I know one guy. He scored in the 99.9th percentile on the DAT and had a 4.0 in engineering. I know he had also been on tons of mission trips and shadowed a lot.
So, yeah, dream applicant.
Actually I was accepted back in 1998 at VCU but declined due to personal issues (a woman, of course). I had finished my 2nd year of undergrad and held a 3.88 GPA, but only scored a 15AA on the DAT. I interviewed, was wait-listed, and then eventually offered a seat in the spring of 1999 for that fall's entering class - no undergraduate degree. By that time, however, the woman I was with got an engineering job in another state, so I figured I'd wait and try again later. Later ended up being this year - 15 years later!
Granted, I'm sure times have changed, but I'm guessing that there are people that get in without being the "dream applicant". I've read on SDN that there are upwards of 12,000+ applicants to dental school each year, and I'm sure very few of them hang out and report their stats and status on SDN (although I wish more would!). So ultimately we (SDN community) really have no frame of reference without more of the pool of applicants being active members of SDN forums.
doc toothache has posted some interesting stats he's compiled from the ADA and ADEA (and I'm sure other sources) that show that there exists some crazy-low GPAs and DAT scores with enrollment into dental colleges every year. I was shocked at how low some of the stats were - DATs of 13AA and GPAs around 2.2 as minimums. I'm curious as to whether he can dig up stats on degreed vs. non-degreed enrollees?
EDIT: Speak and he shows up. Whattya know!
EDIT 2: I know the above sounds improbable - a 3.88 after only 2 years, 15AA on DAT, and an acceptance to dental school. However, I interview very well and was even back then a non-traditional applicant, so I can only assume that VCU saw something to outweigh the lower DAT score and non-bachelor degree. I graduated high school in 1991 and went to the USAF. Then worked full time and started back to school in 1997. By the fall of 1998, I had accrued enough credits in my Biology major to have the pre-reqs and be a sophomore. I was 25 years old at the time.
