Pathways

AMERICANDENTALEDUCATIONASSOCIATION

Division of Educational Pathways

The quarterly newsletter of the ADEA Division of Educational Pathways Home of AADSAS, PASS, and CAAPID application services

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Visit the GO ADEA AFASA WebsiteGo ADEA AFASA is a new section of the ADEA website that contains resources for admissions, financial aid, and student affairs officers in dental education.

This all-in-one, easy-to-use web page hosts relevant resources for the ADEA AFASA community. If you need to review the predoctoral “traffic rules,” find the latest issue of ADEA DEP Pathways, or review a pre-sentation made at a recent ADEA AFASA meeting, just visit Go ADEA AFASA at www.GoADEAAFASA.org.

Bookmark this page now. It is a great resource for those new to our community and for our veterans as well. Please let us know how we can enhance the site to better meet your needs. Email your comments to jamesc@adea.org.

Chonte James, ADEA DEP Director of Predoctoral Application Service

ADEA AADSAS Fully Online for 2012 Cycle ADEA AADSAS will move to a fully online operation for the 2012 ADEA AADSAS cycle. Join us at the 2011 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition for a demonstration of the ADEA AADSAS Reviewer’s Portal for the 2012 application cycle. The Reviewer’s Portal will be available to assist dental schools with managing the assignment of applications to inter-viewers and others who may assist with the screening process. Several ADEA AADSAS schools are currently using the paperless process and will demonstrate best practices. Admissions officers from these schools will share their experiences with paperless review, admissions com-mittee review, storing documents, analyzing applicant information on screen, and communicating with applicants.

Prior to the 2011 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition, a review of the portal’s features will be available as a webinar presentation. A mes-sage will be released to the AFASA2 listserv in early January inviting you to participate. If you are not on the AFASA2 listserv and would like to join, please email Chonte James at jamesc@adea.org.

Chonte James, ADEA DEP Director of Predoctoral Application Service

ADEA PASS WebAdMIT Enhancements PlannedThe first cycle of the all online—paperless!—ADEA PASS WebAdMIT is a success. We have received positive feedback, which in turn has led to some useful enhancements to the WebAdMIT program. These enhancements will be released in different stages, and ADEA PASS WebAdMIT listserv members will be notified by email as they become available. Some enhancements that are scheduled to be released by the opening of the 2012 ADEA PASS application cycle are:

• Providing PDFs of the entire application for each program if an applicant has applied to more than one discipline at the same institution

• An automatic layout of a Cumulative Applicant Roster• Ability to upload CVs or resumes• Ability to download mailing labels without running an export or

mail merge• Separation of the educational fields

Many programs have multiple users, so they have the option of form-ing a group and maintaining one account, using a single username and password to access all programs. In January, listserv members will be invited to view a webinar and gain a better understanding of the advantages as well as limitations of groups.

Special Note to CClient and WebAdMIT Users

Academic Management Systems (AMS) recently underwent an internal reorganization to better align various product categories. As a result, the CClient and WebAdMIT products have been moved to a new entity called Academic Software Plus. No staff changes were involved in this process, only a change in the name of the division that houses these products. Please note that although the company name and email has changed, the mailing address remains the same.

For support, contact: admitsupport@academicsoftwareplus.com. Personal email addresses remain the same. Just replace @academicmanagement.com with @academicsoftwareplus.com.

Yolanda Jones, ADEA DEP Operations Manager for PASS and CAAPID

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Criminal Background Checks Coming to ADEA PASSFollowing the introduction of criminal background checks (CBC) in ADEA AADSAS for the 2011 application cycle, CBCs will be offered in ADEA PASS for the 2012 application cycle. Schools and programs that choose to participate will need to enter admission decision outcomes via their application management tools in order to trigger the CBCs for selected applicants. (This is similar to ADEA AADSAS processes, except this selection will not be shared with applicants.) Admissions decisions have not been entered by programs in ADEA PASS in previous years.

The CBC service will launch during the 2012 application cycle in spring 2011. A subscribing institution will execute an agreement with the CBC provider, ADEA Corporate Member Certiphi Screening, Inc. There is no cost to programs utilizing the CBC option. More information about the CBC will be available during the 2011 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition in San Diego, California.

