I am very conflicted. I just took my DAT and I don’t know whether to feel relieved or a little disappointed, here's a little list of my scores
Perceptual Ability: 24
Quantitative reasoning: 18
Reading comprehension: 19
Biology: 21
General Chemistry: 20
Organic Chemistry: 22
Total Science: 21
Academia Average: 20
I am just so confused about if these scores will be okay. Luckily I didn’t score a 17 or lower in any section so I am hoping I don’t have to retake. I have a 3.86 GPA and I feel good about the PAT, I just know I didn’t get an amazing AA and my reading comprehension score was way lower than I anticipated it would be. I studied for 3 months, 4-8 hours a day, 6 days a week using only DAT Bootcamp. What I was most surprised by was I feel like the general consensus was that scores being received on Bootcamp were usually a little lower than the actual DAT, but I scored lower in half the sections (Scores posted below, the one on top is my first attempt, the second one is after retaking some individual tests and doing the full-length tests).
Maybe I am just a bad test taker or got a weird test. The reading passages I got on the actual DAT were very complex compared to the passages I practiced with. Then with biology and chemistry, I feel like I focused on understanding more complex processes like all the steps of muscular contraction and all the steps of cellular respiration, but I didn’t focus enough on little random details. Pretty much everything I focused heavily on wasn’t even on the test. The testing environment was also pretty distracting in my opinion and I was just really anxious. I am not interested in applying to any crazy schools like Harvard or Columbia or anything, but will these scores be enough? My dream school is the University of Washington, but I doubt that’ll happen now. I know a 20 is the average to get into dental school so I should be happy I got that, but I don’t know I guess I thought I could score like just 1 or 2 points higher. Will my GPA and PAT hopefully overlook an average AA? I just don’t know if retaking will change me from being a poor test taker. I am probably not making any sense I am just confused about whether a 20 will be good enough. I am so happy I am done with the DAT, and I feel like I did all I could, but at the same time, I feel like my best wasn’t enough. I just keep seeing people get these crazy good scores and like I can’t help but freak out.
Sorry for treating this post more like a rant lol just very very confused on how to feel. Any advice would be really appreciated.
Perceptual Ability: 24
Quantitative reasoning: 18
Reading comprehension: 19
Biology: 21
General Chemistry: 20
Organic Chemistry: 22
Total Science: 21
Academia Average: 20
I am just so confused about if these scores will be okay. Luckily I didn’t score a 17 or lower in any section so I am hoping I don’t have to retake. I have a 3.86 GPA and I feel good about the PAT, I just know I didn’t get an amazing AA and my reading comprehension score was way lower than I anticipated it would be. I studied for 3 months, 4-8 hours a day, 6 days a week using only DAT Bootcamp. What I was most surprised by was I feel like the general consensus was that scores being received on Bootcamp were usually a little lower than the actual DAT, but I scored lower in half the sections (Scores posted below, the one on top is my first attempt, the second one is after retaking some individual tests and doing the full-length tests).
Maybe I am just a bad test taker or got a weird test. The reading passages I got on the actual DAT were very complex compared to the passages I practiced with. Then with biology and chemistry, I feel like I focused on understanding more complex processes like all the steps of muscular contraction and all the steps of cellular respiration, but I didn’t focus enough on little random details. Pretty much everything I focused heavily on wasn’t even on the test. The testing environment was also pretty distracting in my opinion and I was just really anxious. I am not interested in applying to any crazy schools like Harvard or Columbia or anything, but will these scores be enough? My dream school is the University of Washington, but I doubt that’ll happen now. I know a 20 is the average to get into dental school so I should be happy I got that, but I don’t know I guess I thought I could score like just 1 or 2 points higher. Will my GPA and PAT hopefully overlook an average AA? I just don’t know if retaking will change me from being a poor test taker. I am probably not making any sense I am just confused about whether a 20 will be good enough. I am so happy I am done with the DAT, and I feel like I did all I could, but at the same time, I feel like my best wasn’t enough. I just keep seeing people get these crazy good scores and like I can’t help but freak out.
Sorry for treating this post more like a rant lol just very very confused on how to feel. Any advice would be really appreciated.
