A new admission procedure to dental education at The Karolinska Institute. An initial evaluation.

This study compares the performance to date of dental under-graduates selected by a new, individual admissions procedure, and those admitted by the traditional centralised system (control groups). Admission to all full-time tertiary study in Sweden was centralised and administered by special national units until 1993, following which the universities were allowed to adopt their own admission system. The Dental School at The Karolinska Institute in 1993 introduced an individualised selection system, initially for one-third and subsequently for 60% of the freshmen intake, the remaining places being reserved for students applying through the national admissions centre. The main objective of the new selection procedure is to seek out highly motivated students (less likely to drop-out) with general competence, high academic achievement, and personal attributes considered important in a health professional. An Admissions Committee (AC) comprising seven faculty members, was appointed by the Vice-Chancellor, for the new system which has been used unaltered since 1993. In the first stage applicants with the highest academic grades are selected in descending order. In the second stage, the prospective students spend a day at The Dental School writing separate assignments, which are assessed by the AC according to defined criteria. Applicants who do well in the written assessment proceed to the third stage in which each applicant is interviewed by two AC members on separate occasions. In the final selection procedure, the AC considers the combined merits of all the interviewed applicants. Analysis of the first three intakes discloses few or no drop-outs among AC-selected undergraduates. In three major integrated examinations, designed to disclose not only factual knowledge but also comprehension and maturity and as such reflect clinical conditions, their performance is as good as or better than the control groups.