Peter Storandt, ADEA DEP Director of PASS and CAAPID

ADEA FADEA Project Moves into High GearThe ADEA FADEA workgroup met on October 28 during the ADEA Fall 2010 Meetings in New Orleans, as part of the ADEA Council of Hospi-tals and Advanced Education Programs meeting. Discussion included:

• Dr. Eugene L. Anderson presented findings from the Spring 2010 ADEA Survey of Advanced Dental Education Program Directors, and explained some of the differences in responses between and among the dental specialty groups.

• Dr. Anne Wells discussed steps under consideration to enhance the ADEA PASS application, including: » enhancing professional evaluation instructions to applicants

and evaluators that reflect survey findings about selecting evaluators and addressing the qualities that advanced dental education programs value

» exploring how the institution evaluation can be enhanced to provide more perspective about where an applicant stands in relation to all students in the applicant’s cohort

» moving forward with a pilot project to utilize the Educational Testing Service’s Personal Potential Index® (ETS PPI) in conjunction with ADEA PASS for the upcoming 2012 application cycle. ADEA is currently working with ETS to link the PPI to the ADEA PASS application and include PPI evaluations as a component of the application materials advanced programs will receive in the 2012 application cycle.

• Dr. Anne Wells presented the concept of holistic admissions.• Dr. Pamela Hughes discussed her use of the Multiple Mini

Interview in the admissions process at the University of Minnesota.

For more information about the PPI, go to www.ets.org/ppi, and to see the session’s PowerPoint presentations, visit www.adea.org/FADEA.

ADEA staff will be working with program directors and admissions of-ficers as we move forward with new projects. An ADEA FADEA update session will be held on Tuesday, March 15, 2011, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. at the 2011 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition.

Dr. Anne Wells, ADEA Associate Executive Director for DEP

Predoctoral Admissions Practices Surveys: 2010 v. 2007How do your school’s admissions practices compare to others? How are admissions officers and committees selecting candidates to interview? How are dental schools structuring applicant interviews? How have application fees changed in the past three years? The an-swers to these and other questions from the August 2010 survey of dental school admissions practices have been compiled and added to GoADEAafasa.org (look in the Surveys section in the column on the right). Findings from the 2010 survey are compared to findings from a similar survey administered in 2007.

Dr. Anne Wells, ADEA Associate Executive Director for DEP

Guest Columnist: Paul Garrard Fields Your Financial Aid Questions and ConcernsThis is the second in a series of articles about educational debt man-agement and related topics. We hope the information will assist you and your staff with your debt management and financial literacy coun-seling efforts. Should you have any questions, please email Chonte James at jamesc@adea.org.

Consolidating Grad PLUS Loans and Repaying Under Income-Based Repayment

As you know, more than a few borrowers are consolidating some or all of their eligible loans through the Direct Consolidation Loan (DCL) Program.

We have become aware of a processing challenge that is, at least ini-tially, preventing borrowers who attempt to consolidate Grad PLUS Loans from repaying under the relatively new Income-Based Repay-ment (IBR) plan. While we have no data indicating how many dental school graduates may be interested in repaying their consolidation loans under IBR, we do know that this most certainly could impact some of them.

In this regard, please note the following:

• On both the online and paper DCL applications, borrowers are required to enter a code that corresponds to the particular loan type they are listing for consolidation, along with other information about the loan.

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• There is currently only one code representing both Parent PLUS Loans and Grad PLUS Loans.

• This is a challenge because while Grad PLUS Loans are eligible to be repaid under IBR (assuming a borrower meets eligibility requirements), Parent PLUS Loans (and consolidation loans that include Parent PLUS Loans) are not eligible to be repaid under IBR.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: The current DCL origination system “defaults” to the IBR rules for Parent PLUS Loans when borrowers apply and thus does not provide borrowers the IBR option if they list Grad PLUS Loans and the corresponding code (“S”) on the application. These borrowers get a note that indicates they are not eligible for IBR because they have “ineligible loans” included on their application.

• The Department of Education (ED), which manages the Direct Consolidation Loan program, is aware of this problem, but to date has not scheduled an update to correct it.

• We have information from ED that borrowers in this situation (borrowers who want to consolidate Grad PLUS Loans and be considered for IBR) should use the code associated with Unsubsidized Stafford Loans when completing the application, with an assumption that the DCL origination system will be able to accurately identify the correct loan to be consolidated at some point in the consolidation process.

Please share this information and email Chonte James at jamesc@adea.org if you have any questions.

