Crazy story about a Dental Student that took 5 cycles to get in.

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PWNISHER

PWNISHER

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So after 5 application cycles I finally got into Dental school. However, it wasn't just that I had bad numbers or I slacked off or made poor choices that led me to become a 3.0 student. I hope that when I tell my story and I hope that it gives some people hope, patience, diligence and all those other hard working words that just mean "not a quitter" Let me point out that I did not initially want to be a dentist and my career path was not a straight one. Let me just walk you through my life from beginning of college until now.
 
1999- I'm a senior in High school, I've finished every AP class available and I'm half attending high school for my sports and the other half I am at UC Riverside taking beyond AP classes that count as double for high school and college credit. I was caught up being a multi-sport athlete that was banking on getting a water polo scholarship, so I blew off my college courses figuring that I'd never attend UC Riverside. In the back of my mind I would just go wherever my scholarship landed me. Well due to conflicts between my head coach and I, I didn't get any help and my only scholarship was for a division 3 water polo school that was only a partial scholarship in Philadelphia. So I just graduated high school and ran the table at UCR with all C's in linear algebra, multi-variable calculus and whatever the other classes were for crazy math that I'd never needed but were the next step for me.
 
2000- Graduated HS, no scholarship and I didn't even bother to retake my SAT, ACT, etc... So I'm sitting on average scores since they were just a check in the box from my sophmore year in HS to get into the UCR High School dual enrollment program. I had a 3.8gpa in HS but I'm stuck at UCR because I didn't bother applying anywhere thinking I'd end up playing polo somewhere. So now I'm at UCR, I am not considered a freshman and since i only have 12 units I'm dead last to register for classes. I'm undeclared since I'm not sure what I want to do for a career either, so it pushes me further to the bottom. Get stuck in humanities classes that I don't want and just run out with all B's for a year.
 
2001 Fall term- Now I'm pissed. I still can't get my classes and UCR decides to go from phone registration to internet registration and it is all buggy. I finally land my first science class. Chem 1. I go through the whole quarter borderline B+/A- in a class that was supposed to be the toughest chemistry teacher since the guy is 70 years old and past due for retirement and his co-lecturer is ex-military. I get called in for jury duty. This was before they allowed students to reschedule in CA for during their break time. I actually get stuck in a jury pool that is for a murder trial and they don't order you alphabetically but I'm actually stuck in the jury selection process for 6 days. I never get called and they actually settle on a jury when I was 2 people away from getting interrogated for the last slot. Needless to say, I miss 2 labs in the class. Well guess what class policy is if you miss 2 labs? You auto-fail the class. I go to the director of the chemistry department with my court paperwork and he wants jury badge information. I never was selected so I don’t have any. I just got stuck since I had Monday lab for two Mondays, so he won't excuse me for both but just for one lab since jury duty is only a couple of days if you are not selected. Still I have the court papers showing me there for 2 Mondays. The final decision doesn't happen until after finals go on, since it was the last two labs I missed, I study my butt off to make up for lost time to pull that A in the class and I don't get it since the lab director goober auto-fails me. Fortunately, the professor won't just give me an F he gives me a D+ so not to destroy my gpa completely. Aww, isn’t that nice of him. Blah!
 
2001- Winter. If you thought Fall was bad wait until you get a load of winter. I can't retake the chem class until the next year, I don't get the pre-req credit to start the Bio series, so I'm stuck once again taking random classes that I don't really need. I take some BS humanity credit science classes, like biology without the lab and human reproduction or whatever the non-science degree science classes are for humanity majors. Best part is that when the quarter finishes I get my grades in the mail (yes snail mail UCR isn't with the times yet.) and I have a transcript full of "F’s" in political sciences and religious studies classes. WTF??? Best part I have straight A's in two PE courses that I was registered for not knowing and I never attended. So now what? Go through the whole appeal process, of course it doesn't help that when you go to a disciplinary meeting and you look like a beach bum, (which is what I looked like) with dyed blonde spiky hair and eyes that are constantly bloodshot from swim workouts, I was hoping to walk onto a water polo team somewhere and get out of Riverside. So it felt like based on my appearance to the dean and the cronies, I am labled a "pothead" even though I've never touched the stuff. So, I get denied my appeal to check my attendance records and fix my enrollment. Don't know whose classes they had me officially enrolled in but I hope they enjoy my A’s. Things are looking terrible at this point.
 
