- Joined
- Mar 5, 2016
- Messages
- 83
- Reaction score
- 58
Hello all,
I have really benefitted from the posts of other predents sharing their experiences over the past few months. I finished the DAT today with this breakdown:
AA: 22
TS: 22
Bio:25
GC:24
OC:20
PAT: 24
RC: 23
QR: 20
cGPA: 3.7
sGPA: 3.9
Major: Classics
Materials: Bootcamp, Chads, Destroyer. For extra help: Dat Genius, KBB, Crack Dat Pat tests.
I believe that creating a great plan is almost as important as carrying out the plan. To that end, I researched these forums extensively at the end of 2015 to find out what the top performers were doing to prepare for the test. The gist of what I saw was this: a lot of the folks who were doing really well we're using some amalgam of Bootcamp, Chads, and Destroyer as their three primary resources. Some mention of Achiever, Top Score, Crack Dat, Genius, Kaplan, Princeton Review, but these other resources seemed to be on the periphery or not even in the picture of the top performers' strategy.
Based on this, I decided to use Ari's ten week schedule, which uses destroyer, chads, and the bootcamp software. Before starting the ten week schedule, I wanted to get the basics of the test down, so during winter break I read through kbb and did the ten crack dat pat tests. By now I at least had a familiarity with the material.
I started the Bootcamp schedule January 1st. The Bootcamp schedule is ten weeks long and is broken into two phases. I followed the first phase of content review religiously. I really enjoyed this phase, because it relies heavily on Chad's videos. And what everyone says is true: Chad is awesome--you feel like he is your good friend by the end. The second phase I struggled to keep up with, because I had physics and organic chemistry with labs, work, and volunteering competing for my time.
During Phase two, I really benefitted from Destroyer, by Dr. Romano. These materials are great. The Bootcamp schedule has you go through Destroyer twice, which is important, and the explanations to the questions are very valuable. When Dr. Romano says memorize something, memorize it. What everyone says is true: Destroyer is harder than the real thing, and most of the Bootcamp materials seemed on par with or slightly harder than the actual test, which is great, because it is like swinging with a batting weight on. I never scored better than 20 on a bootcamp PAT or even finished one in an hour, but scored a 24 today and felt confident in about 95% of the problems, finishing with thirty seconds to go.
My Ochem was a bit low, but that has nothing to do with the above three resources or my phenomenal Orgo professor; I will take the third quarter in the spring, so I was a bit weak on carbonyl chem, even though I work in the orgo lab.
I decided to take the test in March, even though I had not finished Ochem, because I want to be able to apply early, and I want to be able to give my scores to my letter writers. Plus, it is a huge relief to have this challenge behind me. I contemplated postponing for two weeks to take care of finals, but after taking the 2009 paper test, recommended by Ari, I decided to stick to the plan. The way the 2009 went was this: by the end it felt like that point in the movie where they say, "it seems quiet, too quiet." I kept waiting for it to get as hard as my study materials, but that time never came. All 2009 sections were very similar to today's score, but a little lower than how I performed today. Like Ari says, this is a good indicator for judging your readiness.
Lastly, I want to share my opinion about why I liked Bootcamp, Chads, and Destroyer so much: all three are very reasonably priced, slightly harder than the real test without being demoralizingly hard, and then there is a transparent element to all three that makes them very likable. Ari does a lot of really cool things with the SDN community, like answer questions on here and pick students of the month, and he brings in people to talk about essays, and is constantly making his website better, by adding generators, full tests, trainer games, daily questions, videos from experts, blog posts, etc. Likewise, Dr. Romano and Nancy post on here quite a bit, and seem to have their pulse on what's actually on the test. Same with Chad: he clearly tells you everything you need to know and nothing you don't, and inlcudes great quizzes to do after each video.
In all three cases, the materials are clearly made by intelligent, hardworking people who enjoy enabling students to succeed on this significant, and challenging test. Thanks to all three and to the other students who posted their experiences and helpful wisdom on here.
