Am I applying to too many schools? Help!

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bonbonbon

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Hi, I finally cut down my list from 26 schools to 20.

My stats
oGPA: 3.6
sGPA: 3.5
Bio 25/GC 22/OC 22/PAT 21/QR 21/RC 21/TS 22/AA 22

1. UCLA
2. UCSF
3. USC
4. UoP
5. Western
6. UConn
7. Nova
8. Midwestern (IL)
9. Boston Univ
10. Detroit Mercy
11. Michigan
12. Rutgers
13. UNLV
14. NYU
15. Buffalo
16. Case Western
17. Temple
18. UPenn
19. VCU
20. My state school

Am I applying to too many schools? After hearing that my friend got into only 1 school with 24AA/TS and 3.5 GPA, I cannot stop myself from adding schools lol.

Do you think my stats are good enough for these schools?

Thank you! :)

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how are your ECs? shadowing? community service? work? research? do you have a decent personal statement with an interesting story? how strong do you think your letters are? if you have all of these and they are pretty strong, then less than 10 schools would be fine
 
Do you see yourself attending ANY of the schools you have on your list? If not, remove. No need for schools you may not want to attend.
Are you willing to dish out 500K for your dental education? If not, remove a few from your list.

20 schools plus secondary fees, interview costs and deposits... that will be a lot of $$
 
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how are your ECs? shadowing? community service? work? research? do you have a decent personal statement with an interesting story? how strong do you think your letters are? if you have all of these and they are pretty strong, then less than 10 schools would be fine

I have 800 hrs of research (no authorship though), 40 hrs of dental volunteering, 40 hrs of hospital volunteering, 240 hrs of volunteering unrelated to dentistry/healthcare
I have been working as a part-time dental assistant (~60 hrs so far)
I don't think my personal statement is that interesting ... My school's career center told me that it's just "good"
2 somewhat strong letters from my research PI and dentist. 2 letters from science professors from courses that I got B+ and A-
My PS and letters are my concerns :(

Do you think graduating from a top 20 university will help on my application?

Thanks for your reply!
 
if u think 20 is a safe number and u have the funds, go ahead and apply to 20... once interviews start pouring in you can start to get picky... u don't want to look back and think what if
 
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Do you see yourself attending ANY of the schools you have on your list? If not, remove. No need for schools you may not want to attend.
Are you willing to dish out 500K for your dental education? If not, remove a few from your list.

20 schools plus secondary fees, interview costs and deposits... that will be a lot of $$

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah 20 schools will cost a lot, but luckily I can afford 20 schools max. I do not think money is a concern as long as I can become a dentist :). It's been my dream since high school haha. I am just wondering if I am competitive for these schools.
 
Honestly, if you can afford it, apply to as much as possible, but don't be the stupid kind who apply to schools that they'll never attend.
 
In general, 20 isn't too many. However, I don't think you need that amount.

I'll bet there are 5 on that list that you'd really prefer not to attend. Get rid of them. 15 should be well enough.
 
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