Advice about what to do for undergraduate international student planning to go to dental school

[Jimmy Cheng]

Hi, I am a first-year international student majoring in Microbio at the University of British Columbia, which is a school in Canada. This is my first time creating a post so sorry if the questions are redundant. Also, any advice regarding what I should do during my bachelor's degree to be more prepared would be awesome, literally any advice would be great. Here are some questions I'm struggling with right now.

1. Can I apply to any dental school other than Canadian dental schools, such as the US, Australia, Japan, Korea, etc?
2. If I take the Canada DAT and get a good score, is it credible for dental schools in other countries? If not, I know DAT Bootcamp is a great resource, but it's built for the American DAT, so are there any other resources that are suitable for Canada DAT?
3. I know that most dental schools require letters of recommendation, when is the time to get them, and how could I get them?
4. Do Canadian dental schools still require soap carving, and are there any other different requirements of the prerequisites of dental schools for the US, Canada, and Australia?
5. Do Canadian and Australian dental schools require shadowing hours or only US dental schools do? Also, what are some ways that you can gain shadowing hours as an undergraduate student?
6. My average score this year is 80.5%, which isn't that high, I think I can raise the average to about 85%-87%, but it's still not that competitive, so what are some school choices that I should apply within this GPA range (and having a pretty good chance to get in)?
7. What is the scale conversion of the percentage to GPA for American schools? 80-84 is 3.7 for Canadian schools, but I'm not sure how competitive my score would be in the American scale system.

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[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

Clarify what is your end goal. Entry to dental school in Canada and the US is different from most other nations. Being international also works against you, so what nationality do you claim, and what is your goal?

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