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[loona]

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[macsak]

I am just feeling a little discouraged at the moment as I know I am an applicant with an average GPA and DAT score. Do you think I will have a good chance of hearing back from any of the schools on my list within the next few months?

Date of submission: 06/04
Overall GPA: 3.67
Science GPA: 3.58
Bio-Chem-Physics GPA: 3.64
DAT score (include AA and all sections): 20 AA / 20 TS / 21 BIO / 19 CHEM / 19 ORGO / 21 RC / 18 QR / 18 PAT
State of Residence: VA

Major: Biology
Minority: No, SE Asian.
Reapplicant: No
Nontrad: No

Shadowing Experience: 390 hours with 2 different general dentists. One of the practice does a lot of endo and implant cases in which now I work at as a part-time dental assistant.

Volunteering Experience: Volunteer for multiple different organizations that dealt with alleviating food poverty near my university, accumulated around 160 hours. During my gap year I volunteered at a dental practice doing sterilization in which I accumulated about 100 hours.

Employment: Research Assistant during Undergrad, part-time dental assistant (X-ray certified) during my gap year.
Research: Hours and type; 2150 hours as a Research Assistant (non-science) over 3 years, one publication.

Other Extracurriculars: Teaching Assistant for Intro to Biology 2, Community Service and Fundraising Chair for an Ethnic Student Organization, and Treasurer for a Food Poverty Alleviation club.

Have you volunteered/shadowed/attended events at any dental schools? Took an introduction to dentistry course taught by someone from the VCU admissions team and toured VCU dental.

Relevant Honors or Awards: Dean's list all 3 years. Scholarship from a foundation that awards people from my ethnic background that demonstrated academic achievement, leadership potential, service, and pride in their heritage and culture. I had to interview with the foundation for the scholarship. I was invited to apply by the director of two different honors program (academic and research) at my university but did not apply.

LOR type and strength: 2 science professors (relatively strong for one of them as I was a teaching assistant, the other one I am not too sure about), 1 from dentist who i work with (strong), 1 from my principal investigator (strong).

Misc Info/Things not stated elsewhere/Red Flags: I managed to graduate from university within 3 years (2023 graduate) but there are some red flags within my application. ORGO is my weakest subject. I withdrew from ORGO 1 during my 2nd year due to a death of a close family member and I was struggling to transition from online back to in-person classes but I retook it during my 3rd year earning a B. I took ORGO 2 during my 3rd year too, I earned a 79 in the course which made my final grade a C+. There were only 3 exams with no retakes that determined my grade for that course and I got a D for one of them, my A and B on the other exams could not bring that 79 up unfortunately.


School list (could not apply to schools that required anatomy as a pre-req):
VCU (top)
Maryland (top)
Boston
Creighton
Marquette
Rutgers
Roseman
Temple
Buffalo
Touro
Tufts
Pittsburgh
Western
Colorado
UPenn (reach)

you are not an average applicant
IMO, you have an above average application
and with 15 schools on your list, you should get some action pre-decision day and possibly post-decision day...

UPenn (reach)
Buffalo (strong in-state bias)
VCU state school (has to be on list, but you are likely slightly below their averages)

Maryland (they are relatively oos friendly IIRC)
Rutgers (not sure how oos friendly)
Pittsburgh (not sure how oos friendly)

Colorado (doesn't make sense to me geographically)

Boston
Creighton
Marquette
Temple
Touro
Tufts
(all these schools are good safety choices)

Western
Roseman
(don't make sense to me geographically)