Our Webinar With the Pre-Dental Society at UC Irvine - Mapping Out Your Dental School Application Narrative

January 15th, 2025

Meet the Panelists

Harsh C.
Columbia University College of Dental Medicine
Over the past year and a half, Harsh has mentored 10 students in application preparation. He has worked with students who have gained acceptance to top dental programs, including UMichigan, Harvard, UCSF, UPenn, UF, UIC, and Nova Southeastern. Before starting his dental education, he completed his undergraduate degree at Nova Southeastern University, where he achieved an impressive 4.0 GPA. When approaching the dental school application process, Harsh focuses on creating a personalized timeline for each student, ensuring that every component of the application is thoroughly explained and accounted for. He excels in helping candidates stay organized, brainstorming and outlining the various written components of the application, and keeping students on track with their projected path. One of the most significant aspects of Harsh's mentorship plan is teaching students how to think strategically and submit their best possible application.
Herchel P.
University of Michigan School of Dentistry
At UGA, Herchel conducted research on using nanoparticles to inhibit dental caries progression and analyzed COVID-19’s global impact. With over four years of tutoring experience and two years as an admissions counselor, Herchel helps applicants identify strengths, refine personal statements, and envision their application from an admissions committee's perspective. As an admissions counselor, Herchel's approach is centered on empowering students to become the best applicants they can be. With more than two years of admissions counseling experience, he has a proven track record of helping students achieve their goals. Herchel works closely with each individual, taking the time to highlight their strengths and areas for improvement. He then develops personalized study plans and guides to help them navigate the challenging path to dental school.
Transcript

0:00 – Introduction and Housekeeping

My name is Andrea. I will be your host tonight. Um, with me I have Hershel and Harsh who will also be your hosts. There are wonderful panelists tonight. I will let them introduce themselves momentarily, but before that I just want to share a little bit about who we are, just a couple of housekeeping rules, so to speak. We are with Inspira Advantage. Tonight's webinar is all about mapping out your application narrative. I just want to give a shout out to Roy for collaborating with Inspira on bringing this webinar to life. We're super excited to be here, and we have a ton of value for you and a ton of information that we can't wait to share.

A couple of housekeeping rules: First and foremost, this webinar is recorded and you will receive a recording within a day or two. We're looking at running it for about an hour—45 minutes of it. Well, 30 to 45 minutes of it is content. We want to make sure we're speaking all about the various aspects of mapping out your application narrative: describing your own story, crafting a personal statement with impact, creating a cohesive application, and then obviously addressing the application hurdles. We'll spend quite a lot of time speaking about that, but we love to do a Q&A at the end. You have access to the chat, which is really great. What we recommend is that you ask these questions as they come up and put them in the chat for us. I'll get the two gentlemen who are with me to get back to them, so we'll have two touch points for that Q&A and we'll make sure we get all of your questions answered, whether that be about the application narrative, the application process, or even our personal stories and experiences. That's what this conversation is all about tonight.

1:53 – Brief Recap: Who We Are & Our Mission

Before we dive in, I want to give a two-minute brief recap about who we are, because not everybody here knows who we are, why we are the leaders in this field, and why we have the privilege of being in front of you today. As mentioned, we're with Inspira Advantage, a globally recognized admissions consulting and test prep firm with over 15 years of experience. We specialize in helping students gain top admission to dental, graduate, and healthcare programs with a 94% acceptance rate. We believe in starting the process as early as possible. This is why we have something called Pre-Health Advising for college freshmen. Our team helps students build a tailored academic timeline including course selection, GPA strategy, finding impactful experiences like research, shadowing, clinical and non-clinical volunteering, extracurriculars, etc. We help in making their applications stand out from the rest with a stellar personal statement and a four-center repair. What these steps do is lay a strong foundation to really differentiate all the applicants we work with and make a lasting impression.

In addition, our tutors provide personalized one-on-one test prep for the DAT. We begin with something called diagnostic tests, then we go into custom study plans and an interim process tracking which allows us to really see the student’s upward growth. On average, we see a 150 increase with 45-plus hours of tutoring, which is really something we're proud of. Our 60-hour programs even include a score guarantee of 21 for the DAT.

When it's actually time to apply, our all-inclusive application programs offer unlimited support through the entire application cycle. This includes crafting a personalized narrative and school list per program, perfecting the personal statement and essays with unlimited edits, providing interview prep, scholarship guidance, and waitlist strategy as well. We're really by our student's side until they receive their acceptance.