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2001-2003- So I give up on UCR. I apply for a leave of absence with my reasons being religious pilgrimmage. (not really) I am LDS, Mormon and the 2 yr. mission thing that I never considered was sounding a lot better than the Hell I was living at UC Riverside. SO I basically dropped out with a religious excuse since it would allow me to take as much leave as I want being religious and they can't kick me out of school if I am not enrolled for more than a year, because honestly I had no clue what I was going to do at that point and I knew I would need the time "if" I decided to ever come back. So now I land a sweet office cubicle job with Liquid Health inc. selling vitamins to health stores, because "it's good for you." Whatever, still it was nice having a possible career but I didn't like the whole corporate ladder game. A lot of the knuckleheads I was around were too petty and dishonest for me and I did make more money than I ever had in my life even if I hated every day at work. I had to do something else.

2003-2005- So after a couple of years of corporate ladder grind. I decide I want to serve a 2 year mission for the LDS church. Obviously I'm leaving out a lot of other life's details that helped lead to this but I get assigned to the Spanish speaking mission up in the Washington/Oregon farm region on the eastern parts of those states.
 
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2005- Come back from mission, 2 years of service really changes me. I marry my high school girlfriend and decide, I want to go back to UCR and clear/fix my record and get a degree and work towards being a school teacher basketball/water polo coach. Basically my initial plan I was leaning towards at my start of UCR. When I get back to UCR, of course during the 2 years I'm gone all my important documents that I kept in my desk have been tossed by the combination of my little brother and my mother. Thanks for not touching my stuff for 2 years 🙁. So I have no documentation of my leave of absence request. You know that pink triplicate form that is your golden ticket to fix your life? UCR has since changed the policy since 2001 that if you are gone for more than 1 quarter from a leave of absence and not enrolled in anything you are kicked out of school. So I have to reapply, well my record so far with a 1.6 gpa thanks to having that lovely quarter of all F's on my transcript may do me in. Well there is one hail mary, the extension program for normal people, not students, that I can enroll in leftover spots for classes that UCR students do not fill. You just have to pay 2x as much money per unit for them with zero financial aid. Well guess what classes aren't full? Those lame courses that I had to take before when I was dead last for all my registration during my 1st couple of years, as well as the mystery classes that showed up on my transcript. (laughing maniacally, you're kidding me right?) Retake all of them and get A's in nearly all of them. By the halfway point of the next year I'm finally accepted back into undergrad after having a 3.8 for 3 quarters. Yes, finally I'm back on track or so it may seem. There's an asterisk upon becoming a fully enrolled student. "Oh, by the way you can't be undeclared if you have more than 2 years of attendance in the school," So I can't pick any majors since most all of them have pre-requisites that you have to meet if you try to change after your first year and I am stuck with picking between entomology or botany in the science choices since basically they have the most money in the school in those departments but only like 5 undergrads with that major so they take anyone, so now I'm a bug major. Swell.
 
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****GAME CHANGER*****
2006- Okay, this year things are looking to be turning around for me. My father who happens to be a dentist gets invited by the Rotary Club to volunteer at their clinic in Mexico. The program gets private pilots with small 4-6 seater plans, doctors and translator/assistants to caravan in these small planes to a small village in Baja, Mexico. He has been approached every so often with this request but never really took it seriously since he is a dentist and a pilot. Well this year he has a son that speaks Spanish so he jumps at the opportunity and asks me to go with him. Oh man what an experience. By the time we are on flight home I am just asking a million questions about a career in dentistry. I get home and discuss it with my wife and I decide that I want to be a dentist. So here comes the fun part, I have to change my major to a different science major, retake all of my basic sciences and pre-reqs for dentistry which I have none and at this point even though I have a few quarters of 3.8 gpa, I have a gpa of 2.1 at this point thanks to 2 years of crap. How in the heck am I going to pull this off?

