1. Bust you azz in school. Do well, put your heart and soul into it. GPA is one of the best ways to make your application competitive. A high GPA shows dedication, initiative, and intelligence. Get to know your professors on a personal level, you will need LORs from them in the future and you want to be more than a student ID and a grade.
2. Shadow multiple dentists and assist if at all possible. This will give you insight into the life of a dentist and help you decide if it is a career path you wish to pursue.
3. Find extracurricular activities that you enjoy. Actively participate in them and take leadership roles.
4. Volunteer. Find an organization that you will enjoy working for and give to the community as much as your schedule will allow.
5. Get involved in research. Find an area of research that interests you and cold call professors for volunteer positions in their lab.
6. Rock the DAT. When preparing for the DAT, set aside time to study. I tied myself to a chair for 6 hours a day of honest studying for 2 months. It's painful, but high DAT scores are second to GPA in making your application competitive. Buy study aids: topscore, achiever, and/or Kaplan (if you must). Reread your texts and review class notes as necessary to strengthen your weak areas.
7. Apply early and often. 🙂 Become familiar with AADSAS the year before you apply to get a feel for the type and amount of information required. The application is a bear, but can be filled out in a few hours if you have all of your information together. The application becomes available May 15, try to submit it by June 1. Have your PS written and ready to cut and paste.
8. Write you PS early and have it reviewed, rereviewed, and rerereviewed by people you trust have good judgement and ask for honest, constructive criticism. Science professors, dentists, english professors, family, and dental students are all good editors, as long as you trust their judgement. Tell a story. SHOW the adcoms examples of your experiences, don't just tell them.
9. Make sure you have all of the prerequisites and then some. Most school's prerequisites are pretty broad. I have quickly found out that the minimum is not enough. For example, I found out the UoP strongly suggests that, beyond their minimum requirements, you take anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, and histology.
10. Relax. Set side time to enjoy life. There is nothing in life worth losing sleep over. It will all be there in the morning. Drink a beer. Do this whenever it won't interfere with accomplishing the previous suggestions.
11. (This really should go without saying) Be honest in all that you do. Do the right thing. Pay it forward. Treat others as you want to be treated.
You don't need a 4.1 GPA and 32 on the DAT to get into dental school. If you don't have a top notch GPA, focus on strengths in other portions of your life when applying. But, if you don't have a stellar GPA, be prepared to rock the DAT.
I can't say I've fulfilled everything on this list, but if you can, getting into dental school will be a breeze.
As for myself, my AADSAS GPA is 3.0 for both science and overall with a strong upward trend in my last years of college. I did well on the DAT and have a lot of life and career experience. I currently have interviews at my top two choice schools.
Hope this helps and Good Luck!
P.S. The high suicide rate attributed to dentists is a myth. Google it.
