Evaluation Procedures Used by The Committee

We maintain a file for all students who express an interest in one of the health professions.  By the end of a student’s junior year, this file typically includes three to eight faculty evaluations and an information sheet filled out by the student.  The students are responsible for requesting evaluations from individual professors.  The Committee interviews pre‑health students individually in their junior or senior year.  By this time nearly all the students are personally well‑known by many of the Committee members.  Five to seven members of the Committee attend each interview.  After an interview, each attending committee member fills out a brief summary of their impressions.  These summaries are added to the student’s file.  The Committee does not block students from applying to dental school. 

The Committee member who best knows the individual student then uses the information from the file and the interview to prepare a letter of recommendation. The chairman of the committee reviews this draft and edits it as necessary. 

Recommendation categories

Highly Recommend ‑ The individual has outstanding personal qualities, excellent ability and strong commitment to dentistry and serving people. Individuals in this category also typically have overall and science GPAs of 3.3 or better. 

Recommend ‑ The individual has good personal qualities, above average ability and a commitment to dentistry. A science and overall GPA of 2.8 to 3.2.

Recommend with Reservation – Same criteria as recommend but with some stated reservation of deficient area.

Note that the final recommendation level can be affected by particularly strong or weak attributes in any of these areas.