2006-2008- So now I'm pulling an ironman, I have 3 jobs, a pregnant wife and I'm pulling over 20 units every quarter and maxing out my summer quarters. I'm getting usually around a 3.5 on average. But here is the kicker, life isn't just go to school and work, there are life events that alter your lives that you can't live down. So in 2006 in the spring I have a tumor removed from my back, Find out that they made a mistake when I had surgery back in 2002 for the same thing when they said, "oh, it8 a benign fatty tumor. don't worry" Well guess what it's not fun when doctors are wrong about cancer. Well I get through that. Next my wife is having trouble with staying pregnant, not getting but staying. We actually get to the beginning of the third trimester in one pregnancy in 2007 to find out that our daughter has Turner syndrome (45X). Well she ends up not making it and we lose the baby. Sadly like I said I am a 3.5 student most of the time during these 3 years. I'm getting usually 3.5-3.8 gpas, but the quarters where my wife orI had our health troubles I drop down to the 2.7-3.0 range. This pattern continues as you will see.
 
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Summer of 2008- Oh, man this was a roller coaster. So my gpa has just eclipsed 3.0. I'm feeling great about myself, because the health career advisor is telling me all the good things I want to hear about how strong of a candidate I am because of all the trials I get to talk about in my personal statement, the huge number of work experience I have, all the volunteer hours, (I'm an eagle scout, a high school basketball coach and Future Dentist Club President on the side during this time). Oh did I mention I had 3 jobs on campus? Those were paid jobs these were volunteer. So I have zero free time. Life is getting my application for dental school all nice and shiny. So I'm going through the application process. Things are almost ready to go in July, just waiting on my DAT which I started studying for the day school got out in mid-June and I'm looking to take it at the end of July. You know so you get your stuff in early in the cycle. However, my wife is due with another daughter in mid-July and I figure a couple weeks after that I should have my head back on straight to take the test. Well, July 14th comes and I will never forget that day. My mother tells my father she is leaving him for his best friend who my younger brother is married to his daughter and living at their place. "Holy crap what? DId I just read that right? Can you run that by me again?" Okay so in short, mother left father and now my brother is married to his sister, technically. Yeah Jerry Springer would eat this up and maek an episode out of what just erupted in my life. Oh yeah, My wife goes into labor that same night. Not that stress induces labor but we were too busy to pay attention to oh, the most important thing going on in my life. So now my immediate family is falling apart and my wife has a terrible labor that lasts for something like 40 hours, either way July 15th late that evening my daughter is born. Well my daughter came out but she wasn't "normal" she has a deformed leg and all sorts of infections and problems with her blood from the extra, long labor. Holy cow, just get done with finally having our daughter taken from us the moment we see her to the doctors reporting to us while we still can't see her in the NICU unit and they are preparing us for the worse , "...if she does make it she will never walk and other terrible things." Yeah, fun 48 hours we are having. I think everything I just studied for the previous couple of weeks for the DAT has left my mind completely. Well my daughter gets out of NICU, she gets some not so fun body braces for the first part of her life, but she is healthy and as normal as can be after her crazy ordeal. My family on the other hand....yeah.....not the same and not healthy nor happy. Well the rest of the summer was me dealing with family issues on all levels and pushing my DAT back to the last day of summer before the fall began in September. I just prayed to God that if this is what I should do please help me pull this one off.
 
