Requirements for College?

Does anyone know what the highschool requirements for Dental Hygienist is to get into college or university?

www.ontariocolleges.ca/documents/OCRG-HCcharts-eng.pdf

This will take you to a pdf file that lists each of the public colleges and the admission requirements for all their programs. Generally you are looking at English, Biology, Chemistry and Math requirements ranging from a low of 60% to a high of 75% but bear in mind that Dental Hygiene is one of the most popular programs and is very competitive. If you apply to one of the private dental hygiene colleges in Ontario please be aware that if a college does not achieve accreditation by 2012 it will be closed down by the Ministry so only look at those colleges that have already achieved accreditation.

I notice that you are in BC perhaps your best bet is to talk to the career counsellors at your high school who will guide you to a similar website that is more applicable to BC.

canadiangirl in Abbotsford, British Columbia said: Does anyone know what the highschool requirements for Dental Hygienist is to get into college or university?

Are there any other majors you are interested in? Please, have a back-up plan, ie-Nursing. You may want to read other
threads of the problems, and UNEMPLOYMENT, we are experiencing after shelling out a ridiculous amount of $....regular work on a weekly basis? This situation is up where you are and is no better in the States. GL

It is a great profession, go for it, lots of employment, benefits, retirement anywhere you go.

Do not listen to exp, he is just a sore DH.

This is a growing profession.

I would check with your counsellors at school; they should be able to help or contact the school(s) you are interested in for their admission requirements.
Hygiene is a great profession-if you get to practice it. Growing it is as well...so much so that there are very few jobs available and wages are going down. This is being felt all over the country despite what you may be hearing or what you are being told.
If you plan on practicing in BC I would look into the job availability of the area you are interested in; watch the papers, call the provincial association, talk to other hygienists/job shadow. GL.

1RDH in Airdrie, Alberta said: I would check with your counsellors at school; they should be able to help or contact the school(s) you are interested in for their admission requirements.
Hygiene is a great profession-if you get to practice it. Growing it is as well...so much so that there are very few jobs available and wages are going down. This is being felt all over the country despite what you may be hearing or what you are being told.
If you plan on practicing in BC I would look into the job availability of the area you are interested in; watch the papers, call the provincial association, talk to other hygienists/job shadow. GL.

Good advice, I hope that the individual above, listens to the R.D.H.'s that are working with the present overcrowding of this field, and look into other fields, ie-Nursing, Radiologist,etc...these will allow for retirement, which is not something MANY R.D.H.'s have, after working all these years; only what they've invested for themselves along the way. GL

canadiangirl in Abbotsford, British Columbia said: Does anyone know what the highschool requirements for Dental Hygienist is to get into college or university?

Since you are in BC, you most likely will be going to a college for a year prior to applying top DH school. There are two exceptions to this: private schools do not all have this requirement, and the UBC direct-entry program accept folks right from high school into a hygiene-track.

The standard route of entry in BC is like this (for VCC, Camosun, VIU, and New Caledonia): graduate high school with english 12, biology 12, perhaps math 12. Then you must achieve credit with a minimum grade level in university of college for hygiene pre-requisites: typically these are statistics, english, Anatomy and Physiology, psychology, chemistry plus electives. From there you can apply to one of the public hygiene schools listed above. Each has a different method of applications, which Camosun having merely a waitlist, while VCC and NC require an aptitude test and interview, etc. You can find all of this on the hygiene schools' websites.

Getting into hygiene school is not simple like in Ontario or in private hyg schools where you enter with a measly high school diploma! Obtaining the college-level prerequisites can be problematic also. Specifically, the Anatomy and Physiology courses are oversubscribed by hygiene and kinesiology future applicants in BC. You need to gain enough status to get priority entry into these courses. I had to wait until my 2nd term to get into Anatomy, and it took 2 full time years at the U to get all the prerequisities completed. Since I went to Camosun via its waitlist, there was an additional 2 year wait to gain entry into the 2 year hygiene program. I used this time to complete a bachelors degreee to bolster my resume.

I can fully understand why a person might choose a private school over public hygiene school. It took 5 years to get a hygiene diploma (same for all of my classmates, more or less). In less than 2 years you can now get a private school diploma in hygiene and be out earning 80K/yr. That is 3 years of additional income - easily over 200K gross income lost to me while in school, while I only saved about 25K by govt subsidy.

The only caveat is that private schools have a spotty reputation for teaching quality. Be sure to investigate the schools very well, because a few of them are good.

Back to the UBC direct entry program. This is a kind of 'guaranteed hygiene track' program where you still do you prerequisites for a year, but are guaranteed a seat in one of the 4 public DH schools (if you keep your grades up). It is still a 3 year program after hygiene school like all the public DH programs in BC. It is described as a 4 year program, because they expect you to return to UBC to complete the bachelors degree after obtaining your DiplomaDH.

www.dentistry.ubc.ca/Education/Hygiene/DirectEntry/AdmissionProcedures.asp

The other schools' websites are:
camosun.ca/learn/programs/dhyg/dhyg-requirements.html

www.mala.ca/calendar/Health/dentalhygiene.asp

www.vcc.ca/deptUploads/dentalhygiene.pdf

www.cnc.bc.ca/CNC_Programs/Dental_Hygiene.htm