The Success of the Fee Assistance Program (FAP)The ADEA AADSAS Fee Assistance Program (FAP) was created in 2009 to replace the Fee Reduction Program (FRP). This program was devel-oped for dental school applicants who demonstrate an extreme need for financial assistance. Since this change, ADEA AADSAS has noticed an increase in user interest and eligibility for fee assistance.

In transitioning from “refunding” an applicant a percentage of the ADEA AADSAS application processing fee, we developed a system with which to “waive” the first dental school designation fee of $227. The total number of applicants approved for FAP as of December 15, 2010, is 463, which is quite different from last year, when there were 326

total approved applicants for the entire cycle. We have also extended the dates to apply to the FAP through the first week of January 2011, which gives applicants more time and flexibility to apply.

Leslie Payne, ADEA DEP Administrative Assistant

Postdoctoral Programs Plan Fourth ADEA Summit on Advanced Dental EducationJudging Success in Advanced Dental Education will be the theme of the next ADEA Summit on Advanced Dental Education, focusing on the varied and numerous types of educational opportunities beyond dental school. Scheduled for October 2011 in conjunction with the ADEA Fall 2011 Meetings, the summit will bring together program directors, edu-cational specialists, and residents for a thorough examination of the concept of “success” in the highly specialized world of postdoctoral dental education.

Sponsored by the ADEA Council of Hospitals and Advanced Education Programs (ADEA COHAEP), goals of the summit include:

• Determining leading practices in the admissions process itself—notably incorporating the findings of the ADEA FADEA project

• Developing strategies for measuring success during residency programs as competencies replace proficiencies in the accreditation standards

• Defining success in advanced dental education at program completion, short-term and long-term, and increasing the pool of future faculty at each level

• Integrating advanced dental education with ADEA CCI• Evaluating the mission of ADEA COHAEP as a component of

ADEA

Plans call for a keynote speaker, an ADEA Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education (ADEA CCI) presenter and ADEA CCI facilitators to stimulate discussion, and opportunities for current den-tal residents to participate both as panelists and as recorders. Varied themes and questions will be handled in breakout sessions, multidisci-plinary working groups, and through use of the Automated Response System.

Peter Storandt, ADEA DEP Director of PASS and CAAPID; Staff Liaison to ADEA COHAEP

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ADEA AADSAS Applicant TotalsAs we approach the end of the 2011 ADEA AADSAS application cycle, more than 10,900 individuals have created ADEA AADSAS accounts. Currently the applicant pool is 46% female and 54% male. Applicants select an average of 10 dental schools through ADEA AADSAS.

If you are interested in receiving these updates contact Ms. Chonte James at jamesc@adea.org.

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2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

6,947

8,123

9,379

10,666

11,365 11,100 11,154

11,255

10,921

ADEA AADSAS Applicant Totals

Blue bars indicate previous year-end application totals.

As of December 17, 2010: 2011 ADEA AADSAS

applicants

Year  

Ap

plic

ants

ADEA Workshop and Recruitment Fair Predental Students and AdvisorsSaturday, March 12, 2011

9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. San Diego Convention Center San Diego, California About the Event

• In its second year, this dynamic, interactive event is geared for high school, community college, and four-year college students from diverse backgrounds,

as well as counselors, advisors and parents

• Participants learn about careers in dentistry, what dental school is all about; current dental students and dental school administrators share tips and strategies for success as an applicant; counselors and health professions advisors gain knowledge to better assist students interested in dental careers

• Anticipated attendance: 600+ students, with 40+ dental schools expected to participate

• Half-day event in conjunction with 2011 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition

Highlights

• Motivational opening session about careers in dentistry and being a successful applicant

• Information sessions scheduled throughout the event focus on:

– Financing a dental education

– Summer academic enrichment programs and the advantages they offer to students

– “If I can do it, you can do it too”—current dental students and recent graduates talk about challenges they faced and obstacles they overcame to pursue their educational goals

• Recruitment fair offers opportunities to meet and talk with admissions officers from through out the country

• Raffles, prizes, and giveaways

A few comments from students:

“Speaking with multiple admissions advisors in one room was like traveling around the country getting a glimpse of each dental school. It was invaluable!”

“I was able to not only learn more about the schools I had already heard of but was introduced to many dental schools that I knew absolutely nothing about.”

“I felt as though I had the opportunity to meet the personality of my future school through all of the admissions directors. I now know exactly what I need to do to achieve my goal.”

Contact Us

For information about the event, contact: Drake Washington Project Manager, Division of Educational Pathways Phone: 202-289-7201 Fax: 202-289-7204 washingtond@adea.org

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