Social profile of first-year dentistry students at the University of Sydney

There has been constant interest in the background of dentistry students over the years. This paper, based on the data amassed by surveying the first-year dentistry students of 1994 and 1995, builds on previous questionnaires and publications, and shows that certain trends in student make-up, predicted earlier, have been checked. The article examines such features as the gender breakdown of first-year students, age at the end of their first year, their own and their parents' countries of origin, English and non-English language proficiency, type of school attended, parents' occupations, parents' highest level of education, motivations for choosing dentistry as a career, aptitude for a career in dentistry, and previous studies and employment. The data are analysed with the view to determining changes over time in the social composition of dentistry students.