How many people specialize after dental school?

[Microdont]

First year dental student, average in class (B+/A- grades, the school is brutal on our GPA), kinda interested in specializing (perio or ortho), but it seems hard to get in. 

My friends from other schools said it's even more competitive than getting into dental school.

Any information is appreciated.

 

[Maggiie19]

I'm curious about this as well. I'm interested in specializing but there's not a lot of info/stats about it out there.

[HopefulDDS]

I know there are very few Canadian specialty programs. If you are open to widening your search to the US, here is a graph that my dean sent out last week (sorry the quality isn't perfect so it's a bit hard to read). For the US, the general comments I can make are:

-OMFS is for the top 10% of the class who can kill the CBSE standardized test only (which takes real dedication). Definitely the most competitive.
-Ortho is for the 10% of the class who have good extracurriculars and good GRE
-Peds is not as competitive GPA wise, strong CV and interview is where it counts
-Endo trend seems to be working for a few years after graduation to get in but if you're well rounded it's possible to get in right away
-Perio wants well rounded, pretty similar to applying to dental school. Aiming for top 25% of your class is probably a good bet

[dentistrydmd]

Perio is easy to get into. you don’t need to be top of the class 

[interviewprepguy]

Lol... dont rush to specialize. Seriously, you dont really know what you want until you work in private practice for a year or two.

[Microdont]

8 hours ago, interviewprepguy said:

Lol... dont rush to specialize. Seriously, you dont really know what you want until you work in private practice for a year or two.

I thought most people go straight to specializing or do the GPR first then specializing. 

[Microdont]

8 hours ago, dentistrydmd said:

Perio is easy to get into. you don’t need to be top of the class 

Wow that's good to know! Thank you! 

[FLOSSophy]

20 hours ago, interviewprepguy said:

Lol... dont rush to specialize. Seriously, you dont really know what you want until you work in private practice for a year or two.

This is key and I agree with it! Specializing right after graduation can be like rolling the dice, except it's not a few bucks you're betting, it's your future career (tens of years of your life). Don't rush into anything because right now you might be interested in a particular field/topic in dentistry because it's fun or easy or for any other reason, but since you never experienced that field out in the real world, you might not realize how much responsibility it is or how hectic it is. You don't lose anything for working a few years before going back to school to specialize. Think about it. Plus, if you happen to still decide to specialize, you'd have a better CV so it's a win-win eitherway.

[Maggiie19]

33 minutes ago, FLOSSophy said:

This is key and I agree with it! Specializing right after graduation can be like rolling the dice, except it's not a few bucks you're betting, it's your future career (tens of years of your life). Don't rush into anything because right now you might be interested in a particular field/topic in dentistry because it's fun or easy or for any other reason, but since you never experienced that field out in the real world, you might not realize how much responsibility it is or how hectic it is. You don't lose anything for working a few years before going back to school to specialize. Think about it. Plus, if you happen to still decide to specialize, you'd have a better CV so it's a win-win eitherway.

Thankfully most ortho programs (the specialty I'm interested in) actually require or strongly recommend at least 1-2 years of experience as a general dentist prior to admission (with the exception of one or two schools).