Dat help

[quagdingo]

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I am currently a pre-dental student tryign to get into dental school. I registered to take DAT 2 months ago figuring that would give me enough time to study. The way it turns out is that wile taking 18 credits this semester , 12 of which are upper level sciences with lab, I have been extremley bogged down with work , so I only got in 3 days to study for DAT. I am a graduating this year so i have senior status. unfourtionatley, I had a terrible O chem teacher,,but still managed to pull off a B and a C, but learned absolutely nothing...

GPA- 3.11
Science GPA - 3.56

Heres how the DAT went
PAT- 16 (31.2 percentile)
Reading comp 18- (52.2 %)
QR- 16 (65.3%)
Biology - 18 (72.1%)
General Chemistry -21 (91.6%)🙂
Organic chem - 13 (11.5%)👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎
TS-17
AA-17

I also Have about 800 hours working in a dental practice, and 3 good LOR.

I am guessing that I would not be considered a strong applicant by any dental school,

Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do for study methods/ supplemental material.. or did I just shoot my self in the foot with my first DAT attempt. any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[wantVCUdental]

I am currently a pre-dental student tryign to get into dental school. I registered to take DAT 2 months ago figuring that would give me enough time to study. The way it turns out is that wile taking 18 credits this semester , 12 of which are upper level sciences with lab, I have been extremley bogged down with work , so I only got in 3 days to study for DAT. I am a graduating this year so i have senior status. unfourtionatley, I had a terrible O chem teacher,,but still managed to pull off a B and a C, but learned absolutely nothing...

GPA- 3.11
Science GPA - 3.56

Heres how the DAT went
PAT- 16 (31.2 percentile)
Reading comp 18- (52.2 %)
QR- 16 (65.3%)
Biology - 18 (72.1%)
General Chemistry -21 (91.6%)🙂
Organic chem - 13 (11.5%)👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎
TS-17
AA-17

I also Have about 800 hours working in a dental practice, and 3 good LOR.

I am guessing that I would not be considered a strong applicant by any dental school,

Does anyone have any advice as to what I should do for study methods/ supplemental material.. or did I just shoot my self in the foot with my first DAT attempt. any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you

have you applied this cycle? if you applied, then go through with te supplemental, if not then don't apply
17TS and 17AA are national average, unless you are a minority, i don't htink you can pull off a 17DAT with 3.11GPA

I would spend the coming summer focus on prepping.
Good luck

 

[The Anhedonia]

perhaps you could give us more info before anyone makes a conclusive suggestion:

1. what schools did you apply to?

2. when did you apply?

3. do you have any extenuating circumstances?

4. are you an URM?

5. how strong are your extra cirrics/community service/etc.

these are all important factors. however, based purely on your statistics, you are not the strongest of applicants. your science GPA is good, but your sGPA and DAT might bring you down. 😳

 

[Blarelli]

I don't want it to sound like I'm ragging on you, but I don't think any school is going to take anybody that has a 13 on the o-chem portion of the DAT. Start studying for a retake.
As for study materials, just go through your O-chem text again, do problems, and work on areas that you struggle with. Maybe you would benefit from some other things like the ACS official ochem guide. I think it is a great study material if you have a good text book to cross reference with.

 

[Undispu7ed]

I don't want it to sound like I'm ragging on you, but I don't think any school is going to take anybody that has a 13 on the o-chem portion of the DAT. Start studying for a retake.
As for study materials, just go through your O-chem text again, do problems, and work on areas that you struggle with. Maybe you would benefit from some other things like the ACS official ochem guide. I think it is a great study material if you have a good text book to cross reference with.

👍

Recommend that you make time to study for the DAT and retake..

 

[quagdingo]

perhaps you could give us more info before anyone makes a conclusive suggestion:

1. what schools did you apply to?

2. when did you apply?

3. do you have any extenuating circumstances?

4. are you an URM?

5. how strong are your extra cirrics/community service/etc.

these are all important factors. however, based purely on your statistics, you are not the strongest of applicants. your science GPA is good, but your sGPA and DAT might bring you down. 😳

I havent applied to any schools yet, I am going to retake before applying. No extenuating circumstances, Not a URM but my family owns a dental practice, I have been job shadowing since 07. I have about 120 hours of community service, but they all involve working for various churches, nothing medical related.How important of a factor is cum. GPA as compared to science GPA. science is my stronger point but humanities and English bring my cum way down.

 

[mx41]

Wow 3 days of study to get a 17... Imagine if you spent 3 more days

 

[cmills66]

Wow 3 days of study to get a 17... Imagine if you spent 3 more days

Everyone is different but i would say the average applicant needs at least a few weeks of study to feel comfortable with the material.

 

[Aceofspades]

Are you kidding me? You studied for the DAT in 3 days and then took the exam? Let me ask you something, did you study for the SAT for 3 days? This is a professional exam and you are dealing with your professional career. Grow up! Study for the exam as if it was an important step in beginning your professional dental career and then apply.

 

[quagdingo]

Are you kidding me? You studied for the DAT in 3 days and then took the exam? Let me ask you something, did you study for the SAT for 3 days? This is a professional exam and you are dealing with your professional career. Grow up! Study for the exam as if it was an important step in beginning your professional dental career and then apply.

actually lol, I didn't study for SAT at all. I figured for the DAT that it was more important I did well on my exams for my science classes the week of since I can retake the DAT, but If I sacrifice my grades in class for doing well on the DAT then im stuck with a potentially lower GPA. I need a 4.0 this semester to get my GPA to a point where I want to to be for graduation.


So... Just bought :Organic Chemistry: a second language (heard it is supposed to be really good), Cliff Ap bio, cliff ap bio tests, cliff ap chemistry, and cliff ap chemistry tests, and the kaplan blue book. ..all for 60 bucks 🙂 so I plan on absorbing these into my brain before a retake. Does anyone have any suggestions on more study material, Im looking mainly for something that I can actually learn O chem . to be completley honest I do not know a thing about ochem besides the very basics, nomenclature, functional groups, ext... any advice ?

 

[wantVCUdental]

actually lol, I didn't study for SAT at all. I figured for the DAT that it was more important I did well on my exams for my science classes the week of since I can retake the DAT, but If I sacrifice my grades in class for doing well on the DAT then im stuck with a potentially lower GPA. I need a 4.0 this semester to get my GPA to a point where I want to to be for graduation.

Did you know you can push the test date back? if you weren't ready don't ruin your record...

 

[quagdingo]

Did you know you can push the test date back? if you weren't ready don't ruin your record...

seriousley!? i definatley shoudl have done that then, how much do u think a bad first score has effect my chances of getting in even if I do have a good retake?

 

[Badgerfaithful]

People actually study for the SAT/ACT? lol.

Definitely get DAT Destroyer. It helped me dominate the O chem section. Read through the Kaplan O chem and know it, for the basics, then get to know each and every question in DAT Destroyer.