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Long story and breakdown to come later! I'm so glad it's over and I can get on with my life and start my graduation year without the DAT hanging over my head.
I was pleasantly surprised by my scores and literally shook and cried from shock. I literally said to myself during the exam, "well I guess I'm not going to dental school".
If I have the energy I will post a breakdown later.
PA 21
QR 17 (exactly what I expected)
RC 18 (less than expected)
Bio 21
GC 22
OC 24
TS 22 😀
AA 20
Warning: This also contains superfluous information for my own need to share my journey to this point. (please forgive sloppy writing, this is post-exam and I'm beat)
Nearly 2 years ago I posted this question on SDN: "Am I too old for dental school?"
95% of the answers were surprisingly, no.
I was 38 years old when I asked that question and I had been a dental hygienist since the age of 23. I loved my career but I often wondered, what if? I remember myself helping my fellow hygiene students with intro level chemistry and biochemistry and I actually liked it. Some even encouraged me to go for dental school. At that time the thought of making money in my flexible career seemed more desirable.
As the years went on I let that thought go while being busy with having a husband, 2 children and a family. I accepted where I was.
Then a couple of years ago my state allowed dental hygienists to do local anesthesia and I decided to get my permit. Just simply being back in a learning environment made me once again wonder, what if I had gone back then. We did our clinical part of learning how to administer local at a dental clinic. I was then struck with overwhelming regret.
After many conversations with my husband and a few close friends, reading an inspirational story….oh and that post on SDN, all signs pointed to, GO! I looked into what I needed to do to get here. I had to cut my hours at work significantly to get my prerequisites and my bachelor of science. That was the hardest part.
I figured I had nothing to lose, besides income. I would get the bachelor's degree I always wanted and make an attempt to go to dental school. If I don't get in, then I can live with the fact that I tried my best.
So now you see, I am the epitome of non-traditional student. ( :
THE STUDYING EXPERIENCE:
I had to take 2 summer courses, one of which was 4 weeks of physics. That left me no time to study for the DAT until July 3, so I decided to schedule it such that I would have 9 weeks to study. Technically I had 8 weeks as we were away for 1 week but I managed to squeeze 1-3 hours/day during that time.
I had a study buddy and I am so happy I did. She also took her test today (optometry). I don't think I would have made it through all this without her. She was always around to push me or vice versa and of course she was someone I could bitch to.
My study days varied for many factors, work, kids, house stuff, weddings, outings, or whatever, but I would be hard-pressed to find a day where I didn't study at all.
My husband took the kids often so I could get full days in. If I were to give you an average study time/day it would be 7 hours. I studied weekends, nights, mornings, etc. Nothing was off limits.
I did make a schedule that I would follow but I soon found out that I just needed to do what I felt I needed to do. By the time a month went by I realized that this exam was a monster and there is too much to know.
I reviewed gen chem for an entire month before hitting orgo.
Let's not forget math! Please understand when I was highschool, I didn't even have algebra. When I got to college, 20 years ago, I did well in algebra (A). Then I retook it over a year ago as a refresher and then took precalc and a stats class. That's it. So when I did my first math destroyer I was defeated! With each test I grew more desperate. I met a tutor twice for 4 hours total. He helped me but this was an uphill battle for me and I needed time for the other subjects as well. Little did I know I would spend way more time on math than I had expected. If I had an idea of how hard this would be for me I would have started math 6 months ago and slowly learned the subjects that I was lacking in.
THE TEST EXPERIENCE:
I am not one to just relax before any exam, so why should this one be any different? I did however, go to sleep by 10pm last night. I slept well and had a light breakfast with my kids. My mom got here at 10am to watch my kids and I went and got a pedicure. I studied barrons bio cards during that time. I then drove to the testing center early. I listened to some rocking tunes and got myself pumped up. I must admit I got a little emotional, as I couldn't believe it was time. When I got there they said they could take me right away if I want, but I was way too nervous and I waited the hour. I was way to nervous to eat but I had a couple bites of my sandwich and a sip of water.
I was able to bring earplugs in. I got my 2 laminated sheets with crappy markers that I traded in during my break for even crappier markers. I was able to write down gc formulas and make my grids and such during my 15 min tutorial, although I had a fear that someone would come yell at me for doing so.
After PAT I did the bathroom run and attempted to eat my snickers bar….yup, just like the commercial, "gonna be a while?" I only could eat a couple of bites, I was just too worked up. At this point I didn't feel great about my performance.
I sat back down with about 2 min to spare…(that 15 min goes fast!) I started numbering for paragraphs and I wrote a few math formulas down.
BIOLOGY: Was harder than I thought it would be but luckily I have a strong bio background and I held my own here. There were a few taxonomy questions, no plants, and the usual genetics, cell questions. I can't remember if there were kidney function questions but if there weren't there should have been dammit!
Cliffs, Qvault, Barron's AP bio flash cards, youtube, and some of Chad's new bio videos.
GC: This was way easier than Topscore! I think Chad pretty much has got this one covered. His quizzes are awesome and there are video explanations to boot! I watched all of gen chem twice and took notes. Sometimes I watched a couple of videos a 3rd time just to make sure I was getting it. I think I watched the quantum numbers 4 times! Ugh, I think I got it now! My friend and I had a good laugh at some of his jokes which helped break up the monotony. The man is a literal genius! I did do all of GC destroyer once and I'm sure that helped as well….especially with those odd-ball questions.
OC: I am a wacko…I liked OC (except hated lab, LOL). It's like doing puzzles. I did just a portion of OC destroyer question but we rocked the road maps. We put them on a big whiteboard at school without answers and would fill them in over an over again. Once again, Chad rocks with his videos and quizzes. I watched all the orgo videos once.
PAT: This was harder than CPAT!
Keyhole: The keyholes were doable but I can see what people mean by proportions and more difficult shapes. I think this section wasn't too bad though for me.
TFE: Harder than CPAT for me. I guessed a lot here when on CPAT I was getting near 100% every time near the last bunch of tests.
Angles: I was hoping for the easy ones I heard about! Nope, mine were just as hard as CPAT! It took me so long to get through them, ugh!
Cubes: Nothing fancy and a bit easier (less cubes) than CPAT
Holepunch: Easier than CPAT, nothing more than a few half punches and some odd folds but some really super easy ones.
Pattern fold: Much harder than CPAT! On CPAT you can more easily picture the folds and eliminate the imposters, on the real thing I had a hard time eliminating more than 1!
In the end I had about 8 minutes to spare so I went and made sure I counted my cubes correctly and re-evaluated my marked ones.
Reading comprehension: I spent way too much time on my first passage. By my second passage I got tired. I felt defeated and I wasn't comprehending questions. I had to read them a couple of times to get what they wanted from me. I had a lot of tone, first one true, 2nd one false, etc type questions. Very little search and destroy! This was the point where I questioned if I would even become a dentist….I just felt so defeated. I did 2 CDAT RC for this. I am/was an avid reader of novels and non-fiction but I guess since I don't pick up medical journals and studies that doesn't help much here.
QR: Well, I'm glad I got a 17…I thought it would be lower to be honest. I ran out of time and guessed on the last 3 as well. I really put such in effort into this section and it's sad but I'm happy with my 17. I did all of math destroyer and math qvault for this and many I did twice.
ADA 2009:
Bio:21
GC: 21
OC: 19
PA: 21
QR: 18
RC: 19
Topscore scores: (1,2,3)
AA (17,18,17)
Bio(16,17,17)
GC (17,16,15)
OC (14,19,14)
QR (17,16,19)
RC (19,23,20)
TS (16,17,16)
Topscore was good practice for stamina and was good for going over weaknesses. As you can see, not very representative of the real deal. I also learned to gauge my time because my third exam I left myself only 14 minutes for orgo and got a 14 because of it.
Qvault Bio 1-10
20,19,16,17,18,19,18,19,18,19
Qvault Math 1-10
18,15,20,20,19,17,18,18,19,19
Crack Reading Test 1, 19 ....Test 2, 21
Due to time constraints and purely believing that doing any more of this would not help me at all, I only did 2 tests. I'm upset that I didn't do better in this section. I was coming around the home stretch and just started losing it.
Crack PAT 1-5 untimed
1 (practiced all sections separately a few times before doing a full-length test)
21,18,18,21
6-10 timed
19,20,19,21,20
I then did 9 tests over again and scored 22 on my last three. All that practice helped me get much faster at cube counting and I developed my own methods to eliminate pattern folding choices etc. The biggest help was the line of symmetry tutorial for holepunching. I literally went from guessing to getting all or near all correct every time.
I think that's all I got..(that's enough!) Feel free to PM me or ask questions and I hope my breakdown helps someone out there in SDN land!
Update: Applied to 2 schools
Interview done on Nov. 9th (fingers crossed!)
Update: Found out on Dec. 3 just before 8AM that I was accepted!