Our goal is very clear: to create the most competitive candidates and applications, ensuring our students really do shine out in this competitive admissions landscape. If you'd like to learn more, we do offer personalized consultations via video, phone, or email. No matter where you are in the application process, we're here to help. My colleagues on the enrollment team, my colleagues who are counselors and tutors as well, we're all here for you. No question is too big or too small. We're really looking forward to this presentation.

4:28 – Panelist Introductions

With that being said, you're not here to hear me speak all night. Harsh, did you want to go first and introduce yourself?
Yeah, for sure. So, hey everyone, it's nice to meet you. Thank you all for coming. My name is Harsh Cheda. I'm a second-year dental student at Columbia University, and I've been working for Inspira for the past few months. I really loved being a part of the organization. I'm originally from Chicago. I went to undergrad at Nova Southeastern University in Florida. Now I'm here in New York, so it's been a lot of jumping around. This past application cycle, I'm sure many of you probably had friends that applied. I mentored a few different students. They were accepted to various schools across the country. Yeah, I'd love to work with you guys and give you some tips.

Hey guys, my name is Hershel. I'm also an admissions counselor for Inspira, and currently I go to the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. I'm also a second-year student. A little bit about me is I'm from Georgia. I went to the University of Georgia as well. So I'm a Georgia native. This was my first time moving to a school out of state, so yeah. I resonate with everything that Harsh said.

5:46 – Figuring Out Your Application Narrative

Awesome, so I will get started on the first step, which is kind of figuring out your application narrative. This is pretty important. I know a lot of people usually, whenever you're starting your application, you start thinking about what your story is and how you kind of want to write your personal statement, write your activities, figure out what your application is really going to mean. Honestly, I think the experience section of the dental school application is one of the most important, just because admissions are able to see what you have devoted a lot of your time to. So focusing on this section, making sure each of your experiences kind of tie together—but also not tie together—is also very important.

I think anything that you've done in undergrad is very important. It shows your unique traits, your unique upbringing throughout undergrad and not only that but some activities in high school as well. I know whenever I mentor students, the first step that I always go through is going through each of the activities and figuring out where their overall goals are. So when it comes to mapping out your application narrative, these experiences are really pivotal, especially from the admissions perspective.

7:03 – Describing Your Own Story

When we're talking about describing your own story, we're talking about how your application is basically a representation of who you are as a person, how you grew up, how you were raised, and what you plan to do in the future. You always want to talk about the lessons that you've learned growing up, things that have shaped you into who you are today. So think about moments that have built you, challenged you, places that you failed, places where you've succeeded, and those different experiences that you have throughout your entire life are going to help shape your story. In an application, you do want to make it very cohesive. You want to make sure that one thing flows with another. When you just have random points that sort of don't connect, it shows the people reading your application that, "Hey, this guy's just mentioning a couple of facts about himself—what really is he trying to show us?"

In this way, you can use your own experiences to build up who you are and show the people reading your application that you're there for dentistry and whatever else you're there for.

10:21 – How to Use Experiences in Personal Statement

Two main things when it comes to describing your story: I get this asked a lot—how do you really figure out what your own story is? I really think that you're able to do this by highlighting a lot of the experiences that you've done. I'll give you a personal example. When I first started creating my application, what I did was I just started on a notes app and tried to list all the things that I did throughout my undergrad. The dental school application portal is divided up into a bunch of different categories like shadowing, volunteering, research, stuff like that. Once you make that initial list, you could start diving up things throughout each of the categories. What I did was I found one or two things in each of those categories that I thought really resonated with me—something that I would like to talk about more—and this kind of helped me start building my story.

When it comes to connecting these experiences, whenever you talk about a specific experience, each experience is so unique that you'll be able to build upon it and talk about it in different ways. For example, when I was writing my personal statement, I tried to draw from each of these activities that I did. For example, I would talk about the research that I did and how that connects to my interest in innovation in dentistry. Similarly, the various volunteering activities that I did connected to my future passion of giving back to an impoverished society in India. All these things you can tie together based on what your life goals are in dentistry.

One thing you really want to think about is that no activity is off the table. For example, I'm really big into food reviewing, so Yelp was one of the things that I added as one of my activities. I got asked about that in a few of my interviews because they were like, "Oh, what is this Yelp bite?" Essentially, it was a big food reviewing thing that I did throughout undergrad. That just goes to show—I always use that as an example because a lot of people don't consider a lot of their hobbies when they're creating their application. Sports, of course, throw that into the application, any hobbies that you have.

