DAT again? please help

[ChapelHillT]

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Hi everyone,

I'm a long time lurker and short term poster in need of some serious advice. I applied this cycle to 9 schools, and thus far have only had an interview at 1 school which I am still hoping to hear from, though I feel like the door is quickly closing on me. My stats are as follows: 20AA, 19TS, 24PAT (18bio, 22gc, 19oc, 20rc, 20qr) with a 3.23 overall GPA and a 2.89 sci-GPA. My major was non-traditional: Peace, War, and Defense (a poli-sci/history/philosophy mix), along with a chemistry minor. The other parts of my app are pretty solid....over 100 hours shadowing and over 1000 hours volunteering. I've been on two different week long dental service trips overseas, volunteered at multiple free clinics in my state, along with a lot of other volunteering elsewhere, and I also served as secretary and then president at my state schools predent club. My letters of rec were pretty good, with an average personal statement. I had one terrible semester in which some family issues were at play, without which I'd have a 3.4 overall and a 3.2 sci-GPA...though dental schools haven't seemed to care thus far about that this cycle

I'm pretty sure the obvious downside of my app is my GPA, especially my sci-GPA. I am currently enrolled in 11 hours of science courses as a post-bac while still working and volunteering each week, trying to pull that putrid sci-GPA up before the next application cycle.

My question is: Do you guys think it would be worth it to try the gauntlet that is the DAT again? As a non-science major I found the preparation for the test to be strenuous, perhaps even more so than for the average applicant. I spent 8 hours a day, 6 days a week last summer for 10 weeks preparing. After getting a 20AA I was 100% sure for a long long time (until recently) that I would never go through that again, but I desperately want an opportunity to become a dentist more than anything, and recently have been wondering if taking the DAT again would be a good way to improve my chances.

What do you all think? Would taking the DAT again be worth it? Should I just focus on taking a lot of hours of science courses and improving my app that way? Should I attempt to do both? Should I just focus on some post-bac courses or apply to a science-based grad program? Honestly I'd love to do an MBA, because I'd much rather take courses that are going to help me run a practice one day rather than take some random science course that isn't going to do me any good other than getting into dental school.

Any thoughts/concerns/opinions are welcome.....!

 

[321931]

Bring up that science gpa up to a 3.0. It will be hard, and even then your sci-gpa is far below average. Therefore, in order to assure adcoms that you are knowledgable in science, I would retake the DAT. Yes you have good scores, BUT your science scores VALIDATE that your 2.89...is really a 2.89 which isn't good news at all. You are going to be taking a ton of hard science classes 20+ units in dental school at a time.

You need to show them that you can handle science and that means bringing up ure SGPA, and reassuring them with a killer TS (all sections in science above 20 to be reasonable) that you are BETTER then what your 3.0 says on paper. Because right now, it looks like your mediocre science dat scores validate your low 2.89. If you had a 22-25+ TS(all sections above 20) and 2.89, I would say, hmm wow, this guy definately knows his science, but whats up with his GPA maybe we can get a story outa him or an explanation and perhaps accept him. But for now its a hmm, this guy has low sgpa, and his TS is also low, makes sense, rejection, next.

Thats just my 2cents.

 

[bing12]

I would NOT retake the DAT if i were you. IMO i feel that a 20/19/24 are good scores. your major issue is your gpa, not your DAT scores. Since you are not a science major, I am assuming you have many upper level bios that you can take. Go to a local 4-year college, and just start taking several of them for one year and get that sgpa above a 3.0. Just make sure you take enough to cross that 3.0. Many people get in with DAT scores similar to yours, not many people get in what the g.pa. Use your resources ( time and money) in an efficient matter.

 

[ZFT]

Chapel i think you already answered your own question and i agree with you: don't retake.

you already analyzed your situation and pinpointed the problem - GPA

also, with 20/19/24...are you sure you'll get better scores? think really hard about that.

I assume you're not applying to Harvard?

 

[HillsNayyr]

IMO worry about raising gpa, not your dat. Your dat scores should be good enough to be competitive as long as you can raise your gpa up.

 

[Kahr]

Agree regarding not retaking the DAT, time better spent raising that sGPA.

As an aside, from reading other posts, and advice from fellow SDNers, I think applying to more schools would (and would've) be a good idea, raise your odds of getting in, 9 seems a bit low-average with your numbers, though I guess it depends on which schools you apply to and your state residency, etc.

Best of luck.

 

[Erhatstil]

retaking the DAT is a high risk, high reward scenario for you. if you bring your TS score to a 22+ you probably don't need to take classes to raise the sgpa. i was in a similar situation and took my chances with the DAT..it took me 3 times, but worked out. just something to consider

 

[4thMolar]

I agree that you don't need to re-take your DAT. I was in a similar situation and decided not to re-take b/c I knew I had to focus on my GPA and did not want to risk getting a lower score. If you do well this semester, applying next cycle will improve your chances. I would also suggest contacting the dental schools and see what they have to say about your DAT scores.

