Shadowing For School

Hey Guys! It's Sara Steinburg from The Smart Applicant. I am really excited to be speaking with you today; I want to give a huge shout out to all of you guys who got into dental school on Monday. So, huge congrats that's really awesome, and we're just really proud of you guys, we have smart applicants that have gotten into about 50% of the dental schools in the country, which is kind of overwhelming, just really really great stats on our kids. So you should be really proud of yourselves, for those of you that are coming, I thought it was really important if we spent some time exploring, some big missteps that students deal, this is really geared for the students who are applying for this upcoming June, or the following year, so we're talking to 2019 and 2020 applicants. I wanted to talk to you about a topic that is a really awesome way to stand out on your application but also an area where students definitely have a tendency to take a misstep. Right now, we're talking about a shadowing and shadowing missteps. So, there's a big misconception that exists that, the more hours you shadow the more competitive your application is, so what I really wanna talk about now that someone with a thousand shadowing hours can actually be a little less competitive than someone with a hundred shadowing hours. A thousand shadowing hours can actually can turn out to be less competitive and even fall back on your application becoming a shortcoming on your application, than a hundred shadowing hours. So, we're talking about shadowing and we're gonna talk about how you can use shadowing to make yourself really stand out on your application but also if you don't do it the right way, it can actually be a detriment on your application. So, we know a student, we're gonna call him john and jo hn came to the smart applicant, with about 500 hundred shadowing hours . Normally, 500shadowing hours should be awesome, so it turns out, all of his shadowing hours took place in a really high -end denta l practice, so I asked him,because for those of you that don't know, the bulk of your application is actua lly on these blurbs that explain your experiences, so Isaid what are we going to put on your blurbs, prove 500 hours and he said you know what, for the past 500 hours I just sort of stood behind the dent ist,ok can anybody relate to this? He said he spent around 500 hours standing behind the dentist, he said he spent some time sitting on the front desk, and then I said you spend 500 hours on the front desk,then you're gonna learn to be a dental secretary really well, but it's not really great to put on your applicat ion. So, lets contrast this, we got a young lady,who came to us with only 100 shadowing hours, so right at the minimum of what schools are looking for, but hers were done in a clinic, so I was speaking to her and she has story after story of_her experiences . So, Iasked her, how do you have all of these stories? What we spoke about was the importance of keeping a really good record of your time shadowing. Your application comprises of a summary of all of the stories you've been involved with, throughout your undergraduate career. And a big chunk of that time, should be utilized shadowing but if you're not using that time to shadow properl' if you're not taking detailed notes and recording the appropriate thing then you're not really cultivating material to make your application stand out. So on one hand we have an individual with 500 hours but with very little to write down, but on the other hand we have the indiv idual who made a point to take notes to record stories, to build a portfolio of elements that are really going to advocate her application, ok, and that's how you can have a 100 hours utilized properly ,recorded well that can be the building blocks for a phenomenally stand out applicat ion and you can contrast that to someone who has the 500 or

1000 hours that maybe won't advocate that well,it'll just look like I learnt how to make the most of those hundreds of hours shadowing,so that you can learn to be a stand-up candidate.spent x-number of hours,you know shadowing in a dental office, and as we know it's all about being memorable on you're application. So, we learnt how to make the most of those hundred hours shadowing, so that you can learn to be a standup candidate.

Speaker 1: (​00:01​) Hi Guys. It is there a Feinberg from the smart applicant have, I am so excited to be speaking with you about shadowing. So for all of you that are on winter break right now, that's awesome. And this is such a great opportunity to really take advantage of these weeks that we now have in front of ourselves to differentiate yourself as a standout candidate. And what we've been speaking about is what better way to differentiate yourself then with shadowing hours. So I'd been speaking to a bunch of students and I found that a common concern is not the shadowing itself, but how to actually get that foot in the door. Okay? So a big stumbling block is making that connection, getting into the dental office. So I was speaking to one young lady and she was telling me she's super excited to start shadowing when you know what? Speaker 1: (​00:57​) She doesn't have a relative with the dentist. She doesn't have a family friend that's a dentist. She's not that close with her own childhood that this, how does she start getting these shadowing hours? So I said to her, you know what? Because you haven't started yet, you have a phenomenal opportunity to be strategic with the where you're ultimately going to shadow. Okay. When you start with that general dentists, you can now be strategic about it as opposed to just finding any dentist to shadow. Does that make sense? So let me contrast this to a young man named Jay, but I was just speaking with Jay has 400 hours shadowing a general digest. That's not the best part of it. The best part of it is who this general dentist is. When Jay first sought out to shadow somebody, he said to himself, I want to be strategic. Speaker 1: (​01:54​) So we had a discussion and we said, okay, what does it mean to be strategic when you're shadowing? Who should you be going after? Who should you be reaching out to an an email saying, can I come to your practice and shadow? So we did. As we ultimately found him, an alumni or recent graduate of his target dental school, he reached out to him. He was able to form that initial connection through a well worded email. And guess what? He has 400 shadowing hours now with a general dentist who just graduated the dental school he wants to attend. How awesome is that? What a great hook up when it comes time to get a letter of recommendation you. So what does this mean for you guys? Smart applicant, let's take it advantage of these weeks that we have ahead of us to bolster our application in a really easy, fun way. Speaker 1: (​02:52​)

Let's make it up to ourselves that we are going to start shadowing but not just any type of shadowing, strategic strategy, strategic shadowing. Let's shadow strategically. Let's cultivate relationships with general dentists and dental specialists that we want to maintain relationships with moving forward, relationships that will make us be more stand out. Dental applicant come may and June. Okay, so I wish you all a very happy holiday season, happy upcoming New Year. And most importantly, I wish you success in your shadowing. I hope that you take advantage of these weeks that you have now. You clock in those shadowing hours and make building blocks for your application that are really going to make you stand out when it comes time to fill out your ads ass. So happy shadowing smart applicants, and I can't wait to hear your shadowing success stories by.