I have really benefitted from the posts of other predents sharing their experiences over the past few months. I finished the DAT today with this breakdown:
AA: 22
TS: 22
Bio:25
GC:24
OC:20
PAT: 24
RC: 23
QR: 20
cGPA: 3.7
sGPA: 3.9
Major: Classics
Materials: Bootcamp, Chads, Destroyer. For extra help: Dat Genius, KBB, Crack Dat Pat tests.
I believe that creating a great plan is almost as important as carrying out the plan. To that end, I researched these forums extensively at the end of 2015 to find out what the top performers were doing to prepare for the test. The gist of what I saw was this: a lot of the folks who were doing really well we're using some amalgam of Bootcamp, Chads, and Destroyer as their three primary resources. Some mention of Achiever, Top Score, Crack Dat, Genius, Kaplan, Princeton Review, but these other resources seemed to be on the periphery or not even in the picture of the top performers' strategy.
Based on this, I decided to use Ari's ten week schedule, which uses destroyer, chads, and the bootcamp software. Before starting the ten week schedule, I wanted to get the basics of the test down, so during winter break I read through kbb and did the ten crack dat pat tests. By now I at least had a familiarity with the material.
I started the Bootcamp schedule January 1st. The Bootcamp schedule is ten weeks long and is broken into two phases. I followed the first phase of content review religiously. I really enjoyed this phase, because it relies heavily on Chad's videos. And what everyone says is true: Chad is awesome--you feel like he is your good friend by the end. The second phase I struggled to keep up with, because I had physics and organic chemistry with labs, work, and volunteering competing for my time.
During Phase two, I really benefitted from Destroyer, by Dr. Romano. These materials are great. The Bootcamp schedule has you go through Destroyer twice, which is important, and the explanations to the questions are very valuable. When Dr. Romano says memorize something, memorize it. What everyone says is true: Destroyer is harder than the real thing, and most of the Bootcamp materials seemed on par with or slightly harder than the actual test, which is great, because it is like swinging with a batting weight on. I never scored better than 20 on a bootcamp PAT or even finished one in an hour, but scored a 24 today and felt confident in about 95% of the problems, finishing with thirty seconds to go.
My Ochem was a bit low, but that has nothing to do with the above three resources or my phenomenal Orgo professor; I will take the third quarter in the spring, so I was a bit weak on carbonyl chem, even though I work in the orgo lab.
I decided to take the test in March, even though I had not finished Ochem, because I want to be able to apply early, and I want to be able to give my scores to my letter writers. Plus, it is a huge relief to have this challenge behind me. I contemplated postponing for two weeks to take care of finals, but after taking the 2009 paper test, recommended by Ari, I decided to stick to the plan. The way the 2009 went was this: by the end it felt like that point in the movie where they say, "it seems quiet, too quiet." I kept waiting for it to get as hard as my study materials, but that time never came. All 2009 sections were very similar to today's score, but a little lower than how I performed today. Like Ari says, this is a good indicator for judging your readiness.
Lastly, I want to share my opinion about why I liked Bootcamp, Chads, and Destroyer so much: all three are very reasonably priced, slightly harder than the real test without being demoralizingly hard, and then there is a transparent element to all three that makes them very likable. Ari does a lot of really cool things with the SDN community, like answer questions on here and pick students of the month, and he brings in people to talk about essays, and is constantly making his website better, by adding generators, full tests, trainer games, daily questions, videos from experts, blog posts, etc. Likewise, Dr. Romano and Nancy post on here quite a bit, and seem to have their pulse on what's actually on the test. Same with Chad: he clearly tells you everything you need to know and nothing you don't, and inlcudes great quizzes to do after each video.
In all three cases, the materials are clearly made by intelligent, hardworking people who enjoy enabling students to succeed on this significant, and challenging test. Thanks to all three and to the other students who posted their experiences and helpful wisdom on here.
Last edited:
, so I didn't write down my scores from each bootcamp section, but I can remember that 0n my first run through bio, I was at 20 +- 1. All my PATs were 19 or 20. My chem and OC were between 18 and 21. My RCs were terrible, sometimes 17 or 18, until I got my strategy down (Ari's vanilla method) then I got a 20 on the last one. The QRs were all around 19/20. 