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2008- 1st application cycle
oGPA- 3.1
sGPA- 3.2
DAT: AA: 20 PAT: 21
So I pulled it off, I got average to slightly above average acceptance scores on the DAT. I apply to 20 schools, since I knew my gpa would be a problem and I basically just shoot for anything west of Texas at this point. My wife had a career as a hair stylist and I've worked all my jobs to have no debt from school and we had saved up over $10k before we had a child so we could get to Dental school and just hit cruise control from there. Well I only land 2 interviews, 1 at Loma Linda and 1 at Midwestern in Arizona. Loma Linda was a miserable experience. My uncle is alumni from their dental school and when I walked in the dean of admissions asked, "When did your father graduate from Loma Linda, again?"; Well when I corrected him that it was not my father, but my uncle, well the entire tone of the interview changed and I knew the moment I got into back into my truck that I was not getting in there. Sure enough rejection letter. Next stop Arizona, great interview. I thought everything went well, I thought for sure I would be in and I got rejected in June. Was a frustrating process since I thought with my application I would stand out since I am not the ordinary applicant or so I was told repeatedly by my undersgrad advisor.
 
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2009-
oGPA- 3.17
sGPA- 2.97
DAT: AA: 20 PAT: 21
So at this point I am like, WTF? AADSAS are you drunk? They changed what classes were considered science and which were not and how they just calculated gpa since I really didn’t understand why my numbers changed so much. Well my sci gpa plummeted, I use to remember what the change was but now I don’t remember. I was really hoping to get in the first year. So this year I was even more determined. I broke the bank, threw all our savings into this year hoping to land something, applied to 37 schools. Every school in the ADEA book that accepted someone from CA I applied to. I spent so much money that it makes me want to vomit thinking about it. This was a smart move since going all-in in June not knowing what was coming this year. Well I ran into a brickwall this year. During the school year I landed just one Loma Linda interview. No one rejected me before secondaries, but I had a lot of immediate rejections. I hate it when you check your bank statement to see a $50 or $70 check post and you get via snail mail a week later with a rejection letter that was dated for the same day. I even had one school, UCSF, reject me stating that they never received my secondary materials yet, when I called them on it since they had cashed my check so I could at least say, "“umm, yes you did”." So they said they would reactivate my file. (but I think we all know how far that was going to go.) Still nothing landed in the application process. This is nerve racking. I’'ve hit the upper division courses for my Genomics major. I picked this major because it allowed me to take all the genetics and embryology type courses to help with my wife and our pregnancy issues. Well the last year is a ton of upper division statistics and computer programming courses. Being a really new major, these courses are all upper division for graduate students in those fields. On top of that they don’t have any listed pre-requisites, because typically students registering for them already have a bacherlor's degree in that field. Well as I found out that everyone in there did have a degree in these fields and the two or three of us that were undergrad Genomics majors could not keep up with them. We actually showed up for every test just to fail every test for the upper division stats courses since we had never taken anything beyond basic calculus in the science majors. The professor caught on to this and just agreed that if we showed up and gave our best effort he would not fail us. So I got straight C’s all year in this class. The computer programming, I made friends with some of the sci-fi geeks and caught up so I managed a 3.0 from the full year but took a lot of butt kissing and paying classmates for extra help to get it. Just to pour more salt on the wound, I went down in the winter quarter with a hernia complication that required surgery. That was the icing on the cake. At this point family members and friends are constantly asking me, "Why don't you just do something else?" If they only knew how much time and money I had sacrificed at this point. I was deteremined and not turning back.
 
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2010
oGPA: 3.02
sGPA: 2.98
DAT: AA: 20 PAT: 21
So, now I don't know where to go. I had a crappy year both health and school wise and I didn't get a single bite on any of the applications I sent out other than the obligatory Loma Linda interview that I seem to get every year. Even better, this year all my numbers are even worse than ever. I have a bachelor degree and I'm finishing up my third year as dental club president. I'm starting dental lab tech classes and community college courses to defer my loans and just keep myself doing something that I can hope will impress ADCOMS and add to my application. I apply to all the schools that from my knowledge of being active on forums, dental club and talking with people that I have the best chance for. I think I applied to like 7 schools this year. My wife still sticks with me because I know she doesn't know my numbers exactly or what is going on and she just knows I have a bad past but I've had a great past few years and that I not a dummy. I get my yearly Loma Linda interview and it goes better than the previous two and I still get the rejection letter a few months later. So I am heading into the next cycle wondering if I really am dentist material. I'm testing for the lab tech school and I am scoring in the 90th+ percentiles for all the dexterity and visual screening to get into the program. The director tells me that I should be a dentist with my scores and how I'm performing in all the classes. I really enjoy the classes since we are learning dental tools, anatomy, materials all the stuff you would learn in the lab portion of dental school I am doing right now and killing it on the exams and enjoying myself in the lab work I am doing. My DAT is expiring and I am a few years removed from having taken any of the basic sciences and I figure I can take that and do well it will be my answer if I should continue or not.
 
