Experiences

Overview

In this section, you can enter your professional experiences in several categories, or types. Review the definitions below, consider the duties you performed, and choose the category that you think best fits the experience.

Note that since each program's definitions and requirements vary, ADEA AADSAS has no specific preference as to which category you choose. These categories are broadly based on feedback from various dental programs and are not a comprehensive list of every type of experience. Your experience's individual job description and responsibilities should determine the category you select; however, it is not guaranteed that your experience will be accepted by every program in the way you categorize it.

If you have any questions about your experiences fulfilling an individual program's prerequisite requirements, contact that program directly.

Although you can enter any experiences that you believe are relevant to your application, we recommend focusing on those experiences within the last 10 years and at the collegiate level and above. Enter only current and in-progress experiences (not planned experiences), and check your program's requirements regarding documentation.

If your experiences are considered ongoing, only enter the hours you completed so far. Do not enter any in-progress or planned hours.

Experience Types

Academic Enrichment

Dental Experience

Either paid or unpaid work in a dental field where you observed patient care, interacted with practitioners, or had responsibility for patient care.

Dental Shadowing (In-Person)

Time spent officially following and observing a dental professional in an office or clinic.

Dental Shadowing (Virtual)

Time spent officially observing a dental professional at work virtually.

Employment

Extracurricular Activities

Research

Volunteer

Enter Your Experience

Click Add an Experience.
Select the appropriate experience type from the drop-down.
Enter information about the organization where the experience took place.
Enter information about your supervisor at the organization. This is a person that programs can contact to verify that this experience occurred. If the experience was a student-organized group and there was no advisor, list a member who can verify your experience.
Enter the date or date range in which the experience took place. Note that your experiences will not display on your application in any specific order, regardless of the dates entered.
Enter additional details about the experience, including the title of the experience and the time commitments. Enter the average weekly number of hours that you completed for this experience during the date range that you indicated.
Select Yes or No to indicate a release authorization to allow your selected programs to contact the organization.
Click Save & Continue.

Note that you cannot repeat hours between experience types. So, if position duties encompass more than one section, enter the position in both sections and divide the hours and duties accordingly.

Select Your Most Important Experience

Once you have added all your experiences, click the star icon next to an experience in the My Experiences list to mark it as your most important. You can select up to 6 experiences to highlight as your most important.