Chance me; great DAT, average grades, letters of rec?

[steveymcdubs]

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[Zbtb7]

Getting bike accident pwned would make a really nice lead to "Why dentistry" 😛

Your DAT scores are excellent. Being published is excellent.

Your gpa is below average (what school did you go to?). The dearth of good science LORs synergizes with your low sgpa in a bad way: Science LORs are an additional way for adcoms to assess your competency in science.

If you have the money; you could take post-bacc courses and kill two birds with one stone: bring your gpa up and get good sci LORs.

Otherwise, get mediocre science LORs, meet your reqs, and try your luck.

 

[steveymcdubs]

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[Parklife]

Thanks for the response. Yeah, at least something good came from my bike accident.

I went to UW, where classes are huge, grades are distributed in a numeric spectrum (e.g. 3.7 instead of A-), and asian students are abundant (myself included).

I was really hoping that my good DAT scores would counterbalance my lower science GPA, because they show that I am intellectually competent. For what it's worth, I had a very high GPA my first quarter in college, which started to decline until junior year, where it remained pretty high. It makes a difference if they see improvement, yeah?

As for the letters, don't schools want professors to evaluate qualities that can't be gleaned from your grades/test scores (like your personality, motivation, interpersonal skills), or is this not always the case?

Oh god. Not UW. It's ok, you earned that 3.4...

Brace yourselves the Asian Huskie premeds are coming...


Your DAT is phenomenal. You've been published. You will definitely hear from some good schools. Maybe even UW 🙂

Not to knock UDub, I just know what type of school it is. Great school though. Beautiful campus.

 

[finchy86]

Stevey, I think your stats are great. Ya, your GPA may be a little lower than average, but I agree your DAT scores make up for it. I am not sure how heavily letters of recommendation are valued, it most likely depends on the school. My guess is adcoms want to know you are sincerely interested in dentistry, are a good student, and are mature and ready to take on the responsibilities of dental school.

This application cycle I had originally planned on applying to dental and medical. It didn't end up working to apply to both due to funds and all of the work required to fill out applications. So figure that out and then put all of your effort into it. Good luck!

 

[cwoodds]

I was in the same situation, had to get letters from professors I had never talked to personally. I think for the most part they are pretty understanding about this. You can try emailing, my experience has been that stopping by during their office hours is more effective. I have very similar stats and am hoping that the DAT will outweigh the most likely so-so letters, but no interviews yet.

 

[Sal427]

Does your school offer a committee interview? I only had a recommendation from one science teacher, but that was ok because a lot of schools wrote "two science professors, etc. OR a committee interview"

So far so good for me.

 

[steveymcdubs]

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[steveymcdubs]

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[steveymcdubs]

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[cwoodds]

I might just do that. I'm not quite sure how I'll figure out their office hours, now that I'm graduated, though. Hmm. Good luck with getting interviews!

Call the department, they may have their office hours, sometimes they are posted on their office doors. I tried emailing my professors several times and never got a response. For one of them I had to actually get his class schedule and show up after a class to talk to him. Felt like a stalker, but I had no choice! Good luck!

 

[steveymcdubs]

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[steveymcdubs]

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[steveymcdubs]

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[RSalha17]

Hey man,

I recently graduated from UW and had trouble getting one letter of rec from a science prof. I ended up getting one from a chem professor that I had and did well in his class. To be honest, I had to stop by his office over 5 times to ask him to write it and remind him a couple times, but I finally got a letter. I just explained to him that I understood that the letter wouldn't necessarily be strong, but that I still needed one and would be really grateful if he was willing to write a letter. After he agreed, I had to stop by his office three more times and keep bugging him (very respectfully) to finish the letter.

It is hit or miss with professors, but if you are determined you should be able to get one from one prof.

Good luck man, PM me if you need any help

 

[steveymcdubs]

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