I was pleasantly surprised by my scores and literally shook and cried from shock. I literally said to myself during the exam, "well I guess I'm not going to dental school".
If I have the energy I will post a breakdown later.
PA 21
QR 17 (exactly what I expected)
RC 18 (less than expected)
Bio 21
GC 22
OC 24
TS 22 😀
AA 20
Warning: This also contains superfluous information for my own need to share my journey to this point. (please forgive sloppy writing, this is post-exam and I'm beat)
Nearly 2 years ago I posted this question on SDN: "Am I too old for dental school?"
95% of the answers were surprisingly, no.
I was 38 years old when I asked that question and I had been a dental hygienist since the age of 23. I loved my career but I often wondered, what if? I remember myself helping my fellow hygiene students with intro level chemistry and biochemistry and I actually liked it. Some even encouraged me to go for dental school. At that time the thought of making money in my flexible career seemed more desirable.
As the years went on I let that thought go while being busy with having a husband, 2 children and a family. I accepted where I was.
Then a couple of years ago my state allowed dental hygienists to do local anesthesia and I decided to get my permit. Just simply being back in a learning environment made me once again wonder, what if I had gone back then. We did our clinical part of learning how to administer local at a dental clinic. I was then struck with overwhelming regret.
After many conversations with my husband and a few close friends, reading an inspirational story….oh and that post on SDN, all signs pointed to, GO! I looked into what I needed to do to get here. I had to cut my hours at work significantly to get my prerequisites and my bachelor of science. That was the hardest part.
I figured I had nothing to lose, besides income. I would get the bachelor's degree I always wanted and make an attempt to go to dental school. If I don't get in, then I can live with the fact that I tried my best.
So now you see, I am the epitome of non-traditional student. ( :
THE STUDYING EXPERIENCE:
I had to take 2 summer courses, one of which was 4 weeks of physics. That left me no time to study for the DAT until July 3, so I decided to schedule it such that I would have 9 weeks to study. Technically I had 8 weeks as we were away for 1 week but I managed to squeeze 1-3 hours/day during that time.
I had a study buddy and I am so happy I did. She also took her test today (optometry). I don't think I would have made it through all this without her. She was always around to push me or vice versa and of course she was someone I could bitch to.
My study days varied for many factors, work, kids, house stuff, weddings, outings, or whatever, but I would be hard-pressed to find a day where I didn't study at all.
My husband took the kids often so I could get full days in. If I were to give you an average study time/day it would be 7 hours. I studied weekends, nights, mornings, etc. Nothing was off limits.
I did make a schedule that I would follow but I soon found out that I just needed to do what I felt I needed to do. By the time a month went by I realized that this exam was a monster and there is too much to know.
I reviewed gen chem for an entire month before hitting orgo.
Let's not forget math! Please understand when I was highschool, I didn't even have algebra. When I got to college, 20 years ago, I did well in algebra (A). Then I retook it over a year ago as a refresher and then took precalc and a stats class. That's it. So when I did my first math destroyer I was defeated! With each test I grew more desperate. I met a tutor twice for 4 hours total. He helped me but this was an uphill battle for me and I needed time for the other subjects as well. Little did I know I would spend way more time on math than I had expected. If I had an idea of how hard this would be for me I would have started math 6 months ago and slowly learned the subjects that I was lacking in.
THE TEST EXPERIENCE:
I am not one to just relax before any exam, so why should this one be any different? I did however, go to sleep by 10pm last night. I slept well and had a light breakfast with my kids. My mom got here at 10am to watch my kids and I went and got a pedicure. I studied barrons bio cards during that time. I then drove to the testing center early. I listened to some rocking tunes and got myself pumped up. I must admit I got a little emotional, as I couldn't believe it was time. When I got there they said they could take me right away if I want, but I was way too nervous and I waited the hour. I was way to nervous to eat but I had a couple bites of my sandwich and a sip of water.
I was able to bring earplugs in. I got my 2 laminated sheets with crappy markers that I traded in during my break for even crappier markers. I was able to write down gc formulas and make my grids and such during my 15 min tutorial, although I had a fear that someone would come yell at me for doing so.
After PAT I did the bathroom run and attempted to eat my snickers bar….yup, just like the commercial, "gonna be a while?" I only could eat a couple of bites, I was just too worked up. At this point I didn't feel great about my performance.
I sat back down with about 2 min to spare…(that 15 min goes fast!) I started numbering for paragraphs and I wrote a few math formulas down.
