Anyone accepted to Temple or NYCPM with DAT scores?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
B

Brandon3106

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
68
Reaction score
0
I find it difficult to get information on using DAT scores for Podiatry school. I would still like to find out if A.) Do Pod schools consider PAT scores heavily, and B.) Has anyone on here recently been accepted to Temple or NYCPM with DAT scores instead of MCAT scores?
Members don't see this ad.
 
I think some schools still do, but I think soon they will be going full MCAT
 
yeah I know. The two schools in question are the only ones taking DAT now. But questions still remain: A.) Do Pod schools consider PAT scores heavily, and B.) Has anyone on here recently been accepted to Temple or NYCPM with DAT scores instead of MCAT scores?
 
Members don't see this ad :)
When I was at the Temple Internship, I met a third year in their clinic that was originally in dental school then transferred to Temple. He applied with both his mcat and dat, but his dat score was better in comparison to the mcat score.
 
oh ok. Well maybe they'll look across all tests and figure I'll do fine on boards since boards have to do more with science than with passages on anthropology and James Fennimore Cooper and the such. My gpa might outweigh my verbal a bit too hopefully.
MCAT 1st: V-5, PS-4, BS- 9
MCAT 2nd: V-1, PS-8, BS-8
DAT: PAT-13, AA- 19, TS-20
oGPA: 3.53 sGPA:3.37
 
Brandon3106 said:
yeah I know. The two schools in question are the only ones taking DAT now. But questions still remain: A.) Do Pod schools consider PAT scores heavily, and B.) Has anyone on here recently been accepted to Temple or NYCPM with DAT scores instead of MCAT scores?
Click to expand...

I think your best bet would be to contact both schools to see how they feel about the DAT with your scores specifically. I know NYCPM does take DAT but they are moving very quickly away from it. NYCPM considers the MCAT a more appropriate standardized test for podiatric medical school.
 
I've contacted both schools, and NYCPM is talking 20, but don't know if that's all sections or just AA or something. Temple's talkin' 18, and said I was good and either MCAT or DAT would do, but how much do I trust that being she still didn't give me a straight answer about PAT. Well as quickly as they're moving, they will still take it this year, which is all that matters. How do you think about the MCAT scores, besides verbal of course.
 
Turns out it sounds promising at Temple, but not so much at NYCPM. I have to do extra work just to be considered for my DAT scores at NYCPM, but Temple wants me to apply and it sounds like I 95% have an interview, but I'm not gonna count my eggs just yet. :)
 
I plan to apply to Temple, New York, DMU and maybe Kent. I'm not applying until next cycle though!
 
Brandon3106 said:
Turns out it sounds promising at Temple, but not so much at NYCPM. I have to do extra work just to be considered for my DAT scores at NYCPM, but Temple wants me to apply and it sounds like I 95% have an interview, but I'm not gonna count my eggs just yet. :)
Click to expand...

What type of extra work did they want you to complete to be considered?

Thanks
 
well not much actually, just fax them my DAT's and my transcript I think. I might get it done tomorrow. I'm banking on Temple more than anything tho.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
o ok. Looks like you have more options than I have!lol
 
I was interviewed at Temple with a 20 overall DAT score (18 TS, 20 PAT) and no MCAT score. NYCPM said they are currently not taking DAT scores unless there is a "special circumstance" so I wouldn't count on them. Waiting on a decision from Temple because they did not get my DAT scores until last week even though I sent them in October. Just a heads up, the school's website says send the scores to the school directly but this is incorrect. Send them to the Rocksville, MD address on the AACPMAS website (not the Watertown, MA address) so you don't end up in the same boat I'm in! Good luck!
 
o ok, good stuff! So MadAboutShoes, what kind of gpa did u have if u don't mind me asking?
 
I just received an invite from Temple with the DAT:19TS 21PAT cGPA: 3.4 sGPA: 3.4
 
Brandon3106 said:
I find it difficult to get information on using DAT scores for Podiatry school. I would still like to find out if A.) Do Pod schools consider PAT scores heavily, and B.) Has anyone on here recently been accepted to Temple or NYCPM with DAT scores instead of MCAT scores?
Click to expand...

If your Apgar score was ok you're in.

Just get ready for life in debt.
 
jivecrudley said:
If your Apgar score was ok you're in.

Just get ready for life in debt.
Click to expand...

Expect debt in ANY health field.. DPM/MD/DO/Dental. Unfortunately, that is the reality.
And please, take your negative comments elsewhere. We are happy feet people.
 
o ok good stats Fut. See I'm concerned about my PAT of course, but they told me the PAT wasn't really looked at.
 
Yeah, I don't know how much a high PAT score would correlate with being a good podiatrist. Just another hoop to jump through.
 
I didn't do too hot in college... cGPA 3.1 sGPA 3.2. I've interviewed at 2 schools so far and they really tend to look at standardized test scores and organic chem grades. Luckily I completed a MS with a 4.0 GPA so that definitely helps!
 
Well the person I spoke to from admissions at Temple told me that PAT wasn't important and that AA and TS scores were all that were really considered. He and someone else from their admissions encouraged me to apply. AA 19, TS 20, PAT 13
 
We have similar DAT's and i just got accepted to temple with an $11,000 merit scholarship. In the interview i was honest with them and told them i interviewed at one dental school and this was my backup if i didn't get in. Apply to temple you will definitely get in. I interviewed at NYCPM and they told me that they don't really accept the DAT anymore and i should take the MCAT to gain admission. Before they gave me the interview they didn't exactly look at my application and wasted all of our times.

My scores were 21TS 19AA 16PAT.
 
samiam100 said:
We have similar DAT's and i just got accepted to temple with an $11,000 merit scholarship. In the interview i was honest with them and told them i interviewed at one dental school and this was my backup if i didn't get in. Apply to temple you will definitely get in. I interviewed at NYCPM and they told me that they don't really accept the DAT anymore and i should take the MCAT to gain admission. Before they gave me the interview they didn't exactly look at my application and wasted all of our times.

My scores were 21TS 19AA 16PAT.
Click to expand...

How was the interview? I have one on the 25th and wondered what I should do to prepare.
When did you get accepted?
 
yo samiam100 thanks a lot!!! That really helped! I got an interview myself actually! For the 11th of Mar. I hope I get a scholarship. What are ur GPA's if u don't mind me asking?
 
In the interview i was honest with them and told them i interviewed at one dental school and this was my backup if i didn't get in. [/QUOTE said:
Bold statement btw.
Click to expand...
 
My GPA is around a 3.6 and my science GPA is around a 3.5. It's not as bold as you would imagine. I do not have the statistics but at least for the majority of students podiatry is a fall back. In my temple interview the person i roomed with was also in the process of applying to dental schools. Another person at the interview was applying to one MD school. Another had applications out at a few DO schools.
 
If you are applying with the DAT they already know podiatry school is your second choice.
 
yeah most do use podiatry as a fall back. I went from MD to dental to podiatry so it was actually just a change of choice for me but since I had MCAT and DAT scores already and fresh, I used my better scores which were the DAT's.
 
Sorry to be off-topic, but I never understood why podiatry schools accepted DAT scores. I somewhat understand the reasoning that they want more students to apply, but couldn't they, as an example, accept PCAT and OAT scores as well?
 
Probably the same reasons that some still accept the GRE. To increase the potential applicant pool by appealing to pre-dents and pre-masters who didn't make it to their program of choice.

I am happy though that all the programs are moving to MCAT only admission. Pods I feel have much more in common with MD/DO than DDS.

Edit: They probably use the DAT specifically because that is the closest exam to the MCAT in terms of complexity and material tested. I don't think the OAT even compares to the MCAT/DAT.
 
Last edited:
EK18 said:
Probably the same reasons that some still accept the GRE. To increase the potential applicant pool by appealing to pre-dents and pre-masters who didn't make it to their program of choice.

I am happy though that all the programs are moving to MCAT only admission. Pods I feel have much more in common with MD/DO than DDS.

Edit: They probably use the DAT specifically because that is the closest exam to the MCAT in terms of complexity and material tested. I don't think the OAT even compares to the MCAT/DAT.
Click to expand...

I agree. The goal is to also raise the admission criteria for pod schools so that we r viewed equally alongside MD/DO. Only the DAT would come anywhere close to comparing.
 
FYI, DAT and OAT are exactly the same test, except that OAT has physics instead of PAT. So really, OAT is closer to the MCAT in terms of material tested. They have the same test maker, so they literally pull from the same q-Bank, and all the sections are the same except for physics/PAT. There is also a difference in the way the scores are reported (scale is 200-400 instead of DAT's 1-30), which may be why podiatry schools don't want to deal with OAT.
 
If that were the case, they wouldn't want to deal with the disparity between MCAT and DAT scores either. I don't think that is a huge problem. They need to make the test strictly MCAT and nothing else; if they lose a few applicants so be it. The various test choices and low scores are some reasons why individuals look down on podiatry schools in general.
 
People looking down upon pod school for admissions criteria are worried about the wrong thing anyway. Pod school is still as competitive to complete as med or dent school and the practitioners are just as competent and well trained in their respective areas. I mean I'd never look up or down at a program of my interest just b/c it has high or low admission standards yet the program itself is still competitive. That'd be just plain senseless. With the schools taking just MCAT nowadays it probably would slim up the applicant pool a bit. I believe there should be a podiatry admission test created, but I personally am VERY thankful that there's still the one school that I applied to (Temple) who still takes DAT. Otherwise, I think I'd be screwed.
 
First of all, I totally agree that the admissions criteria should not be an indication of the school's ability to pump out great doctors. However, it does give a bit of insight into what students they are willing to accept in the first place. You can see from medical schools that are top tier, generally regarded as superior in terms of education and connections, boast incredibly high entrance statistics. The general public shouldn't REALLY be concerned with the stats, yet the huge discrepancy between podiatry schools and medical schools is both apparent and worrisome. Students with lower stats aren't and shouldn't be considered incompetent by any means, yet why are there so few undergraduate high rollers applying to podiatry schools? But I digress.

A podiatry admissions test? Now that is ridiculous. The education is similar to medical schools, and given the fact that it is a sub-specialty in medicine, the MCAT is needed. Not only will that give more parity to programs, but create a general tool for competency, intellect, and prior basic education. What would a 'podiatry test' contain exactly? I don't mean to be condescending BTW! Everything is IMO.
 
I believe that the applicant pool being as it is for podiatry accounts for the relatively low stats they're willing to take (however many pod gpa's are comparable to dental gpa's). Why is the applicant pool low in the first place is beyond me. Many of these "undergrad high rollers" take a more traditional and competitive route (MD) b/c it looks more prestigious to accomplish such a feat. Once again, they apply for the wrong reasons. The pre-health professional applicant who hesitates to apply to pod school simply b/c the admission stats are low is a shallow applicant who obviously didn't shadow a pod IMO. I mean if ur interested in foot care, why go MD and go 7+ yrs to be an orthopedic surgeon of the foot when u can go DPM and have a 3 yr residency instead? Still a good lifestyle, good income, and a medically/surgically oriented practice with autonomy.
Just like optometry and dentistry have their exams why not pod? Why can't a pre-pod test be similar to an OAT or DAT? It could have passages pertaining to foot care just like there are passages pertaining to dental care on the DAT. Do u think that every other school can have its own admissions test except podiatry, an important growing field?
 
Last edited:
I believe that it is not beyond anyone to see why MD/DO school would be more appealing than podiatry at first glance: a possibility of specialization, and of course the 'prestige' aspect. Given this, it is wrong to assume that every student applies to these schools for the wrong reasons. The route to help individuals is never a wrong road to take, and the majority of individuals who are in it for the money would be very disappointed with respect to the educational rigor involved. Honestly, if students have a choice, they would overwhelmingly pick the traditional route, because it is hard to determine what you want to do that early in your life. You can turn the tables and say that many podiatry students are in their positions solely because they could not get into medical school. As a podiatry hopeful, I am fully aware of this.

About the MCAT, perhaps there could have been a specialized test of some sort (but both the OAT and the DAT contain 99% of similar information to the MCAT anyway, there isn't much emphasis on the career itself, as incoming students won't have any knowledge of such), but given the reason in parenthesis, it doesn't make sense. The MCAT is a rigorous test by ambiguous terms, and leads to a medical field. Podiatry in itself is the closest you can get to a traditional medical sub-specialty, with surgical privileges and full autonomy, so why would a new test need to be written? We must remember that these entrance tests were written for reasons I stated earlier: To test for competency, intellect, and prior basic education. I agree that podiatry is an important field of medicine, but frankly, entrance tests to any health professions schools will be a fading light once the real education begins.
 
And I suppose there's much more specialization in optometry? There's also specialization in pod. Limb salvage, reconstructive surgery, etc. I never indicated that EVERY student applied to med school for wrong reasons, just often times "undergrad high rollers" do. I also never indicated that anyone should seek a healthcare career for money. I just used income to compare orthopedic surgeon to podiatric surgeon. People pick optometry and dental, which are specialties of medicine, early on just like they'd pick pod. Still pod applicant #'s are lower(?). Many do in fact pick pod as a back up, but also many (such as myself) pick it b/c we discover the field late and/or we're genuinely interested in that area. Choosing what you wanna do...that's what jobshadowing is for.
I've never taken the OAT, but I know it has physics like the MCAT so it's more like it. The DAT has no physics and plus a PAT and math section, so less like MCAT. Easier reading comp too for both than MCAT. Dentistry is also a medical sub specialty and so is optometry as well as pod. So question still remains...why DAT and OAT exams, but no prepod exam?
 
Last edited:
To clarify, when I said a possibility of specialization, I meant that there is a choice of specialization in medical schools, whereas other schools go directly into a certain profession (yes, there is much specialization within podiatry, but the profession is the same, unlike a hospitalist vs. an ophthalmologist). BTW individuals choose dentistry for the money MUCH more often than others who choose medicine, and rightfully so (much more out-of-pocket payments, and overall less affected by the ACA). Everyone has their reasons for their choices, to each their own.

In all fairness, the DAT does test perceptual ability, which is a necessity in the field, and the OAT extensively relies on physics due optics involvement in optometry. I really don't see what podiatrists would exclusively use in their arsenal that other professions don't to that extent. Even bio-mechanics is necessary for both fields. I'm alluding to the fact that there shouldn't be a different test for pod hopefuls. Another fact: optometrists are mid-level providers, not exactly equivalent to a medical school specialty.
 
I still don't gather any point as to why pod school applicant #'s are low.

Well I see your point as far as entrance exams go. It's still perplexing to me as to why the OAT and DAT are quite alike in their science and RC sections and why MCAT is so different in those sections. Critical reasoning skills are necessary for all 4 of these professions, right? IMO, the science and RC sections for dent and opt seem less challenging, ESPECIALLY in the RC. Shouldn't the competency be equal among all 3 exams? And the writing section on MCAT... Wouldn't dentists and opt's need to know how to write eloquently as well? I mean if an OAT-like exam were required for podiatry (which includes the same sciences covered in MCAT and an RC section) would this not just as well prove an individual to be a competent podiatry student...or medical student for that matter?

Optometrists may be mid-level providers, but they are still in a healthcare specialty, maybe not medical school specialty.
 
the verbal section on the MCAT may be harder than the OAT or DAT. but that doesn't really matter when you can get accepted to any of the 9 pod schools with a below average verbal score (or indeed, MCAT score). this isn't like applying to MD school where you want to get at least 10s across the board and acceptance rates at all the schools are around 10%. even though we take the MCAT, our standards are much lower due to a lack of applicants (lots of reasons why i think that's the case). in the 2010-11 application cycle (DPM class of 2015), 926 individuals applied to at least 1 school and 672 students matriculated. that's 72.5%! that's not an acceptance rate, that's the matriculation rate, which means the acceptance rate is even higher. of the 254 applicants who didn't end up matriculating, a decent number of them probably decided on MD/DO/DDS/OD/DPT or some other field. these numbers are from a couple years ago, but they probably have not changed significantly.

seriously, there isn't really a reason to complain about the relative difficult of the verbal section on the MCAT vs other exams. and there's even less to complain about for the writing section. as long as you don't get something ridiculous like a J or K you're fine (and you might even be ok with those scores...). we're talking about absolute minimal competency here.

source for my numbers:
http://www.aacpm.org/html/careerzone/pdfs/AACPM CIB-2013 Entering Class.pdf
 
When it comes down to it, the MCAT and other entrance exams were designed to be written the way they are, and there is absolutely nothing students can really do about it. The tests are constantly changing and fitting the needs of the times, and all we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. I was going to comment on pod admission numbers, but this thread is dedicated for entrance test discussions, so I won't ramble on.
 
aight, so u say it's nothing to complain about b/c I'm applying to pod school, where admission standards are relatively low anyway. But I'm not really complaining anyway. I'm trying to find out why the big difference in difficulty between MCAT and other admission exams since you have to be a competent student in either. However the MCAT is the more competitive test. Has anyone ever wondered about that?
 
From talking with pre-dent friends and looking over their DAT stuff, I think it is safe to say that while the DAT covers SOME of the same stuff as the MCAT, the MCAT is more difficult IMO. The MCAT is just constructed in a way that is meant to not only test your knowledge of science but your ability to triage and glean to find meaning more so than the DAT. I never have seen any pre-dent stress over the DAT as badly as pre-meds stress over the MCAT.
I wonder how accurate a conversion exists to compare the two exams? I don't think you can just go by percentile matching.(since the MCAT is generally considered the most difficult) I think the MCAT is a must and is here to stay in pod admissions. Having a separate entrance exam would possibly weaken our argument for equality with MD/DO and certainly not strengthen it. I also think that the AACPM should not allow schools to accept anything but the MCAT.Temple used to accept the GRE. That just makes us look like a bunch of amateurs begging for applicants.
 
Both schools still accept plenty of students with DAT scores. Many of the first year class at Temple submitted DAT scores. NYCPM will beg you to come to their school if your DAT score is high.

Also, the very top of our class has both DAT and MCAT students. The argument against DAT scores being accepted is bogus. These tests do not matter once the actual medical school curriculum starts.

For more details about my statement, feel free to PM me.
 
iVTECdailyy I agree. The DAT is not a bad standardized measure for prepods IMO, not just b/c I got accepted with DAT along with many others, but also b/c there are successful students in podiatry school who have taken DAT (and probably GRE as well) as well as unsuccessful students who have taken MCAT for pod. BTW, on my interview at Temple this past Mon., the students we had lunch with said there's not a very good correlation between the MCAT and boards. I didn't think so myself. A good physician with good bedside manners is not made b/c he/she did well on the verbal section on MCAT; it's b/c he/she did well in honest soul searching and developing their sense of human connection thru life's experiences.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

W
New York College of Podiatric Medicine (NYCPM) Class of 2028 Interview/Acceptance Thread
Replies
2
Views
1K
Dean’s Chat
D
W
Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine (TUSPM) Class of 2028 Interview/Acceptance Thread
Replies
7
Views
2K
Dean’s Chat
D
W
New York College of Podiatric Medicine (NYCPM) Class of 2027 Interview/Acceptance Thread
Replies
3
Views
2K
Mrs.Borruso
M
DexterMorganSK
NYCPM merges with Touro College & Uni System
Replies
0
Views
2K
DexterMorganSK
DexterMorganSK
A
TUSPM VS NYCPM
Replies
6
Views
3K
awkotaco
A
Top