Maximising my gap year

http://www.amazon.co.uk/into-Medical-School-comprehensive-explanations/dp/1905812094/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Buy the book listed and smash that UKCAT next time round.

For work experience, Universities like students who take the initiative and who go out to find work experience, and can actually talk about what they learnt at an interview.

Good luck in future.

The work experience bit is a tough one. I mean for medicine its quite easy to undersatnd what kind of work experience you should be after, basically in both a medical and caring environment, but more in caring.

But dentistry is quite different. Why don't you first talk to some people who have had interviews and offers for dentistry and see what kind of work experience they did to get a better understanding.

I had an interview at Kings this year but they mentioned in my interview it was a shame my experience was limited to hospital work. I spent 2 years training the staff of a maxillofacial department of a hospital in IT and Administration skills (I'm a mature student). So was exposed to a lot of things as I spent 2 days a week there for 2 years. Unfortunately when looking for experience in a dental practice I found it almost impossible to get due to insurance issues.

So I thought since I need to get a job for the next year anyway I should try and get one in a practice.

Ah, so they wanted you to have direct experience,as in working with dentists.

Well, that is quite tricky, especially as you said you faced some difficulty the first time due to insurance issues.

The people i know who have applied for dentrsty either lied abouit their work experience or have family memeers who were dentists and allowed them to observe during practice.

I think the best thing to do is to approach dentists you do know and see if they can give you insight to how you can get some experience and also get around the whole insurance thing.