I had a student in the last application cycle who started a small business with knitting. So any of these very minor activities that you don't think to add will always contribute to your story. Remember that when you're creating this story in the beginning.

12:00 – Reflecting on Moments of Clarity and Career Choice

Like I mentioned before, you want to talk about how in your life you've overcome obstacles. You want to talk about how you did that, not just saying, "Oh, I did this and I did that and here we are now." You have to show it. So whenever you are writing this out, really go into the details. You want to go into details but also be concise. When you do go into those details, it'll show them, "Hey, this is exactly what this person went through, and when they went through this, these are the things that they learned." Every challenge comes with lessons and values, so those are the things you really do want to highlight in your application.

Sometimes in an interview, for example, they ask, "Oh, what was a failure that you had? What was a time of weakness that you had?" In those moments, yes, you do want to tell them about that experience where you failed at something or where something was very challenging. But then you want to combat that with, "Hey, these are the things that I learned from that, and this is how I progressed from that moment on." That shows growth, progress.

The second thing is to reflect on your moments of clarity. Whenever you talk about choosing your career field, whether it's medicine, dentistry, whatever, you are talking about why you are in this field for X, Y, and Z reasons. For me, it was something along the lines of, "For dentistry, it's a creative field, it's a field where I get to talk to and socialize with a lot of people, and I get to listen to other people's stories. It's just something that blends those two aspects together for me." I would say that a lot of people would probably say around the same thing for dentistry because that is what it is at the end of the day. But those are the things that you really do want to put out there to show the people reading your application that, "Hey, this guy knows what dentistry or medicine is, and he's there for X, Y, and Z reasons." Make sure those things pop out.

16:10 – Writing a Personal Statement with Impact

This goes directly into what Harsh was just saying. When it comes to showing and not telling, turning narrative experiences into a narrative is quite a difficult task usually. I've seen many people often say, "You know, how do I really write these experiences to catch the reader's eye?" I think these descriptions can be structured in a format where it's very easy to comprehend where your experience is coming from. I'll break down what I'm saying based on the personal statement versus the activities list.
Essentially, the personal statement is a giant essay where you're kind of writing about dentistry, and when it comes to describing vivid details, it's often better to describe a situation with good adjectives—good ways for the reader to connect with what you're saying. Sometimes I think students get in the habit of just saying, "Oh, I demonstrated leadership by doing this." Now it may seem like you're showing and not telling, but to the reader, it just seems like you're using buzzwords. Rather, you want to highlight a specific story or a specific experience and use that to show how you demonstrated leadership.

Similarly, when it comes to the experiences, turning these into vivid descriptions is quite hard because you only get a small paragraph for each activity. So when you're writing about these, you really want to highlight the context. Use a sentence or two describing what you did in your activity, and then really what you learned. I think this is how admissions differentiate people based on what shadowing experience they have, what research experience they have—it's not only describing what you did, but how you hope to apply this to a broader perspective. Not only that, always kind of connect the dots and make sure you're highlighting your broader goals.

Going back to my example: I made my application theme about innovation, community service, and leadership in dentistry. The way I was able to do that is I highlighted different experiences that I had in undergrad like research, being a president of a club, and various things that all connected in one way or another to my broader three main goals. That way, the admissions people got a defined idea of what my primary goals were, and then they were trying to see how I fit that in with my experiences.

18:17 – Audience Check-In and Offers

I want to take a quick opportunity to do a check-in with our audience to see if there are any questions in the chat as of right now. I'll give everyone a second to get their thoughts in there. In the meantime, as a little thank you for being present with us here tonight and for hosting this, we'd love to offer you a 10% off discount with the code “10OFFWEB” for any of our services. Again, that's just a little thank you for being with us tonight.

Additionally, if you have any specific questions about your situation or if you want more questions about a particular school or something of that sort, we also welcome you to grab your phone, scan that QR code. It'll take you back to a consultation page where you'll be able to sit down with an admissions counselor and ask any specific questions that you have. I have a wonderful team with me here tonight, but also on the back end we have a really large team that's able to answer those questions. My colleagues are more than willing, ready, and capable to help you out.

There's a question in the chat regarding the recording. It is definitely not a topic that is actually the number one question we get on every single webinar. You will receive a recording of this meeting, so no worries about that whatsoever. I don't see any other questions for now, so I'll give everyone a moment to see if there's anything else before we move on to the next slide. Hershel, Harsh, anything else you want to add that's not covered in the second portion of this webinar?

