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By mid-June 2013, many applicants have already been accepted by at least one dental school. However, there are many applicants who are still waiting to be accepted off of multiple waitlists. These students are faced with the dilemma of deciding whether to apply again for 2014, or to wait it out for a positive response, hoping that any dental school will accept them.
Reviewing past threads, it has been advised for such applicants to wait until July before reapplying and shelling out hundreds or even thousands of dollars in application fees. After monitoring this forum for the past month, however, waitlist movement has been slower than it has usually been observed in past years' threads. Certainly, the popularity of the dental profession has increased. Hence competition and the number of qualified dental school applicants has increased as well.
It's agonizing to realize that waitlisted students such as me will be handpicked one by one by the ADCOMS, not knowing how this seemingly random process transpires, and thinking that we've been overlooked once again for a "more qualified" waitlister. And from my experience, "more qualified" does not necessarily mean better GPA or DAT score either; it actually means you are "more local." In fact, I had spoken with an admissions director who had said that schools will give acceptances to students who are closer to the school because there is better chance of finding a match, especially at the end of the application cycle when schools are scrambling to fill their classes.
Most of us assume that our luck is not good enough to actually believe that we will be the next in line for a shot at acceptance. Meanwhile, students who have been recently accepted off the waitlist will biasly chant the "don't give up, cause it happened to me" speech; but realistically speaking, chances at this point are slim-to-none, 33% at best, if and only if a seat is open. If, however, the class is full... we can only hope that a specific chain of unpredictable events will take place, so that we can miraculously grab that last remaining seat.
In the School Specific Discussions thread, recent posts have been made by new applicants already regarding the 2014 application cycle for the class of 2018. And with the exception of some schools, the official class of 2017 threads have been quiet, leaving us waitlisters in the dark as to what is going on. It surely seems like everyone else has moved on with their acceptances, but are kind enough to give us their pitying "good luck" speeches.
Though, the truth is that nobody cares two sh*ts about us waitlisters 'cause they all got what they needed. And I don't blame them. It's the nature of the "me versus you game" we call life, and the reason why there is no such thing as a "selfless gene."
So waitlisters... I propose that we exploit each other while we still can. We can forget about each other later, but for now, we must band together and be resourceful.
What can we do to alleviate our anxieties while we decide whether or not we should reapply? Maybe we should use this thread to post.....
-at what schools we are placed on alternate status
-at what schools we intend on attending as our number one
-whether you are located in the same state as the school of interest
-date of application and interview
-what our GPA/DAT scores are for comparison
-and plans for increasing chances for "next year's" cycle
In the end, I'm sure doing this will not really matter; but it will give us a better understanding of the unpredictable shuffling of events that are about to unfold. Will we, or will we not be accepted? Who will go where, so I can go there?
Reviewing past threads, it has been advised for such applicants to wait until July before reapplying and shelling out hundreds or even thousands of dollars in application fees. After monitoring this forum for the past month, however, waitlist movement has been slower than it has usually been observed in past years' threads. Certainly, the popularity of the dental profession has increased. Hence competition and the number of qualified dental school applicants has increased as well.
It's agonizing to realize that waitlisted students such as me will be handpicked one by one by the ADCOMS, not knowing how this seemingly random process transpires, and thinking that we've been overlooked once again for a "more qualified" waitlister. And from my experience, "more qualified" does not necessarily mean better GPA or DAT score either; it actually means you are "more local." In fact, I had spoken with an admissions director who had said that schools will give acceptances to students who are closer to the school because there is better chance of finding a match, especially at the end of the application cycle when schools are scrambling to fill their classes.
Most of us assume that our luck is not good enough to actually believe that we will be the next in line for a shot at acceptance. Meanwhile, students who have been recently accepted off the waitlist will biasly chant the "don't give up, cause it happened to me" speech; but realistically speaking, chances at this point are slim-to-none, 33% at best, if and only if a seat is open. If, however, the class is full... we can only hope that a specific chain of unpredictable events will take place, so that we can miraculously grab that last remaining seat.
In the School Specific Discussions thread, recent posts have been made by new applicants already regarding the 2014 application cycle for the class of 2018. And with the exception of some schools, the official class of 2017 threads have been quiet, leaving us waitlisters in the dark as to what is going on. It surely seems like everyone else has moved on with their acceptances, but are kind enough to give us their pitying "good luck" speeches.
Though, the truth is that nobody cares two sh*ts about us waitlisters 'cause they all got what they needed. And I don't blame them. It's the nature of the "me versus you game" we call life, and the reason why there is no such thing as a "selfless gene."
So waitlisters... I propose that we exploit each other while we still can. We can forget about each other later, but for now, we must band together and be resourceful.
What can we do to alleviate our anxieties while we decide whether or not we should reapply? Maybe we should use this thread to post.....
-at what schools we are placed on alternate status
-at what schools we intend on attending as our number one
-whether you are located in the same state as the school of interest
-date of application and interview
-what our GPA/DAT scores are for comparison
-and plans for increasing chances for "next year's" cycle
In the end, I'm sure doing this will not really matter; but it will give us a better understanding of the unpredictable shuffling of events that are about to unfold. Will we, or will we not be accepted? Who will go where, so I can go there?