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2011
oGPA: 3.11
sGPA: 2.99
Post-Bacc: 3.8
DAT: AA:21 PAT:22
Almost a repeat of three years earlier, my wife and I have a little girl in July and have a very strict study regiment that gives me about 4 weeks to prepare for the DAT which I take on last day of July again, just like how I planned the first go around. This delivery goes smoothly and I don’t miss a step during my initial time frame and I just kill it on the DAT for what my expectations were. I’m so pumped about Dental school that I am going to take the going all-in another step further. My wife and I decide that I need to do a post-bacc. Well over the past couple of years I have been applying to the ones in Southern California. I didn’t get accepted to a single one in 2 years. My wife gives me permission to pursue our dreams and I apply to the Master degree at Midwestern in Phoenix, AZ. Well my wife is a hair stylist and her job does not travel with her. She has built her clientele over the previous 10 years and has made live really comfortable for us during my schooling. So After killing the DAT I pack my bags and load my truck up with some hand me down furniture from family and friends and I go to Arizona with my wife and daughters behind. The plan was to allow me to focus and get really good grades and hopefully get into dental school early in the cycle so I can withdraw and come home. Sounded like a great plan but it did not come to fruition. Being that lonely and depressed was more of a distraction than having my wife and kids there. So I am in Arizona, I have a so-so fall quarter, getting my feet wet again in an accelerated master’s program since it is one year and it is more like academic tryouts for med school really. Skyping my family every other night and visits every few weeks or holiday weekends are keeping my spirits up. Winter quarter comes and I’m doing alright feeling good about myself. I have 5 core classes that are all medical science worthy. 3 of them I have A-/B+ marks, a B and C+ after all the midterms. So it is the week before finals and my wife who was pregnant from one of our weekend visits is in her second trimester and she loses the baby. This was not like the other miscarriages that have plagued our marriage. She goes to the hospital and nearly bleeds to death. She has to have two different blood transfusions and basically was on the brink of death. I’m not in California, I’m in Arizona when this starts to happen. Now I’m a total wreck and I am not handling it well. She gets through it and I am not a widow like I thought I would be. I skip out on class to support her by trying to be there when I can. So I have to try to cram the night before every final the next week and I perform poorly on every final. All my grades plummet, I have all B- and C+’s pretty much. I have a terrible gpa that gets me on academic probation (sub 2.75 is subject to dismissal) and things are not going well in my post-bacc. So spring quarter comes. I load up on the core classes then toss in 4 electives to max out my units I totally am beyond focus because my wife recovers I miss my family and I am doing this to show the school that I am not a 3.0 student. I get all As and a single B+ and graduate with a master’s degree and unfortunately due to my winter a 2.97 GPA. Now this program has a clause that if you get at least a 3.0 and meet at least one standard deviation below the average in each category on the DAT you are guaranteed an interview at both Midwestern Campuses. Well I don’t get the interview because of that 2.97. So almost $60k in debt later I have a degree and I’m again stuck on this 3.0 gpa that is not helping me land anymore interviews. I get a semi-interview at the school and just basically told that I’m on the waiting list but they can’t take me above other classmates in the program. They suggest that I retake my only C I got in the winter quarter. Bummer that C+ and B- are sub-3.0 marks but you can’t replace them. Why does this keep happening to me? Still it never crosses my mind that I won't someday get into dental school and I vow to return to fix this problem no matter what.
 
