hey mate,
im about to turn 30 and was in somewhat of a similar situation. i have an mba from a top 20 school , did some i banking, and resigned to take my pre reqs and apply after one semester of class. i made it in. youre an adult so treat the process like an adult and you cant fail as you are competing against a bunch of kids. If you are smart. If you arent, i hope you have a sick work ethic and/or easy professors.
come here and learn all about the admissions process. find out what you have to take, the course schedules of your local university etc. see if youre state has a dental school because the biggest limiting factor for admissions is state residency. formulate your timeline with the knowledge you gain from all this, keeping in mind deadline dates as well as matriculation. the spreadsheets on the stickies should become your best friends, and you should be able to spout off admissions information on ten different schools on a whim.
ace your pre reqs. science is harder than other majors. its going to b e very competitive where you are about to tread. if your biology program is competitive be prepared for ridiculous amounts of studying to stay on top of the class. Thats what you are gunning for - 1st or 2nd place in each science course. when you get a question wrong, you feel a physical slap in the face - you immediately want to know how the eff your neighbor got that right, because you know you put at least ten more hours into chapter 10 than he did. of course this doesnt show on your transcript but its the mindset you have to have to succeed in this situation. you dont have the luxury of failure since you have a family and are foregoing a stable income. also, admissions in the past two years has JUMPED up in difficulty. GPA's and DAT scores are on the rise. youre ace in the hole is that youre a bit more mature, you know what the real world is like, and you appreciate undergrad for the gift and vacation it is. A little bit of youre time management skills puts you in the top 15% of the class as it is.
dont worry about success - this is a self selecting process. You can do it if you want, you just have to decide if this is something you really want to do. with the TMV and current interest rates and the economy etc, this is still a very NPV positive move for you. and as you and i both know, money isnt the bottom line here, its the "what the f do i want to do the rest of my life so that im content". if you know dentistry is for you, then just do it. make sure you shadow or something for a bit, take out a few dentists for drinks, really get into their heads about their opinions on the industry.
a few tips:
-your pre health advisor is most likely going to be garbage. dont rely on their guidance for the process as they arent invested in your success. YOU find out what needs to be done, when, how, who you have to sleep with and which wheels to grease. Dont be the guy starting out your stories with "well i missed the deadline this year because my advisor..."
- screen your professors. this isnt a joust in the holy kings tourney. some schools are harder than others and their grades reflect that. an A from professor bozo is a C in madame janes. Find out and exploit these incongruencies. Dont have your transcript of hard won B's compete against your competitors easily won A's transcript. Get an advantage on the class before it starts, because once youre in you are at the professors mercy, and god help your grades if youve chosen wrongly.
-plan youre entire process out. write it down until the day you apply. this will show you what you have to do NOW to get the balls rolling on each of your plans of attack. Oh **** son, i need letters of rec for dental school. Ill need to be president of the dental club to impress the counselor who is in charge of my committee letter, i need to make besties with my organic chemistry teacher as Ive read adcoms look at my orgo grade first, I need to TA for my biology teacher because hes mormon and im applying to MWU etc.
- time your classes so that they are all in a crunched up glob on the timeline so you can take the DAT while the material is still fresh in y our mind. that way, when you spend a few weeks cramming for the DAT its review and not new. I studied 9 days for it and got 99.7th percentile. how? i had just taken the classes, and spent 16 hours everyday of that period doing the kaplan book and chads videos. i didnt want to limit my studying time but because of my timeline i had to. other students would have put it off a month or two. other students wouldnt have matriculated this year as this is a rolling admissions process. I knew that and planned accordingly.
when i started my journey...when was it...jan '10 I had no idea what i was doing. but through research and some elbow grease, with a touch of obsession and the use of these boards I made it happen. I became friends and acquaintances with many who did not. Its obvious when a group of predents/meds are in a room who will make it, who wont, and who might.
Make sure youre in the first group. Treat the process like war, and that success is youre only option and you win. excuses have a maximum effective range of zero meters. you ace the test, or you consider it a failure. because every B you are about to make is a nail in the Fail Coffin. People try and fail at this in great numbers every year, and that number is only rising. Thats not a saying i took from the internet, thats what the real stats say (ive looked at the numbers).
anywho, i had someone message me much like this at my start and he was indispensable. we both ended up getting in after many trials and twists, and are both set to matriculate this august. both are "non traditional" students as you are about to be. both rocked it.
oh, and i agree with what you want in one of your posts, dont do this part time. do it all or do it naught, you arent getting any younger.
and finally,
take a look in the mirror. are you academically capable? so many people think they are more capable than they are. dont let self deception cost you 2 years of income to find out you couldnt hack it. in your field im sure a 2 year absence would be disastrous. i had the same issue. once you leave i banking you cant go back after that long. - as sun tzu say - "every battle is won before it is fought".
a sunny disposition will only take you so far in your grueling marathons of study where your time is marked by the passage of chapters, the understanding of concepts, and the competition with your classmates and new friends.
I wish you the best of luck, and i somewhat envy the trial you are about to endure. I remember once in the infantry we were in the **** and my platoon sgt smiles at me through the rain, mud, and noise and said "soldier, you just gotta love it". That always stayed with me. So when youre knee deep in textbooks, youre chem teacher doesnt like you, your TA is trying to sleep with your lab partner and thats cool because its influencing your grade, you dont remember the difference between a mushroom and a fish because its all starting to blur, and the only relevant thing you can recall from the first unit the day prior to the cumulative final is "water is polar", well my friend you just have to love it.
Embrace the suck. PM me any time.
Regards