No, nothing specific. But just in terms of talking about Inspira a little bit, I know in terms of admissions how it kind of works is if you're paired with a student, what I usually like doing is you get a lot of structure. I think that's the nice thing you'll get with Inspira: that you get structure with deadlines and figuring out how to build each portion of the application because there's a lot that goes into it. If you're applying in the coming cycle, getting started now is the best way to approach it. Getting started early is definitely something I recommend. Absolutely, and even if you're not working with us, we always recommend starting early. The number of conversations each of us has on a daily basis about last-minute deadlines and little things being missed—if I only had a dollar for every time that happened...

With that being said, let's talk about writing with a purpose.

20:50 – Writing with a Purpose

One of the main things, obviously, when it comes to writing any component of your application—whether that be the personal statement, the supplementary essays, or your activities descriptions—is you want to make sure that you're balancing a good story and storytelling. What this means is you really want to tell your story without being too informal. This is one of the biggest challenges I faced when writing: trying to integrate different stories into a written component while still maintaining a formal tone.
I think the best way to approach this is just brainstorming as much as you can and then narrowing down as you go. When I started writing a lot of the different essays, they would be over the word count, and then I would just cut them down and change up sentence structure and formatting. I think that really helps—making sure that your story is maintained but you're able to maintain a good formal tone.

Not only that, but when it comes to describing what stories you really want to integrate into your application, this can honestly be anything. I remember during my interviews, I would talk about a random experience that I had while working as a laboratory assistant. We had one of our chemicals fall. It was just, you know, a random story. You can use the most random story as long as it has meaning to it and you're able to explain what you really learned and what values you got out of it. For example, with that chemical spill, it really taught me a lot about responsibility, leadership, and leading a team. Basically, if you're able to highlight what you learned from an experience, that's the mastery of storytelling. Essentially, for interviews, that's the highlight you really want to emphasize.

24:00 – Structuring Your Personal Statement

I feel like we've talked about our first two points. We've reiterated it all through your personal statement: you want it to sort of have a flow—make it a story about your entire life, what sets the tone for you applying to dentistry. The second thing is using certain experiences, your examples, to showcase the qualities that make you who you are. Just as Harsh talked about that chemical spill and showing responsibility and leadership.

The third thing we want to really make sure is making sure that you have a clear structure and that everything is also concise and to the point. Going back to my point: your application is going to be read by someone who's been reading personal statements all day. The last thing this person wants to see is something where they have to sort through your personal statement trying to find meaning or trying to figure out what you're trying to say. The point I'm trying to get at is whenever you're writing, be straight to the point. Just tell them, "Hey, this is why I want to do dentistry," or "This is why this experience matters." You want to be very clear about your purpose in writing that example or experience because the last thing you want to do is make them try to figure out what you're trying to say. As soon as they start thinking, "Hey, this guy is just putting a bunch of gibberish or fluffing up his personal statement," that's going to be the one thing that separates your application from actually figuring out who you are.

The fourth thing is you want to end your entire personal statement with a conclusion. I'm sure everyone has a different methodology, a different style of writing a personal statement. Personally, I wrote mine with a traditional five-paragraph essay structure: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion, making the entire thing a narrative. I'm sure everyone was taught about five-paragraph essays, so that's how I did it. I'm sure Harsh may have done it differently or the same way. It's also nice to talk to different people who have applied and see what their structure or style was, just to get a different view on it.

26:01 – Creating a Cohesive Application Narrative

Yeah, that's definitely what Harsh was saying too. I pretty much followed the same exact format. I just split up my body paragraphs into three or four smaller paragraphs, so it's a pretty similar structure with an intro and conclusion, but the body paragraphs are broken down a little differently.

Now, talking about how to create that cohesive application: I'll describe this from my personal experience too. When you're trying to align your narrative, your personal statement and your activities are not the only things that matter. Also, your letters of recommendation are super important. Making sure that you have the right professors that you're asking—not only professors that you took a class with and got an A—is crucial. Nowadays that's not even enough. You want professors that you've either worked with one-on-one, gone to office hours with a bunch, or just developed a more meaningful relationship with. This will enable them to write more than just about your academic standing but also your personal standing—how you are as a person.
When it comes to aligning your narrative, like I was describing before, when you're trying to showcase what your strengths and weaknesses are, you want to try to break down everything that you want to include in that application. When creating that application, I like to list out things and describe each of the activities that you've done, combining them in a way that describes a story. I'll go back to describing a little bit about my personal statement: like Harsh was saying, I kind of had an intro, but then I described various body paragraphs in a timeline format of how I got into dentistry.