 

[dentalWorks]

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time lurker and short term poster in need of some serious advice. I applied this cycle to 9 schools, and thus far have only had an interview at 1 school which I am still hoping to hear from, though I feel like the door is quickly closing on me. My stats are as follows: 20AA, 19TS, 24PAT (18bio, 22gc, 19oc, 20rc, 20qr) with a 3.23 overall GPA and a 2.89 sci-GPA. My major was non-traditional: Peace, War, and Defense (a poli-sci/history/philosophy mix), along with a chemistry minor. The other parts of my app are pretty solid....over 100 hours shadowing and over 1000 hours volunteering. I've been on two different week long dental service trips overseas, volunteered at multiple free clinics in my state, along with a lot of other volunteering elsewhere, and I also served as secretary and then president at my state schools predent club. My letters of rec were pretty good, with an average personal statement. I had one terrible semester in which some family issues were at play, without which I'd have a 3.4 overall and a 3.2 sci-GPA...though dental schools haven't seemed to care thus far about that this cycle

I'm pretty sure the obvious downside of my app is my GPA, especially my sci-GPA. I am currently enrolled in 11 hours of science courses as a post-bac while still working and volunteering each week, trying to pull that putrid sci-GPA up before the next application cycle.

My question is: Do you guys think it would be worth it to try the gauntlet that is the DAT again? As a non-science major I found the preparation for the test to be strenuous, perhaps even more so than for the average applicant. I spent 8 hours a day, 6 days a week last summer for 10 weeks preparing. After getting a 20AA I was 100% sure for a long long time (until recently) that I would never go through that again, but I desperately want an opportunity to become a dentist more than anything, and recently have been wondering if taking the DAT again would be a good way to improve my chances.

What do you all think? Would taking the DAT again be worth it? Should I just focus on taking a lot of hours of science courses and improving my app that way? Should I attempt to do both? Should I just focus on some post-bac courses or apply to a science-based grad program? Honestly I'd love to do an MBA, because I'd much rather take courses that are going to help me run a practice one day rather than take some random science course that isn't going to do me any good other than getting into dental school.

Any thoughts/concerns/opinions are welcome.....!

You have 20AA, thats a good number, I wouldn't retake. The real problem here is your sGPA, its much lower than what most dental schools like to see.

Say you retook the DAT, and say... you were to get a 22AA along with 22TS, that 2.x sGPA isn't going to go away. IMHO, I would focus my time and energy into fixing that sGPA instead of retaking

 

[NRG]

how would you guys go about raising the GPA?

it seems like Summer I is the only time you can take a class that will end in time for applying in June of this year.

my back up is the same as chapelhillt, i was thinking about taking some classes to boost my sGPA but that would leave me with classes in progress going into this years application cycle. but i guess its up to the school if they want to see me finish them out.

 

[ChapelHillT]

Thanks for the input everybody, I really appreciate it. Most likely I won't end up taking the DAT again, you all kinda confirmed the direction I was already leaning. The one "glass half full" part of my situation is that because I was a non-science major I only have 43 hours of science courses. By my calculations with the courses I'm taking now and a few over the summer I think I will be able to get the sci-GPA up to at least a 3.0 and hopefully a 3.1 before next cycle. I'd just really like to see it at a 3.2 before I'll start feeling somewhat okay about it.

 

[ChapelHillT]

You have 20AA, thats a good number, I wouldn't retake. The real problem here is your sGPA, its much lower than what most dental schools like to see.

Say you retook the DAT, and say... you were to get a 22AA along with 22TS, that 2.x sGPA isn't going to go away. IMHO, I would focus my time and energy into fixing that sGPA instead of retaking

BTW dentalworks, I owe a lot of my 20AA to you and your 8 week program. I tweaked it a good bit to add in some more resources (Chad's/Kaplan online) which turned it into a 10 week program, but yours was the backbone of the whole shebang. Thanks a ton for putting that together.

 

[dentalWorks]

how would you guys go about raising the GPA?

it seems like Summer I is the only time you can take a class that will end in time for applying in June of this year.

my back up is the same as chapelhillt, i was thinking about taking some classes to boost my sGPA but that would leave me with classes in progress going into this years application cycle. but i guess its up to the school if they want to see me finish them out.

raising a GPA isn't something you do over 1 or 2 semesters, it takes more time than that. I'll give you a little example, it took me about 3.5 years to bring my overall from 3.0 to 3.3 😱 Granted I was working fulltime for the first 2 years, I could have probably done it in about 2 years if I was a fulltime student.