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Summer 2012:
oGPA:3.07
sGPA: 3.0
post-bacc: 3.9
masters: 2.97
DAT: AA:21 PAT:22
Wait a second. I did get another interview, but this was not your normal interview. I was invited to interview for the waitlist at Roseman University. This interview took place on the week of June 26th, I can't remember what day exactly but I did get a traffic ticket in Utah that week so that is as close as I can remember. Well I get a phone call in April that they wanted my transcripts and updates from my master's program. Crap, well here is my fall and winter quarters, I don't have my spring yet. Still they extend me an interview! even with my master's gpa sitting on like a 2.7 or whatever it was. Is this the break I've been waiting for? Wonderful interview, loved the school, unique program that is different and very teamwork oriented. Block system teaching style and love all the new technology the new schools bring to the lab and clinics. Oh, man I am so excited, when I left the news was they had 1 spot open and they had 0 people on the waitlist (hence the interview) and they predicted that they should have more movement and there was only 9 of us interviewing that day. Oh man I thought this could be my break I've been looking for. Well things broke the other way. I don't hear anything from the school. I am dying to find out who got that one spot. Living on forums and talking to people I befriended at the interview, still nothing. Halfway through July, I call the school and talk directly to Dr. Harmon, dean of admissions, and he is bewildered, he thought I had no interest in the school. I am like,"no, I am 'very' interested." Well he says well you didn't return your packet after your interview. (WTF? I never got a packet.) Well turns out they sent it to my Arizona address since that was my address for the entire previous year and application cycle. I never got the acceptance packet. Well they send me another one. I get all my stuff in the next week and now we are in the last week of July. Every week from for the next four weeks Dr. Harmon calls me personally to check on me and make sure I'm ready if someone drops. I'm already filling out secondaries and cutting checks for the next cycle and I am hoping that I am wasting my money. I even have the secondary for Roseman and I am waiting to send it in after I know I'm not already accepted from the previous year. Oh man, totally sweating it out. Well he tells me stories about how UoP used to have the top 5 alternates attend orientation and if everyone shows up and all the financial stuff clears and no one drops those five are already accepted for the next cycle. Well nothing happens and another year passes and I'm still on the outside looking in and Roseman does not automatically accept alternates the next cycle. (Wish they were UoP at this point) Worst thing is my interview partner from that day got in and he says that at least three others from that group are in his class. Another missed opportunity. By this point I can almost taste it so I'm just going to press onward.
 
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2012 Winter
oGPA:3.07
sGPA: 3.01
post-bacc: 3.9
masters: 3.17
DAT: AA:21 PAT:22
So now winter is coming. I have had zero interviews this cycle. Well my wife and I take one last swing at the piñata and I leave once again for Arizona. I take my anatomy over one last time and I stack up every elective that I've missed and can possibly take to give myself as much of a gpa boost as possible. I kill it for the winter quarter, raising my gpa to 3.17 officially at Midwestern, I know AADSAS would of calculated it differently, but you know what I won't be sending my new transcript to AADSAS. The week that I am done with my quarter and send my completed transcripts for winter to each of my remaining shcool. I kid you not, I land 4 interviews and not from Loma Lindaeither. MOSDOH in Kirksville, both Midwestern Universities and Roseman. Holy cow, it was an amazing 48hr period when I got the calls/emails with invites. I was sitting on my couch just a couple days back home and just ecstatic since 3 of the schools knew of my history and what happened during my master's and I guess having 2 quarters of 3.6/3.7 work in a row really impressed them. I interview with both Midwestern's and get put on waitlists immediately. I get the interview I wanted more than anything at Roseman and I get accepted before I even left to go back home to CA. Interview was a Friday and I was staying with relatives of my wife up in Utah. Sort of a small vacation. I am packing my suitcase Tuesday morning when I got the call from Dr. Harmon! For years I had imagined that I would get the call and break down in tears and just lose myself in the moment of being overjoyed with finally succeeding just like the movie Rudy when he gets to plays football for Notre Dame finally or when Will Smith in Pursuit of Happiness finally lands the dream job to finally get out of poverty. No I just felt bitterness, My instinct told me to just say, "It's about about Time!" I mean I felt like I was hearing something that I knew was already true and finally the rest of the world just woke up and finally agreed with me. Still the feeling was pure joy of accomplishment. Telling my wife then feeling just giddy like a kid at Christmas who opened up the bike he wanted or some shiny thing under the tree. Finally I got to call all the family and friends that doubted me and tell them that I achieved something that I had sacrificed what felt like my whole life to get. I felt like an Olympic champion or being elected president of the United States. You have those dreams as a kid and I got to fulfill one as an adult.