First, I started off pre-med. I shadowed a lot of doctors, then I shadowed a lot of dentists. I found the common thread that dentists always described how they loved the profession, and doctors described how they didn't. That's what led me into dentistry. Then I described different experiences that I had that solidified this interest. I had a shadowing experience—a specific patient outcome—and then I had a research experience and how this tied into my passion for innovation, and finally that community service experience. I basically broke down a lot of the categories of that application and threw them into my personal statement, then combined that with a hook and a conclusion about something I'm passionate about. I really like Legos, so I tied that into dentistry as well.

That's how I kind of created my story. This varies immensely. I read a personal statement last year fully about scuba diving, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. It flowed so well—sorry, no pun intended about the scuba diving—but it was just a very interesting concept where he described his experience becoming an instructor and then tied that into dentistry. I thought that was very unique. That just goes to show that there's no one way to create that application. I followed a more systematic approach, but there are so many different ways to do it.

One of the main things when it comes to creating this application is addressing gaps. The best way to do that is to get as many people as you can to read your application and go through it. That's what we're here for: use the advantage, take advantage of the counseling services. As you're able to see what your weaknesses are, it's really hard for you to judge your own weaknesses. The best thing I did when I was applying was I had a lot of people look at my application to see what I could have improved on, and I think that really helped.

29:16 – Addressing Hurdles and Gaps

Going back to just taking a step back and looking at our application as a whole, let's think about how to be consistent. A lot of people deciding if they get into a program want to see dedication and consistency in certain things that you do. They don't want to see someone who does a little bit of everything; rather, they want to see someone who's dedicated to a couple of extracurriculars at their school. They want to see that you have been doing those for the amount of time you were at their institution.

For example, if you're passionate about knitting, that person can say, "Oh, I started knitting in January," and then put that on their application in May and be like, "Oh hey, I know how to knit." But then, in the interview, they're like, "Oh, it just seems like you started knitting just so you could put it on your application." Whereas if someone started knitting in the first year of college and got better and better, by the time they had their interview they might even bring something to show their interviewers that, "Hey, this is what I have progressed into. I'm actually getting really good at it now." That consistency really helps strengthen your application and shows that you're a dedicated individual, which a lot of graduate programs want to see.

The second thing is to highlight key experiences. We've talked about this again and again. Put those experiences in. A big thing that a lot of people still ask is, "Oh, can I lie on my application?" The answer is no. It's very easily seen if you are lying on your application, especially in an interview, because you'll just give a very vague answer. If someone asks, "Oh, how did you get into guitar?" and if you haven't been doing it for that long but you just lied on your application about it, it's very easily seen. So just be truthful. It's not that hard—just show them who you really are as a person.

33:59 – Overcoming Obstacles and Growth

Another big part of the application is addressing any hurdles that you're facing. I know the application portal and process are quite daunting; there's a lot of different components to it and a lot of different considerations you have to have.
One of the most common questions I get asked is about grades. Say you failed a class or got a C in a class—anything like that. I think the best way to address a challenge in terms of your grades or DAT score, for example, is to show an upward progression. For example, organic chemistry is one of the most common classes to mess up your grade a little bit. A lot of students I've talked to who have gotten into dental school with a low grade in organic chemistry have shown an upward progression not only in the later chemistries but on the DAT as well.

One of my students in the last application cycle initially failed organic chemistry, which might seem quite grueling for applying, but on her DAT she was able to really study hard for that and get a 22. This really allowed her to show an upward progression where, even though she started off struggling in organic chemistry, she was able to address that with a high-performing DAT score.
Obviously, every dental school looks at things differently, but one thing I've seen in common is that people who show an upward trajectory tend to succeed the most when it comes to applications.

Another thing you can do is use your personal statement or any other application portal section to explain an obstacle that you faced. I know that grades are often explained in a section in the application portal that allows you to explain a specific grade and why it happened. Alternatively, you can describe a semester that did not go well—maybe you had a health issue or a family emergency. You can use your personal statement to describe what happened, but the best thing is to describe what you learned from it and how you improved in the following semester.

I think a lot of times students forget that application readers are people too. They understand, for example, that if you had a major health crisis, you're not going to have the perfect grades or extracurriculars during that time period. They're going to want to see what you learned and how you improved after that. That's really how you address these hurdles.
Not only that, but showing an upward trajectory really shows your resilience. You're able to connect that in interviews as an asset and describe how, in dental school, you're going to use these experiences that were previous drawbacks and turn them into strengths for your future in dental school.

