ADAT? What’s that?
The last thing you want to hear after you have spilled blood, sweat, and tears on the CBSE is that you may have to take another test. Let me introduce you to the ADAT, or better known as “Another D*** Assessment Test.” Just kidding, it stands for Advanced Dental Admission Test, and it could be an important part of applying to residency in the near future. Now that the national boards are pass/fail, and many dental schools do not rank students, residencies are requesting a way to compare applicants. Although the AAOMS has provided oral surgery programs the means for achieving this through the CBSE, other specialty residencies do not (orthodontic residencies do have the GRE as an option). To solve this problem, the ADA is introducing the ADAT.
Details surrounding the ADAT at this time are limited. However, we do know that it will be a 200-question test administered over a four-hour period. The majority of questions will be about the basic and clinical sciences with a few stats and ethics questions mixed in for good measure (breakdown below). Scores will be reported in 10-point increments on a scale of 200 to 800 with a mean of 500. The preliminary first exam dates are set for May and August of 2016, although in a pilot format.
So what does this mean for oral surgery applicants? Will applicants be required to take both the CBSE and ADAT? Will the CBSE remain the choice of program directors or will they shift to the ADAT? All of these questions currently remain unanswered, but hopefully will be discussed at the annual AAOMS meeting in Washington, D.C. this year (September 28-October 3). Worst case is that programs either require both, or to a lesser extent, different programs request different tests. Ideally, the ADA would have rolled out the ADAT at the time board scores began reporting as pass/fail. Alas, that is not the case.
For an updated ADAT analysis, see the ADAT Update and ADAT Update #2.
Study tips can be found in our ADAT Knockout Guest Post.
For the official ADA reports, check out the pages below: