Advice on when to take DAT/Apply. Please :)

[Maygyver]

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I was wondering if you guys could give me some advice on when to take the DAT and apply. I will be taking the DAT next year and I'm not sure whether to take it in the Spring or the early Summer. I don't get out of school until after the first week of June. I'm afraid if I take the DAT in the spring I won't be able to study as much as I want but I'm afraid about applying too late into the summer because it seems that people make a very big deal of applying early. The second thing that affects my situation is that I will be interning at my dentist's office next summer for half of the summer. If I intern for the second half if I decide to do the DAT in the early summer, will I still be able to put the internship on an application for intended work? (My dentist has already offered me the job.) I figured I would ask on here since you guys know much more about this than me. Thank you!

 

[SugarNaCl]

I was wondering if you guys could give me some advice on when to take the DAT and apply. I will be taking the DAT next year and I'm not sure whether to take it in the Spring or the early Summer. I don't get out of school until after the first week of June. I'm afraid if I take the DAT in the spring I won't be able to study as much as I want but I'm afraid about applying too late into the summer because it seems that people make a very big deal of applying early. The second thing that affects my situation is that I will be interning at my dentist's office next summer for half of the summer. If I intern for the second half if I decide to do the DAT in the early summer, will I still be able to put the internship on an application for intended work? (My dentist has already offered me the job.) I figured I would ask on here since you guys know much more about this than me. Thank you!

I understand the problem you are facing but it really depends on your GPA and how well you feel you can do on the DAT. If your stats are lower... sub 3.4, I think you NEED to apply very early (by June 1-15th latest) to have your best shot. If your GPA is over a 3.4, then I think the absolute latest you should probably wait to apply is early/mid- July and even then you will miss the first round of interviews at some schools.

As far as the internship, I don't think there is a place to put intended work unless you do it under the part where you can write in additional information or put it in your PS. I could be wrong on this, so double check as my memory and the application may not be the same as they were when I applied. You may be in some trouble explaining yourself if you have no dental experience as of the date of your AADSAS application submission whatsoever. If you haven't yet, I'd check out observing with a dentist on Saturday mornings or something. That is what I did. If you don't have experience, your interviewers may be skeptical as to your motives/interests.

Good luck 🙂

 

[Maygyver]

I understand the problem you are facing but it really depends on your GPA and how well you feel you can do on the DAT. If your stats are lower... sub 3.4, I think you NEED to apply very early (by June 1-15th latest) to have your best shot. If your GPA is over a 3.4, then I think the absolute latest you should probably wait to apply is early/mid- July and even then you will miss the first round of interviews at some schools.

As far as the internship, I don't think there is a place to put intended work unless you do it under the part where you can write in additional information or put it in your PS. I could be wrong on this, so double check as my memory and the application may not be the same as they were when I applied. You may be in some trouble explaining yourself if you have no dental experience as of the date of your AADSAS application submission whatsoever. If you haven't yet, I'd check out observing with a dentist on Saturday mornings or something. That is what I did. If you don't have experience, your interviewers may be skeptical as to your motives/interests.

Good luck 🙂

Alright, thanks. My GPA right now is a 3.75 and it should go up. I havn't calculated my sGPA but I think it should roughly be the same. As far as experience, I've shadowed my dentist so far for 8 hrs and I plan to do some more this winter. Do you think that will be enough to start with and then just mention that I will do the internship as well?

 

[Maygyver]

Anyone else?

 

[shigster84]

Its just an idea, but you could always go ahead and put the dates in your application for your internship before you start them and submit your app to AADSAS in June. That way when the schools get you app in July your hours for the internship will already be on there. Just estimate how many hours you will shadow for the internship. (e.g. per day times number of weeks) If you waited to add the internship after the summer you cant put it on the app because you've already submitted your app.

As far as taking the DAT goes, It's a personal decision. I would recommend taking a practice DAT and if you at least recognize a lot of the questions on much of the sections then you should be able to study in the spring and take it near the end of the term. If your not confident in your science/math base knowledge and/or dont have a lot of time that semester to study I would consider waiting until the summer to study. A lot of people study for the test at least a couple months in order to do well. Then again some peeps dont have to study but a couple weeks to do well. Just make sure your confident about taking the test before you walk into that prometric center and you'll do fine...

 

[waitingame]

Well since your school doesnt get out until june and your starting the internship in the summer and you will be busy trying to get your application out early what I would recommend is if your applying for next years cycle start studying now since you have at least 3 weeks till you go back, probably more since you get out so late.... SO start now since you have more time than you will at school and get through each section at least once before you go back to school, set aside like 2 hours a day while at school( I know it will suck but its probably your best way to go about it) and then I would take the DAT at the end of your winter break which is around a month... So you would have that whole month to cram last minute things in and then hopefully you will be done.... Then during second semester I would say you need to get 20 hours of shadowing a dentist and your set....... The hardest thing your going to face and I know I did is not wanting to study since the test is so far away and just pushing it off.... anyway hope this helps some its just another option since your going to have a lot going on next summer and having the DAT as another is just going to make you stress out more

 

[schwing]

remember that you do not have to have taken the DAT to submit your application. you can submit it and have your future DAT testing date on it. your DAT scores are sent out independently of your application. so submit asap. for the DAT, take it when you are ready. that means figuring out when to schedule studying and everything else. good luck.

 

[Maygyver]

Thanks for the responses. I've already started studying a bit this summer. I started a job that I work from 7-4 every day so I've been reading Schaum's at night as well as browsing the DAT forums here. I don't start back 'til Sept 24th 😉

You mention about being able to submit an application without DAT scores. When is the earliest one can submit an application and when should one take the DAT in order to still be able to receive the first round of interviews?

 

[schwing]

the application opened this year May 15th and you were able to submit it then. in the past it opened mid-May but you could not submit until June 1st. It looks like it will be open right away from now on though. You can make an account now, look at it all and see what you'll need to enter in there. That's fine to do - just don't submit anything. Probably the earlier in the summer the better to take the DAT - but only when you are ready. A lot of schools don't start looking at stuff until later on, and then a few right away. So it just depends.

 

[Maygyver]

Oh ok. Thanks! So schools will primarily first look at other parts of the application before the DAT scores?

 

[waitingame]

Oh ok. Thanks! So schools will primarily first look at other parts of the application before the DAT scores?

Well your application is not considered complete until they receive your DAT scores and it takes at least 2 weeks after you take the test for the schools to receive them.... however the first round of AADSAS applications were not sent out until something like june 15 ( I forgot what it was but it was a few weeks into june )

 

[Maygyver]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I was wondering when I was able to start working on my application? Does it have to be completed all at once and therefore done closer to when I apply, or can I work on it bit by bit whenever I get free time?

 

[drpsuedonym]

Its just an idea, but you could always go ahead and put the dates in your application for your internship before you start them and submit your app to AADSAS in June. That way when the schools get you app in July your hours for the internship will already be on there. Just estimate how many hours you will shadow for the internship. (e.g. per day times number of weeks) If you waited to add the internship after the summer you cant put it on the app because you've already submitted your app.

Excellent advice. I did pretty much the same thing. I'm going to do this research thing starting in September, so on my ADSAAS (which I filled out late May/early June), on the start date I put September 08 and then left the end date open. I did that for one other thing too, just put the start date in the future so that they'll know about even if you haven't started because you don't really get a chance to update it until it's probably too late to matter.

Well since your school doesnt get out until june and your starting the internship in the summer and you will be busy trying to get your application out early what I would recommend is if your applying for next years cycle start studying now since you have at least 3 weeks till you go back, probably more since you get out so late.... SO start now since you have more time than you will at school and get through each section at least once before you go back to school, set aside like 2 hours a day while at school( I know it will suck but its probably your best way to go about it) and then I would take the DAT at the end of your winter break which is around a month... So you would have that whole month to cram last minute things in and then hopefully you will be done.... Then during second semester I would say you need to get 20 hours of shadowing a dentist and your set....... The hardest thing your going to face and I know I did is not wanting to study since the test is so far away and just pushing it off.... anyway hope this helps some its just another option since your going to have a lot going on next summer and having the DAT as another is just going to make you stress out more

Again, awesome advice. I took the DAT twice, so I can vouch for how helpful it is to have seen all the material recently, and how much faster it makes the entire study process. Since you have so much time until you start school, study for the DAT as hardcore as possible, don't let yourself half-ass it just because you have so much time. Read Schaum's, take notes, do Destroyer, take notes, learn everything you can. Take tons and tons of notes on the stuff you don't know. Then when you go on winter break you can restudy (the sciences will go a lot faster) and do all the practice tests (Crack, TopScore, Achiever), and you'll do awesome.

Thanks for all the advice guys. I was wondering when I was able to start working on my application? Does it have to be completed all at once and therefore done closer to when I apply, or can I work on it bit by bit whenever I get free time?

The application becomes available mid-May, so you don't have access to it until then. But after than, you can work on as much or as little as you want to at a time, and save all your changes as you go.

Good luck!