I did it. I finally did it. I've survived all kinds of hardships and pitfalls that would derail the average person. I knew I was not the average person and my wife knew it too. Without her love, support and sacrifice we could not have made it. This is as much her acceptance as it is mine. I won't even see my first paycheck until I am almost forty and I will be probably half million in debt to the government when I make that first loan payment. Still this is not about money or titles or prestige. This is about the love that I felt for the people that I helped in a little goat farming village in Mexico that has no running water or electricity. I've gone five times to that village and each time I am greeted and treated like I am a dentist since they think I'm the dentist. Since my hands are in their mouths with my father and I am wearing the scrub coat just like them, but I'm the just the one speaking to them and telling them what they need to do to prevent more problems or how to take their medication. I hope to make many more trips to help those in need with the talents that I have. I love the satisfaction of being able to remove someone's pain and allow them the simple necessities of speech, eating and drinking. Without these abilities our lives are miserable and deteriorate rapidly if not addressed. I look forward to the day when I get to put on the white coat and join a fraternity with professionals that feel as I do. That their life has a higher calling and that to give ourselves to others is what we want most in life. To sacrifice to better other people's lives is the most fulfilling calling that we can offer. Again, I can't thank my wife and those friends and family members that have offered their love and support. Whether it's the filling up the gas tank to buying a free meal every little bit counts. I even had a friend who was more of a stranger in my church that had me meet him in his home and told me to pick two schools that I didn't apply to because I was afraid I could not afford the plane ticket and hotel fare for the interview. He offered to take the burden and lift it from me. That is the kind of person I hope to be. I want to help. I want to ease other's burdens and best of all. A dentist's universal symbol is a person's smile.
 
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All I can say after reading this is damn..... and congrats! 🙂
 
congrats my friend. You deserve it
 
Crazy story indeed, nonetheless writing your PS must have been a great struggle, wasn't it?
 
I actually read the whole thing just now.. and the last part brought a tear to my manly eye..

Congrats to you, your wife, and your kids! Best of luck :luck:
 
Congrats on your accomplishment! I'm so happy for you and I hope you have even more blessings heading your way!!
 
Congrats to you and your family. Your story was wonderful, anyone would have given up. Glad you proved the doubters wrong! Again congrats, Roseman is a great school..almost went there myself.
 
congratulations on your acceptance.

that whole misdelivered alternate package debacle is the most heartbreaking thing. not sure how composed i would be after that.
 
Koalafied said:
Crazy story indeed, nonetheless writing your PS must have been a great struggle, wasn't it?
Click to expand...

Not really actually, things just flowed. I tried not to make it sound like I had all these excuses of why I had poor numbers, but tried to focus on my willingness to do whatever it takes and that I have had lots of experience with adversity so if something were to happen again in D-school, I am not going to give up or fail, but move on and succeed.
 
jenfromdablock said:
What did you do about your expired DATs?
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After the third year with them, they expire. One thing for future students that reapply multiple times is to double check, some schools just go by the year you take them, some go by the date you take them and the three year timer expires differently. There was one school that would of taken them for the fourth cycle because It would have expired in September that cycle and my stuff for applying was finished in July with secondaries. Still to cover all of my application schools I retook them that Summer of 2011 and got the increased scores.
 
PWNISHER said:
Not really actually, things just flowed. I tried not to make it sound like I had all these excuses of why I had poor numbers, but tried to focus on my willingness to do whatever it takes and that I have had lots of experience with adversity so if something were to happen again in D-school, I am not going to give up or fail, but move on and succeed.
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Exactly. I was thinking the 4,500 character limit was too measly for the amount of content you've provided here. Congrats!
 
