Record Breaking Turnout for the 2025 ADEA GoDental Recruitment Event
Attendees arrived with lots of enthusiasm and questions to the 2025 GoDental Recruitment Event, held in conjunction with the 2025 ADEA Annual Session & Exhibition in National Harbor, MD, and sponsored by Liaison International. With almost 1,000 students and nearly 70 schools in attendance, there were numerous networking opportunities and plenty of information to learn and share about dental schools, the application process and financing dental education during presentations, Q&As and on the bustling Exhibit Hall floor.
“I don’t think there have been this many people before,” said Karen P. West, D.M.D., M.P.H., ADEA President and CEO, as she gazed around the packed conference room. “It’s amazing.”
“This is the 15th year, and we are excited that so many prospective dental students have chosen to be with us today,” Susan H. Kass, M.Ed., Ed.D., RDH, Immediate Past ADEA Chair of the Board.
Seeking Information and Connections
Kayla Martin, a dental assistant and sophomore at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, N.C., was one of those prospective dental students. She said she came to the 2025 GoDental Recruitment Event “to make connections.”
Ms. Martin said she’d wanted to be a dentist since a young age when she had to go to frequent orthodontic appointments because of an impacted tooth.
“I’d get x-rays and was fascinated by seeing my teeth in those images,” she said.
Another student, Sara George, a junior Biology Science major at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla., said the 2025 ADEA GoDental Recruitment Event was her second time attending the event.
“I went last year,” Ms. George said. “I came again this year to follow up with schools.”
Ms. George said because of the 2024 Recruitment Event, not only did she apply to the Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP), but she also changed what dental schools she planned to apply to.
“I have fifteen schools I’m interested in now,” Ms. George said.
Other attendees like JonCarlo Pecoraro, a gap-year student who graduated in 2024 with a degree in Biology from Kean University in Union, N.J., said he’s a newbie to the Recruitment Event and found out about it through his aunt.
“I’m not on social media, so she found it for me on Instagram,” he explained.
Mr. Pecoraro said he planned to apply to Rutgers School of Dental Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Dentistry.
The Perks of Applying for Dental School in the Age of Technology
The event kicked off with a Welcome address by Andrea Jackson, D.D.S., M.S., Dean of Howard University College of Dentistry, who shared that she, like many in the audience, knew she wanted to be a dentist even in high school.
“In high school, I knew that’s what I wanted to do and that’s what I set out to do,” Dr. Jackson said.
“At this time, there is an explosion in technology,” she said. “You guys are entering the field at a good time.”
Next, students heard the presentation, “Smiles, Stories, and Social Media: A Personal Journey to Dental School,” by Tina Fadel, a fourth-year dental student at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. Ms. Fadel shared how social media assisted her in networking and researching for applying to dental school.
“Social media usually has a bad reputation to it, but social media can actually help you and open some doors to you,” Ms. Fadel said.
She moved to the United States in 2016 from Saudi Arabia as a senior in high school and felt immediately that she was playing a game of catch-up compared to other seniors; Ms. Fadel had no idea where to apply for college or what to pursue.
“I thought, you know what, I love science and biology,” Ms. Fadel said, so she majored in biology at University of South Carolina Upstate.
She had a friend on the predental track and decided that the profession sounded interesting. Ms. Fadel said she used the Student Doctor Network, which she referred to as “the Reddit of dental schools”, to learn more about dental schools and the application process. She also followed every single dental club she could find online and ended up winning a free mock dental school interview from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine by responding to their post. Ms. Fadel even followed an Instagram account that raved about the University of Buffalo School of Dental Medicine, and it made her want to go to the school.
How to Stand Out From the Rest
After a 15-minute break, audience members got to ask questions during in a Q&A Panel with Zhiyuan (Mark) Yang, a first-year dental student at the University of Washington School of Dentistry, and Nik Christoffel, a second-year dental student at Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and the ADEA District 2 Commissioner for the ADEA Council of Students, Residents and Fellows. Brittney Duong, a third-year dental student at California Northstate University College of Dental Medicine, moderated the panel.
The panelists were asked what resources they used during the application process.
“I used the internet, specifically the Student Doctor Network,” Mr. Christoffel said.
Mr. Yang said he reached out to his local dental society and found a good shadowing opportunity this way. “Try to see what the local nonprofit and associations are. Even local clinics. Ask ways that you can contribute and get started,” she said.
Ms. Duong also asked the panelists for advice on how to make their applications stand out.
“To help yourself standout, take advance science classes,” Mr. Christoffel said. “It gives them the indication that you could withstand the rigor of dental schools.” He then gave the example of taking molecular biology and microbiology in addition to biology.
Mr. Yang advised to “show your interest in why you’re even exploring the [dental] profession,” to make your application stand out among the rest. “Is it health, research, etc.? Does it align with your personality or with the experiences you’ve been through?”
Ms. Duong also encouraged applicants to show their multifaceted selves in their applications. “Dental schools want to see if you have a life outside of dentistry,” she said. “They want to see your time management, to hear about your hobbies or even if you have an exotic pet.”
Above all else when applying to dental school, Mr. Yang urged students not to be “the cookie cutter applicant.”
“Don’t check off a list of things you think you need to do just to apply to dental school. Be really genuine,” he said.
See you next year on March 21, 2026, in modern and multicultural Montréal, Canada!