How do we aim to make our services inclusive to all? 

As an independent support platform we have a responsibility to make our services accessible to everyone who comes across our site. We have set measures in place to ensure that anyone is able to reach out to us and use our platform to help them.

We have developed a bursary scheme allowing students and applicants from widening participation to access our services, who may otherwise not be able to access tuition or revision resources. We are acutely aware that finances can limit students gaining support from paid services, especially other third party support platforms, as such we have implemented this bursary scheme to our services offering complementary access or heavily reduced discounts where services must be sustainable.

We do not receive additional support from any other platform or sponsorship and our bursary scheme has simply been developed by our team to support applicants from different backgrounds.

We aim to bridge the gap for those may not ordinarily receive access to subject specific support, which can often be due to financial and social circumstances. We always ensure that no applicant is turned down from accessing our services and have on many occasions exceptions to ensure an applicant can receive support.

Whilst we do offer paid services, 80% of our website resources are free. We have many free webinars throughout the year, each one being open to every applicant, as well as our free call services, email campaigns, a resourceful instagram page  and also regular blogs and many articles - all which are run voluntarily by our amazing team. We encourage all applicants to reach out to us via email hello@iwanttobeadentist.com to apply for our bursary scheme, even if they do not meet the criteria they can still get in contact with us and we will always do our best to support applicants and do our part to be as inclusive as possible. 

More information on the Bursary Scheme can be found here.

How do we maintain the integrity of our team?

We have hand selected each member of our team which consists of experienced dentists, newly graduated dentists and current dental students all which act professionally and in accordance to our company policies and the GDC standards.

Each tutor undergoes the same application process, consisting of a formal interview, reference and compatibility checks.

As dental professionals we also have responsibilities to ensure that the dental application process is not affected and fairness is maintained during selection. All of our members have signed employment contacts and NDA’s which prevents them from disclosing specific information regarding the application which may advantage/disadvantage applicants. In addition to this, those member who maybe students ensure transparency with their respective university institution and have agreed not to partake in any aspect of the interview of application process for the recruitment of prospective dental students, this may include student ambassadors and university representatives. All of our members attend regular meetings before any webinar/session is held to ensure that we are all briefed and we know what to address in our public webinars or projects.

With our tuition lessons, which consistent of one to one mentoring and interviews, we ensure all sessions are recorded and monitored closely as well as being audited to prohibit breaches of sensitive information. This ensures that no applicant is ever given specific university information which gives them an unfair advantage. While we aim to give maximum value to anyone using our service we also have a duty to act professionally.

How do we maintain standards of tuition?

Firstly all tutors are hand selected as per our interview and selection criteria, this helps to ensure a high and consistent level of service provided across all of our services.

All of our services follow a set of tutor guidelines and rules which each team members always abide by. Each of our services is recorded and we undertake audits to assess and maintain compliance to our set standards and ensure sensitive information is not breached. Our regular mentor meetings enable us to always be in contact with our team and monitor our services and tuition sessions. All tutors have signed an NDA clause and contact which means they won’t diverge sensitive information which may cause an unfair advantage to an applicant. 

How do we protect the integrity of the dental school application process?

With a highly competitive application process when applying to dental school and the number of applicants increasing rapidly each year, there is a large importance on services offering support for applicants to maintain fairness and integrity.

We as a platform have a duty to maintain the integrity of the dental school application process and to ensure inclusivity with the provision of our services. We do this by ensuring that the information we deliver will not advantage applicants in an unfair manner and also by ensuring our services are inclusive and accessible to all. Our trained tutors are acutely aware of the sensitive nature of this application process, in addition to the unprofessionalism associated with divulging any information which may unfairly advantage or disadvantage an applicant. As such our tutors receive training prior to beginning mentoring to ensure all students in receipt of support are fairly treated and the process of interview support is consistent across of our team offering this support.

Importantly, to help those in receipt of financial support , our bursary has been developed to increase inclusivity. We are proud to have currently helped over 800 students from across the UK and internationally to seek support and we have voluntarily undertaken over 200 dentistry advisor calls for those interesting in learning more about dentistry as a career.

Our team members are current or former dentistry students who have been selected through a formal application process. Further more, their duty to maintain integrity is set out in our contract and in the professional code of conduct as per the GDC’s standards. It is prohibited in our contracts for any of our members to discuss sensitive information to applicants. Our services do not guarantee any applicant a place at dental school however, we do our best to provide value and help every applicant with information and advice.