DAT done 6/16 comments w/practice exams

[kppredent]

I just finished my DATs today and I need some advice.
PAT: 27
QR: 19
RC: 16
Bio: 22
gchem: 23
ochem: 21
TS: 22
AA: 20

PAT: I thought it was pretty straight forward, but some of the answer choices should have been clearer (there were two keyhole questions that I thought was very bad). I used crack dat PAT and was getting 23-24 average. I had a post with my crack dat PAT score if you are interested. Crack dat pat's a pretty good indicator of your pat score except top front end on the real thing's harder. angle ranking and keyhole were pretty comparable with crack and cube counting, punching hole, and pattern folding on the real thing was a lot easier than crack dat.

QR: I don't have much comment about this section. I rushed through everything because everyone was complaining about running out of time. I should have spent little more time on each question.

RC: I got that FRAP test with ethics passage. I was freaking out and I just did really bad. I was getting 20s on the practice exams. English is my second language btw.

Sciences: I thought the ochem section was the easiest, but
somehow I did better on bio and gchem. I only used kaplan, topscore, and shaum's bio for this section. I thought the kaplan ochem and gchem were pretty good and shaum was really good for bio. I'd say focus more on gchem and ochem if ur test's coming up soon because bio's pretty random.

here are my topscore scores
bs/gchem/ochem/pat/rc/qr
Test 1 18/19/18/NA/20/20
Test 2 19/19/18/25/21/20
Test 3 16/18/25/NA/20/20

As you can see, I did a lot better on the real DATs, except my rc and qr sections. I am a biochem major with 3.86 gpa and 3.95 science gpa from a decent private school. I know my reading score's really bad and I was just wondering where I should apply. I am thinking about applying to Case, NYU, Tufts, Upenn, and Columbia for now. Do most schools have DAT cut-offs? I know columbia and upenn don't have cutoffs, but I dont really know about other schools. I would like to thank everyone on the forum for all the help.

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[DRHOYA]

Good Job! What was your percentile btw for PAT, b/c that is a very high score!

 

[osimsDDS]

what would you say to focus on for gchem and ochem?? thanks

nice scores btw, cut-offs for most schools are 15 i believe so dont sweat it your fine...

 

[Predentknight]

How would you compare the level of difficulty of the science section of topscore with the actual DAT?

 

[DRHOYA]

what would you say to focus on for gchem and ochem??quote]


bump

 

[excusezmoi]

Great PAT score!!! What kind of PAT package did you use? did u use King Edition/Ace/Royal Flush? I'm low in budget would King be enough ?

 

[kppredent]

Good Job! What was your percentile btw for PAT, b/c that is a very high score!

I got 100th percentile. I was pretty excited when I saw the score.

Great PAT score!!! What kind of PAT package did you use? did u use King Edition/Ace/Royal Flush? I'm low in budget would King be enough ?

I think I got the Ace edition (with 10 tests?).

 

[kppredent]

what would you say to focus on for gchem and ochem?? thanks

nice scores btw, cut-offs for most schools are 15 i believe so dont sweat it your fine...

I had a lot of conceptual questions and a few easy calculations. So, focus more on concepts than hard calculations.

 

[kkatranji]

Are periodic trends, or recognizing soluble salts vs insoluble salts an example of conceptual questions?

I just want to get an idea of what people mean by conceptual...if thats too specific of a question then forget about it


but great job anyway

 

[harrygt]

You got Fabulous PAT, above average science and average QR and RC.
It's just painful to see your QR and RC. I don't get why people mess up the QR. Honestly, I get at least 38, or 39 [and on some practice tests 40] of the QR questions right in 32 minutes. But then I don't get anything better than a 21 on PAT. Organic chem is easy too. I don't know why you messed up on that one. Anyway, I'm sure you will get interviews from 90% of the universities which you apply to, and hopefully accepted in 80% of the interviews.
Your scores and GPA are pretty good. I hope you have got some extra curricular activitiy too.

 

[Hugh Mannity]

You got Fabulous PAT, above average science and average QR and RC.
It's just painful to see your QR and RC. I don't get why people mess up the QR. Honestly, I get at least 38, or 39 [and on some practice tests 40] of the QR questions right in 32 minutes. But then I don't get anything better than a 21 on PAT. Organic chem is easy too. I don't know why you messed up on that one. Anyway, I'm sure you will get interviews from 90% of the universities which you apply to, and hopefully accepted in 80% of the interviews.
Your scores and GPA are pretty good. I hope you have got some extra curricular activitiy too.

That may be a little generous. Many people say RC is most important and that section also has the highest average score of all the DAT. I had a 22 and it was only 87 percentile. I would say average on RC is 19 for nation and probably 20-21 for accepted. Some schools have cutoffs at 17 across the board. Great scores besides the RC but this forum is for honest support, not blindly saying you'll get in to 80% of schools you apply to.

 

[PSU SHC 414]

That may be a little generous. Many people say RC is most important and that section also has the highest average score of all the DAT. I had a 22 and it was only 87 percentile. I would say average on RC is 19 for nation and probably 20-21 for accepted. Some schools have cutoffs at 17 across the board. Great scores besides the RC but this forum is for honest support, not blindly saying you'll get in to 80% of schools you apply to.

Definitely agree with Hugh here... overall you did great and you've got a great GPA in a difficult major, but I think that RC score might be your Achilles heel. There have probably been a ton of threads that discuss which DAT section is the most important, and I think the general consensus is that the RC section is one of the (if not THE) most important sections.

A recent thread referenced a research article put out by Kingsley et al in which they reexamined the correlation between DAT scores on specific sections and dental school GPA (DS-GPA) and NBDE-I scores. DAT BIO was found to have the most significant correlation to NBDE-I scores, followed very closely by DAT RC (and interestingly, DAT QR as the third most significant), while DAT RC was found to have the most significant correlation with DS-GPA followed by... you guessed it DAT BIO (and AGAIN in 3rd... QR... although here, its pearson's correlation value was not considered "statistically significant").

Basically what I took from this article - 1) adcoms most likely put a lot of weight on the RC and BIO section scores, and 2) contrary to what a lot of people say, QR is apparently pretty important.

The point of this post - I just want the OP (and others) to have a realistic idea of what their scores mean. Nothing is worse than building up extremely high expectations going into something (based on "false" info from others) only to set yourself up for disappointment. But, you never know what adcoms might see in your application... you mentioned that you are ESL, so I'm sure that will be taken into account... remember that scores don't mean everything.

Good luck