I felt inspired to talk about what to do for students who did not start out wanting to go into dentistry, or students who were not competitive enough to get into dental school. As a non-traditional applicant myself, I remember stressing over a lower GPA, and had looked into programs that increased my academic competitiveness. Hopefully this post can give some direction on what to do for students like myself.

My background

To start, I would like to talk about myself and how I got into dental school. As for what school I got into, I will omit that for privacy purposes.

I entered university in 2011 as a biology major. Over the course of the years, I did fairly well in my studies and hovered around a 3.5 GPA. Around my late junior year, things took a turn for the worse as my parents both fell near-terminally ill. As an only child, I dropped everything academic and accompanied them to their very frequent treatments. I had asked for incompletes, but some professors did not care enough and just gave me an F. As such, I received 2 F’s, 2 Incompletes, and 1 UW. Unfortunately, all of those were counted as F’s since a lot of my professors did not end up responding to me regarding work to finish the I, so my GPA dropped down to a ~2.8. At that point, I took my time to finish my degree because I honestly did not care anymore. I received my degree in 2017 with a 2.9 GPA.

At some point, I got over my rut and found a full time job in a dental clinic, started taking post-bacc courses (near 20 classes) and started studying for the DAT. Within 2 years, I pushed my GPA to roughly 3.2GPA and scored a 23AA. I had gotten 2 interviews and waitlisted at both of them, with both of them mentioning that my GPA was low, and that a master’s would have been a good choice. Following this, I researched and applied to a few master’s programs along with dental school and got into those programs. Fortunately, I ended up getting accepted to Dental school and did not have to go into the master’s but I was ready to commit. That was the end of my getting into dental school journey, and beginning of my dental student career.

Post Bacc vs Master’s – What are the differences?

On the AADSAS application, after you enter your course transcripts, your GPA will be calculated into several categories such as Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, PostBaccalaureate, and Graduate GPAs. I’ll be focusing on the PostBaccalaureate (postbacc) and Graduate (master’s) GPAs.

As defined by the ADEA AADSAS application:

POSTBACCALAUREATE: Undergraduate level courses taken after the first bachelor’s degree is earned. If a second bachelor’s degree is earned, the entire second degree would be considered “postbaccalaureate.”

GRADUATE: Master’s degree and doctorate degree-level work only. Applicants do not need to have earned the degree in order for the work to be graduate degree level. Work taken in pursuit of a Ph.D., M.D., Pharm.D., J.D. and JurisD are all considered doctorate degree-level. According to this definition, a master’s degree from an SMP(Special master’s program, usually heavily science based) would be considered towards your Graduate GPA.

Source: ADEA 2019 Instructions

Which one should I pursue?

This is the tricky part and where many people have different opinions. I want to talk about the benefits of both and the cons of both to help students decide better.

If you are a student who is making a career change, and are missing all your pre-reqs, or is slightly uncompetitive, then choose post-bacc. Postbacc’s are usually less expensive than an SMP and are a good fit for students who have not taken pre-reqs(for career changers), or students that are not yet academically competitive (for record enhancers).

If you are a student who has completed your pre-reqs, but are still really uncompetitive and are unable to raise your GPA in any meaningful way, a master’s degree, will look much better on your application. SMP’s are usually thought to be more rigorous and are held in higher regard than postbacc courses. For the higher price and difficulty, they offer more benefits such as being awarded a master’s degree, and being more “impressive” on your application should you do well in the program.

So you’re probably wondering, if a master’s degree is better for your application, why doesn’t everyone just do an SMP? Well, the reason is because an SMP is expensive, much more rigorous, and requires more commitment. Most SMP’s start at $30k for tuition alone, may require relocation or a long commute, and requires a lot more focus. Due to this, an SMP should be the last resort because you may end up spending another $40k-$70k. You will also have to take either the GRE or DAT and score relatively well. In contrast to a postbacc, you will be spending a few grand and taking undergrad courses.

For record enhancers, where is the line for choosing between an SMP and Postbacc?

Choosing between the two can be difficult, but it is different for every applicant and even every school. Ultimately, it depends on where you are right now and what is your goal. To make a decision, you have to calculate what you need to do to become a competitive applicant.

For example, if you are a slightly uncompetitive applicant with a 3.25 GPA applying for a school with an avg of 3.5 and 20AA, then a high DAT (23+) might offset your lower GPA. However, if you took your DAT and scored a 21AA, your chances of getting into that school are not as good. That is not to say that you won’t get in though, but either a higher DAT or a higher GPA will greatly benefit you.

This is where a postbacc can make a lot of sense. If you are willing to take an extra 4-8 classes over the course of the next year, and do well in all of them, you may raise your GPA to a 3.35 or even 3.45. With a 3.25 GPA at first, you don’t necessarily raise any red flags, and by completing a postbacc with mostly A’s, you can apply as an applicant, and you’ll have a better shot than if you didn’t. The benefit of this is that you postbacc courses are much cheaper than SMPs, and you will be doing undergrad level courses. Best of all, you can just apply for a postbacc, as there won’t be any need for a personal statements or any standardized tests required unlike for an SMP.

If you are an applicant that is extremely uncompetitive (i.e. under 3.15 GPA), then an master’s degree, would improve your chances much more than a postbacc would. This is due to the fact postbacc are still undergrad classes. By doing poorly in your undergrad, you have raised many red flags, and you must reassure the admissions committee that you will be able to handle graduate level courses. If you had taken a postbacc instead and did well, that does not really prove you have what it takes to excel in a graduate level program. In fact, you could have struggled a lot to be able to get that 3.8 postbacc GPA. However, if you were to get a 3.8 on a master’s program, even if you struggled a lot, you would have proven yourself to be able to handle the rigors of graduate level coursework. This difference can allow them to overlook those red flags.

That said, having a master’s degree won’t guarantee an acceptance and not having a master’s degree does not mean guaranteed rejection. You absolutely will find students with lower grades getting acceptances without a master’s degree. As I have noted before, it really depends on who you are and what programs you are applying to. A student with a great personality and a lot of enthusiasm that crushed the interview may get an acceptance with a 3.0 and 20AA into a school where the avg is 3.4/20. However, it cannot be denied that a master’s degree will increase your chances more than if you did not have one.

What to look for in an SMP?

I should note that not all SMPs are equal. If you have made the decision to get a master’s degree over more postbacc work to attend dental school, then you need to do research on what will actually help.

Masters of Biomedical Sciences (MBS) degrees are extremely popular. Look for MBS programs with an oral health track or dental track. That means the program is catered to helping students get into dental school.

Also, in your research, look for how often a program leads to matriculation. For example, you would want a good chunk of the graduating class get into dental school, preferably over 70%. You should be able to find these in FAQs or by emailing the program director. Programs that do not divulge or show stats raise red flags because they may have a low matriculation rate and should be avoided.

Here is a list of programs, both Postbacc and Master’s Programs, for everyone to browse. This is not my work, and I don’t remember where I got it from (it has been in my google sheets for a while), but it is made by a person initialed CB. Found out this was made by a person on SDN called justflossy.

Hopefully this post will help students make the decision between attending an SMP or doing more postbacc work. Feel free to drop any questions down below.