BIOLOGY: Was harder than I thought it would be but luckily I have a strong bio background and I held my own here. There were a few taxonomy questions, no plants, and the usual genetics, cell questions. I can't remember if there were kidney function questions but if there weren't there should have been dammit!
Cliffs, Qvault, Barron's AP bio flash cards, youtube, and some of Chad's new bio videos.
GC: This was way easier than Topscore! I think Chad pretty much has got this one covered. His quizzes are awesome and there are video explanations to boot! I watched all of gen chem twice and took notes. Sometimes I watched a couple of videos a 3rd time just to make sure I was getting it. I think I watched the quantum numbers 4 times! Ugh, I think I got it now! My friend and I had a good laugh at some of his jokes which helped break up the monotony. The man is a literal genius! I did do all of GC destroyer once and I'm sure that helped as well….especially with those odd-ball questions.
OC: I am a wacko…I liked OC (except hated lab, LOL). It's like doing puzzles. I did just a portion of OC destroyer question but we rocked the road maps. We put them on a big whiteboard at school without answers and would fill them in over an over again. Once again, Chad rocks with his videos and quizzes. I watched all the orgo videos once.
PAT: This was harder than CPAT!
Keyhole: The keyholes were doable but I can see what people mean by proportions and more difficult shapes. I think this section wasn't too bad though for me.
TFE: Harder than CPAT for me. I guessed a lot here when on CPAT I was getting near 100% every time near the last bunch of tests.
Angles: I was hoping for the easy ones I heard about! Nope, mine were just as hard as CPAT! It took me so long to get through them, ugh!
Cubes: Nothing fancy and a bit easier (less cubes) than CPAT
Holepunch: Easier than CPAT, nothing more than a few half punches and some odd folds but some really super easy ones.
Pattern fold: Much harder than CPAT! On CPAT you can more easily picture the folds and eliminate the imposters, on the real thing I had a hard time eliminating more than 1!
In the end I had about 8 minutes to spare so I went and made sure I counted my cubes correctly and re-evaluated my marked ones.
Reading comprehension: I spent way too much time on my first passage. By my second passage I got tired. I felt defeated and I wasn't comprehending questions. I had to read them a couple of times to get what they wanted from me. I had a lot of tone, first one true, 2nd one false, etc type questions. Very little search and destroy! This was the point where I questioned if I would even become a dentist….I just felt so defeated. I did 2 CDAT RC for this. I am/was an avid reader of novels and non-fiction but I guess since I don't pick up medical journals and studies that doesn't help much here.
QR: Well, I'm glad I got a 17…I thought it would be lower to be honest. I ran out of time and guessed on the last 3 as well. I really put such in effort into this section and it's sad but I'm happy with my 17. I did all of math destroyer and math qvault for this and many I did twice.
ADA 2009:
Bio:21
GC: 21
OC: 19
PA: 21
QR: 18
RC: 19
Topscore scores: (1,2,3)
AA (17,18,17)
Bio(16,17,17)
GC (17,16,15)
OC (14,19,14)
QR (17,16,19)
RC (19,23,20)
TS (16,17,16)
Topscore was good practice for stamina and was good for going over weaknesses. As you can see, not very representative of the real deal. I also learned to gauge my time because my third exam I left myself only 14 minutes for orgo and got a 14 because of it.
Qvault Bio 1-10
20,19,16,17,18,19,18,19,18,19
Qvault Math 1-10
18,15,20,20,19,17,18,18,19,19
Crack Reading Test 1, 19 ....Test 2, 21
Due to time constraints and purely believing that doing any more of this would not help me at all, I only did 2 tests. I'm upset that I didn't do better in this section. I was coming around the home stretch and just started losing it.
Crack PAT 1-5 untimed
1 (practiced all sections separately a few times before doing a full-length test)
21,18,18,21
6-10 timed
19,20,19,21,20
I then did 9 tests over again and scored 22 on my last three. All that practice helped me get much faster at cube counting and I developed my own methods to eliminate pattern folding choices etc. The biggest help was the line of symmetry tutorial for holepunching. I literally went from guessing to getting all or near all correct every time.
I think that's all I got..(that's enough!) Feel free to PM me or ask questions and I hope my breakdown helps someone out there in SDN land!
Update: Applied to 2 schools
Interview done on Nov. 9th (fingers crossed!)
Update: Found out on Dec. 3 just before 8AM that I was accepted!
Last edited:
Thank you for the well-wishes, I'll let you know if/when I hear something! 
