As you fill out the AADSAS application, you will notice AADSAS will reference the “Holistic Cover Sheet” several times. Unfortunately, AADSAS does not explain very clearly what this Cover Sheet is and doesn’t let you view a sample until after you pay them thousands of dollars and can no longer revise your application. Searching the internet sheds no light on the AADSAS Coversheet other than the very basic AADSAS Holistic Cover Sheet FAQ page.
The ADEA AADSAS Holistic Coversheet is a new page to the application that is provided to your designated dental schools. The ADEA AADSAS Application Coversheet provides a quick reference to your application by displaying selected highlights of your background, experiences, and achievements as well as an outline of academic attainments. The coversheet promotes the concept of a holistic review which considers both qualitative and quantitative of your application.”
Think of this Coversheet as a resume displaying your most unique and important qualities that you feel make you a strong and competitive dental student. It is the first page on top of your application and has a purpose to convince the reader to invest time into the 15+ page application.
According to the ADA, not all applications are reviewed in their entirety so it is important to make this page count. In 2012, USC claims they reviewed all 3,411 applications while UCSF only reviewed 1,343 out of 1,907 applications (see table below).
| DENTAL SCHOOL | RECEIVED | EXAMINED BY REVIEW COMMITTEE | APPLICANTS OFFERED A POSITION | FIRST-YEAR ENROLLMENT |
| UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC | 3,289 | 281 | 144 | 165 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO | 1,907 | 1,343 | 182 | 88 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES | 1,891 | 158 | 124 | 88 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA | 3,411 | 3,411 | 377 | 145 |
| LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY | 2,029 | 471 | 167 | 96 |
Source: Survey of Dental Education Series, Report 2: Tuition, Admission and Attrition (Tab8b)
http://www.ada.org/en/home-ada/science-research/health-policy-institute/data-center/dental-education
The left half of the coversheet is reserved for information generated by the AADSAS system. This includes basic information about you, your application, background, parents, degree(s), GPA, and DAT scores.
The right half is a “Mini-Resume” which can have up to 3 entries from the following sections (in order):
- Awards, Honors, Scholarships
- Dentistry Experience
- Extracurricular/Volunteer/Community Service
- Work Experience
- Research Experience
- Academic Enrichment
Please note, the “mini-resume” is not automatically generated and requires input or else the entire right hand side of your application will be blank.
To add experiences to the AADSAS Holistic Coversheet, visit the “Professional Experiences” tab on the application main page. You can mark up to 3 entries per section using the “Include On Coversheet” button which will appear on the right hand side of the page in the “Flag for PDF Coversheet” column.
Each section will include basic information about the experience including any position, total hours of commitment, and the duration of the experience. The number of hours of the 3 selected experiences will be totaled for each section. This number will not reflect the total number of hours of all your experiences in that section (which I personally think it should).
Below is a copy of my AADSAS Holistic Coversheet. Hopefully this clears up any ambiguity. If you have any questions feel free to ask them through Ask Elias.
Happy application season!
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