Hi everyone,
Great thread! I'd really appreciate feedback on my current situation and plans for the future.
I guess I should provide a bit of background info. My dad is a PharmD and my mom is a PT, so I've grown up in a family heavily influenced by the medical professions. In high school I was very involved with the HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) group at school and was pretty set on dentistry (won state level competitions junior & senior years for the dental competition offered). My senior year of HS I was bitten by the entrepreneurship bug and I started a company which ended up occupying me through several years of college - which proved to be a distraction from classes, much less dreams of dental school. Attended Wake Forest University freshman year and did the typical intro to college coursework with a slight slant towards business/economics and spanish.
The following year I transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill because they have a better entrepreneurial atmosphere and tuition is a ton cheaper
I continued coursework in economics and spanish and didn't pursue the dentistry thing.
In the summer of '06 I traveled with a dental team as part of a church medical mission trip to Ecuador and assisted the dentist for about 40 hours (1 week) translating and performing very basic assisting/cleaning - had a blast, awesome experience.
This past May I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a double major in Economics and Spanish. Didn't end up with a great GPA - 2.7 cumulative (3.0 in Spanish, less than that in Econ
)
Since then, I've worked for a start up company, but I'm having second thoughts about dental school and my current career path. Somehow I managed to take only 1 science course throughout undergrad - Bio 101 and earned a B+, so my science GPA slate is pretty clean.
Do I have the potential to be a competitive applicant if I take all the science pre-reqs part-time at UNC and earn good grades to fill out my science gpa?
I'm concerned my ugrad gpa will be a big strike against me as well as not taking the pre-reqs as a full load...I'd have to enter the part-time studies program which restricts me to 8 hrs(2 classes)/semester.
Also, do dental schools
require pre-reqs be completed at a 4-year instead of a CC? The local CC offers classes for about $42/credit - about 5-6 times cheaper than UNC. I've seen several dschools that mention classes from 4-years are preferred, but does anyone know how large a role that plays in admission decisions? I'm leaning towards completing the classes at UNC since I reckon I need all the help I can get...although the financial advantage of the CC is huge.
Any input would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Matt