Just like we talked about, everyone has lows—especially in college. Whenever we have those lows, it's very important to bounce back and talk about how you can show forward growth from those lows, especially to people reading your application and interviewing you.

35:06 – Overcoming Obstacles and Growth Strategy

This is just a quick flow map of how to address that. First, you have to reflect: "Why did I fail at this? What was wrong in that entire situation?" A big thing about that is also being truthful to yourself—realizing that, "Hey, I did make this mistake here"—and actually just saying that out loud. That shows honesty.

Next, craft a strategic response. What does that mean? It means you sort of pick out the things from that experience where you have improved and then highlight those strong points. Going back to Harsh's example: "Yeah, I failed organic chemistry. So now what did I improve on? Oh, I improved studying. I learned my shortcomings when studying for organic chemistry. I figured out how to study for the DAT, I tried harder, and here I am with a 22." Then highlight growth and resilience: "I scored well on my DAT because of this study method, this mentor, that mentor." That's how you shape your experience in a more positive light than it was before. This is key for addressing shortcomings and failures that they may ask you to talk about or highlight.

38:00 – Finalizing Your Narrative

To reiterate, in terms of how you connect all of your activities together when generating this narrative, I know a lot of people have many different activities. Personally, the challenge I faced in the first few weeks of creating my application was, "How am I really going to create this story?" I didn't really have a set progression. I kind of had to tie all these experiences together based on what my end goals were.

I'll give a more personal example: My grandparents came from a village in India where they didn't believe in dentistry, as many villages in India don't. This was my first introduction to dentistry—an actually very anti-dentist household. This was a very interesting way that I was able to draw my connection to dentistry. Growing up, dentistry was not prioritized, but then I tied that into different experiences like shadowing, community service, volunteering—experiences that allowed me to see the true importance and significance of how dentistry can play a role in oral health and overall body health as well.

Tying these experiences together is going to be super important not only in your personal statement—which honestly is the hardest part—but also in your interviews and in talking to schools through their supplemental essays. Reinforcing that commitment is very important. The way you do that is by showing all these different activities you've done. For example, schools will see, "Oh, this person has 100 hours of shadowing, 150 hours of shadowing." All these are just numbers, but if you're able to say, "Throughout my shadowing experience, I saw the intricacy that goes behind a crown preparation. I saw that you have to detail the tooth. There are specific measurements that the dentist always has to keep in mind—there are millimeter differences, all these little details." The way that you talk about each activity is going to be really important when it comes to connecting everything together and finalizing your narrative.
Finalizing your narrative means making sure your entire application flows and talks about who you are. Think about the people you trust most—your mentors who helped you get to the point that you're at. You want to ask them to help review your application. You definitely want to get it reviewed. Ask people who are already in school or people that are older than you. Those are the guys who have had experience in application cycles; they usually know what certain programs are looking for. So definitely seek feedback from those people about your application.

Lastly, just make sure it highlights who you are. It highlights your story: why you're here, why you want to do what you want to do.

41:31 – Conclusion and Q&A Wrap-Up

To conclude, when it comes to bringing your entire application together, it's very hard to create a standout application because so many people are applying. The only way to really guarantee a standout application is by making sure you're as authentic and as true to yourself as possible.

One of the students I recently worked with—she just got accepted to UCLA and UCSF—she is a past grad. She graduated a few years ago and was having a lot of challenges creating her application because all of her activities were in undergrad, which was years ago. How did she really bring everything together? I told her to use those experiences to her advantage. She ended up tutoring a lot, working a lot throughout her gap years, and she was able to use this as her primary baseline for her application. She described how these experiences really helped build her personality and her emphasis for dentistry, and I think that helped her stand out a lot.
I think when it comes to creating that application, it's very hard to purposefully create something that makes an admissions leader "jump out of their chair." I think if you're as authentic as possible, people will be able to see that in your application, and you just really want to make sure that you're able to show that through your words.

Amazing, amazing.

Okay, so I'd love to just ask our audience a favor now. You've sat through about 45 minutes of a really awesome discussion. We want to hear from you. If you could take a few minutes to leave a quick feedback—some quick feedback, two or three questions—we really do take this information back to our team. We improve our process, offer better guidance, and we work really hard to make sure that we're giving you the best webinar possible. We would really appreciate that. Please, and thank you.

With that being said, we have some questions in the chat which I'm really excited about.

What We'll Cover: