ashman said:
You guys need to mellow out cause I just talked to several schools and they opened files on me to track my progress I dont need to do nada but take upper division science classes at a uni and get A's so whas up now. And for the guy that told me to choose another profession, ill break your teeth then charge you a grip to fix them punk, put it to the books ill take you out (I just chose to bone throughout my uni years) just letting go of the stress ya know. LATA fools no one is going to cheat no system but the system itself so yall can just eat a d i c k, for hatin.
Ash,
Welcome to SDN! Hope you stick around because there is so much to learn here.
I imagine that someone suggesting you consider other career options probobly seemed a little insulting to you. Sometimes when you are trying to reach a goal it seems like you are just jumping through hoops that have no meaning. But in reality, each of the current requirements for getting accepted to dental school shows a part of an applicants character that is necessary to be a good practitioner, not just some random number.
I have talked with people on admissions commitees who have said that the real reason that they shy away from applicants with low gpa's is because once those students are in dental school, they fail out. Do you know how terrible it would be to fail out your second year of school, with no employable skills and $50-75K in debt? That would suck! Why do they fail out? Because they have not developed the dedication, commitment, and skills needed to comprehend the vast amount of information that one needs to become a dentist. It's just that simple. If you can barely pass undergrad classes, you will have an even more difficult time passing dental classes. I'm not knocking you down, I'm just telling the truth. If you want to continue a career in dentistry you are going to need to learn how to learn. Which, contrary to popular beleif isn't as easy as it sounds. I hear so many people say, "I could be an A student if I just tried harder, I just don't want to". Believe me, getting good grades is more than just effort, it is strategies and skills, that cannot be turned on-and-off at will.
So far your academic record shows that you haven't "learned how to learn" yet. In your own words you don't sound like you are very committed to academics or your future career. Instead striving to perform well in your classes and saying "I worked my butt off to do well in O-chem" you say that your real goal was to
"bone through my uni years." It's fine that you have spent some enjoyable years sleeping around and partying. If you want to be a professional than you need to act like one. From your own self description you don't really sound like you have the self discipline or commitment to survive 4 years of dental school handling 25 credits a semester. Do you really think with your track record you have proved that you can handle that?
On the other hand, there are a host of pre-dents here on SDN who have made great sacrafices to prepare themselves for dental school. There are lots of pre-dents here who wanted to go out and party during undergrad, but had the commitment and the discipline to force themselves to study. Like me, you know how many times my friends would tell me, "We're going to a party, put your books down", and I just had to resist the temptation because I knew what I wanted. I think you might consider how arrogant it seems for you (in your current situation) to disrespect those who have paid the price to get where they are.
