Ranking of DAT/Other Selection Criteria by US DS

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A hotly debated issue has been the assignment of relative importance of DAT sections as criteria for selection of candidates by US ds. With the recently published information by the ADA we now have definitive information on how ds rank the various selection criteria including DAT, gpa, interviews, lor. The information does support the original feeling by many that the QR section was the least important. What was not expected is to see a higher response to the importance of RC vis-a-vis bio, gc, and oc especially with the more recent introduction of TS scores.The information used was obtained from the ADA at http://www.ada.org/ada/prod/survey/survey_ed_vol2.pdf

First in on epic thread.

thanks doc


i wonder why UCSF has N/A for all its categories in ranking importance of sections

Very interesting.....

Great information. I can stop dwelling on my QR score now.

This is awesome! Thanks for posting!

An amazing thread to add to your list, doc.

I nominate Doc Toothache as the greatest SDN contributor of all time

I never knew RC was so important, aka more so than the sciences even

i wonder why MWU(Midwestern) has no stats in anything... are they brand new?

Originally Posted by ohohitsmagic08

I never knew RC was so important, aka more so than the sciences even

That's not completely true. Some schools don't care for individual sciences ONLY because there is the TS score to sum the science portions ups.

nothing on UoP?

Originally Posted by doc3232

That's not completely true. Some schools don't care for individual sciences ONLY because there is the TS score to sum the science portions ups.

That's like suggesting that no individual scores including TS are of importance since they are included in the AA.

Originally Posted by Randy822

nothing on UoP?

The info for your favorite ds has been added.

Did anyone look at Iowa's view of importance in the DAT sections.... AA, PAT, and TS are 3s. While QR is a 1. Complete opposite of the other schools.... wonder how they came up with these rankings?

Originally Posted by doc toothache

That's like suggesting that no individual scores including TS are of importance since they are included in the AA.

Except that TS is not an individual score and AA doesnt tell the schools how the students did in the sciences (or in any other section for that matter).
What doc3232 is saying is that the schools rank TS highly because it averages out the three sciences so the 3 individual science scores dont necessarily have to be analyzed (just to make sure there are no extremes). RC is an individual score so schools must look at this number.
Say if QR, RC, and PAT were average in a Nonscience score then I think that the QR, RC, and PAT individual scores would also drop in the importance (just as we see with the OC, GC, and BIO with the TS).

Originally Posted by yuppers

Except that TS is not an individual score and AA doesnt tell the schools how the students did in the sciences (or in any other section for that matter).
What doc3232 is saying is that the schools rank TS highly because it averages out the three sciences so the 3 individual science scores dont necessarily have to be analyzed (just to make sure there are no extremes). RC is an individual score so schools must look at this number.
Say if QR, RC, and PAT were average in a Nonscience score then I think that the QR, RC, and PAT individual scores would also drop in the importance (just as we see with the OC, GC, and BIO with the TS).

Making "sure there are no extremes" without "analyzing" the scores presents quite a challenge.

Originally Posted by doc toothache

Making "sure there are no extremes" without "analyzing" the scores presents quite a challenge.

You can "make sure there are no extremes" by simply glancing at the scores. What I was saying is that schools can glance at the scores to make sure there is not a 14 being offset by a 30 to get a average/good score. To do that doesn't require analyzing (which I define as more than a glance or check).
Are you just going to pick off partial quotes to attempt to refute my point or just altogether avoid the point I was trying to make.

Originally Posted by yuppers

You can "make sure there are no extremes" by simply glancing at the scores. What I was saying is that schools can glance at the scores to make sure there is not a 14 being offset by a 30 to get a average/good score. To do that doesn't require analyzing (which I define as more than a glance or check).
Are you just going to pick off partial quotes to attempt to refute my point or just altogether avoid the point I was trying to make.

Since you seem to know what "school do and don't" like glance vs analyze you are more than welcome to keep your "point".

Originally Posted by doc toothache

Since you seem to know what "school do and don't" like glance vs analyze you are more than welcome to keep your "point".

I'm done arguing.

Doc Toothache, Did they (ADA?) ask the individual schools to rank them or did they assume based on accepted applicants?

Originally Posted by failedmagician

Doc Toothache, Did they (ADA?) ask the individual schools to rank them or did they assume based on accepted applicants? It's okay if you don't have this detail, I'm just curious. I'm so thankful to see that the only section on Florida that is "somewhat unimportant" is PAT. It's my lowest score.

You will find your answer in the Introduction of the source quoted, which would be the 4th line of the post.

Originally Posted by yuppers

Did anyone look at Iowa's view of importance in the DAT sections.... AA, PAT, and TS are 3s. While QR is a 1. Complete opposite of the other schools.... wonder how they came up with these rankings?

You might like the changes better.

If you look at Doc Toothaches data gathered from ADA, you will find that for US Dental Schools the average order of importance on the DAT is:

AA (1.17) > TS (1.20) > RC (1.35) > BIO (1.39) > OC (1.46) > GC (1.5) > PAT (1.65) > QR (2.26)

In addition, if factor in the "other factors" you will find that in general US Dental Schools value the following in this order:

Interview (1.07) > SCI GPA (1.09) > AA (1.17) > Overall GPA (1.19) > TS (1.20) > RC (1.35) > BIO (1.39) > OC (1.46) > GC (1.5) > LOR (1.63) > PAT (1.65) > Man Dext (1.90) > Non Sci GPA (2.02) > QR (2.26)

I wish PAT was ranked higher, I eat those for breakfast.

Bump

bump

WVU has almost every thing number 1, way to represent doub v

Can someone please give me advice on the following:

I just took my DAT at got 19AA/19TS/16 PAT

I know that my AA and TS are average, but the 16 is really low. Because of the 90 day policy to retake, I wouldn't be able to retake the exam until November 8, which cuts it close to a lot of deadlines, and makes my application really late since most schools start replying back by October.

What do I do??
Should I submit my apps with this score and just hope that I hear back from a couple, or do I retake the exam regardless of dates and then submit (which puts me at risk of not getting in because of it being late).

Thanks and hope to hear from someone soon!

Originally Posted by nc0127

Can someone please give me advice on the following:

I just took my DAT at got 19AA/19TS/16 PAT

I know that my AA and TS are average, but the 16 is really low. Because of the 90 day policy to retake, I wouldn't be able to retake the exam until November 8, which cuts it close to a lot of deadlines, and makes my application really late since most schools start replying back by October.

What do I do??
Should I submit my apps with this score and just hope that I hear back from a couple, or do I retake the exam regardless of dates and then submit (which puts me at risk of not getting in because of it being late).

Thanks and hope to hear from someone soon!

Yo bro, you shouldn't be hijacking this thread. Next thing you know this will become a "what are my chances?" thread.

Originally Posted by LetsGo2DSchool

Yo bro, you shouldn't be hijacking this thread. Next thing you know this will become a "what are my chances?" thread.

The thread is about sections of the exam and how important each section is depending on the schools. My post is regarding the PAT section and whether or not it is weighed so heavily where a 16 is unacceptable.