PRE-DENTAL
Adviser: Dr. Jeff Padberg
Email: jpadberg@uca.edu
Phone: 501-852-2342
UCA has a four -year predental curriculum that is designed to thoroughly prepare our students for the rigorous demands of dental school. Our students are very competitive when applying for dental program admissions – UCA graduates have been admitted to dental programs across the United States. While predental students can major in any field of study, we find that most of our successful applicants are Biology or Chemistry majors, have excelled in their coursework (GPA above 3.8), have gained extensive clinical experience with local dental professionals, and have performed well (20 or higher) on the Dental Admissions Test (DAT).
TYPICAL DENTAL SCHOOL REQUIREMENTS:
The majority of dental students possess a bachelors degree before they enter dental school. Some have graduate degrees. Some dental schools will admit a few students through early admissions programs with two to three years of undergraduate preparation. For most people, plan to earn your bachelors degree before starting dental school.
The majority of Dental Schools require the following courses in addition to the standard general education requirements of a baccalaureate program:
Two semesters of English composition
ENGL 1301, 1302 or a combination of other writing courses
Two semesters each of general chemistry
CHEM 1450, 1451
Two semesters of organic chemistry
CHEM 2401, 3411
Two semesters of physics
PHYS 1410, 1420
Two semesters of introductory biology
BIOL 1440, 1441
One semester of zoology
BIOL 3410 Note that Biology majors can use one of the advanced biology courses in place of introduction to zoology.
Two or more advanced biology courses such as anatomy and physiology (BIOL 2405; BIOL 2406 and 2407), physiology (BIOL 4460), microbiology (BIOL 3420), cell biology (BIOL 3402, BIOL 4475) and biochemistry (4320 and 4121) are recommended.
For more information, please see UCA Pre Dental Student Guidelines 2014