Man.... What a great story. Seriously brought me goose bumps. As a multiple time re applicant on waiting lists... this was the success story I needed to hear. It really is a very emotional journey when you know it's what you are meant to do in life. Thank you for sharing and I wish you the best of luck! You will be a great dentist!
 
Very inspirational story indeed. All I can say is you absolutely deserve that spot. Congrats !!!
 
wow CONGRATS you REALLY deserve it!!! And thank You for writing this it made me open my eyes to never give up.. this is my dream and I as well feel that sometimes I have been hitting a WALL.. I needed this.. thank you!!!

CONGRATS to you and your FAMILY!!! 🙂
 
Amazing story!

I applaud your strong mind, strength, persistence, and passion for dentistry to survive through all of that. Congrats! You'll be a great dentist! 🙂
 
I personally know Pwnisher from school, and no one deserved an acceptance more than him! Reading his story helped me understand his obstacles as well as made me appreciate how relatively easy of a path I had. When I was a predental student, he was always eager to answer any questions I had and give advice, even as he dealt with the hurdles of his own cycles. I'm confident you'll make just as great of a dentist.
 
Wow, what an inspirational story. You deserve this opportunity and applaud you on all your hard work and patience to get to this point! Best of luck on future endeavors -- you're going to go far! 🙂
 
PWNISHER said:
Not really actually, things just flowed. I tried not to make it sound like I had all these excuses of why I had poor numbers, but tried to focus on my willingness to do whatever it takes and that I have had lots of experience with adversity so if something were to happen again in D-school, I am not going to give up or fail, but move on and succeed.
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Thanks for sharing your story PWNISHER. Your story made my eye watery. You have awesome wife that supports and believes in you. I am the same here about 'ROI-return on investment' it's no longer about the debt. It's much greater than that.
Hopefully, I'll get to shake your hand in one of those dentist conferences.
👍
 
Wow! Your dedication is inspiring 🙂 Congratulations on your acceptance!
 
Your story is truly inspiring. You had me crying over here man! Congratulations on your acceptance. We need more dentists out there who are truly as dedicated as you are. You are going to be a great dentist.
 
wb1 said:
Thanks for sharing your story PWNISHER. Your story made my eye watery. You have awesome wife that supports and believes in you. I am the same here about 'ROI-return on investment' it's no longer about the debt. It's much greater than that.
Hopefully, I'll get to shake your hand in one of those dentist conferences.
👍
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That is a great compliment. Gave me chills thinking about it. I don't know if I'll ever get to keynote speak about my story ever since to every dentist doesn't mean a whole lot. But I know that predents, especially those trying for 3+ years to get in it is a lot of motivation that if you want it bad enough and do everything you can even the impossible is possible.
 
PWNISHER said:
That is a great compliment. Gave me chills thinking about it. I don't know if I'll ever get to keynote speak about my story ever since to every dentist doesn't mean a whole lot. But I know that predents, especially those trying for 3+ years to get in it is a lot of motivation that if you want it bad enough and do everything you can even the impossible is possible.
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Your story just brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for being generous enough to share it with us.

I am so happy you were finally accepted--you are going to make a great dentist. I hope the purity in your heart never changes.
 
Just speechless. You're going to make a wonderful and compassionate dentist.
 
i'm sorry but i don't have the attention span to read your story. someone wanna give me a cliffnotes rundown?

in any case, congrats man you deserved it
 
didntreaddog_zps26be7a51.gif


but on a serious note..

good job. you are proof that you should never give up on something you really want!
 
i didnt read all of it but i got the basic gist. congrats to you and your wife.
🙂
 
One of the most amazing success stories I've read. Congratulations, you more than deserve it; and keep that wife of yours close.. She is special.
 
preDENT1210 said:
i'm sorry but i don't have the attention span to read your story. someone wanna give me a cliffnotes rundown?

in any case, congrats man you deserved it
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Dgeorg6 said:
but on a serious note..

good job. you are proof that you should never give up on something you really want!
Click to expand...
The title of the thread itself is your Cliff Notes™.

This one is worthy of a full read.🙂
 
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