Tips for Writing an ADEA AADSAS Letter of Evaluation

These suggestions are intended to enhance the evaluation process by providing best practices for ADEA AADSAS^® (ADEA Associated American Dental Schools Application Service) evaluators to consider.

They can be applied to both individual and committee letters.

1. Provide an accurate assessment of the applicant’s suitability for dental school.


2. Briefly explain your relationship with the applicant:
   • How long have you known the applicant?
   • In what capacity have you interacted (e.g., as faculty, as a predental advisor, as a supervisor)?
     Note: Admissions committees will review both responses to the “relationship” questions and letter(s), so use the letter to elaborate on or provide context for your responses.


3. Quality of information is more important than letter length. Focus on the applicant rather than details of the lab, course, assignment, job or institution.


4. Only include information on grades, GPA or DAT scores if you also provide context to help interpret them.


5. Focus on behaviors you have observed directly when describing an applicant’s suitability for dental school. Consider describing:
   • The situation or context of the behaviors,
   • The actual behaviors you observed and
   • Any consequences of the behaviors.


6. Ask the applicant for permission if you plan to include any information that could be private or sensitive.


7. Consider including unique contributions that an applicant would bring to an incoming class, such as:
   • Obstacles that the applicant had to overcome and how those obstacles have led to new learning and growth and/or
   • Contributions that an applicant would bring to a dental school’s community, broadly defined (e.g., background, attributes, experiences).


8. If you make comparisons between the applicant and others, be sure to provide context, including:
• Who you are comparing the applicant to (e.g., students in a class, students in your department, co-workers) and
• Your rationale for the comparison.

Note: Permission was given by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to adopt this information for dentistry.

Letters of Evaluation (LOE) Trends in Dental School Admissions

Advisors are invited to learn from a panel of dental school admissions officers as they discuss letters of evaluation (LOE). The panel will share emerging trends they are seeing in the new LOE attribute ratings and then share scenarios that explain how letters are utilized in the admissions process and where they add value to an application.