Did poorly in Biochemistry .. should I still apply

[Dentalgloss]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi everyone. I recently finished taking my last pre req for dental school and unfortunately did poorly.. I received a D in Biochemistry. Unfortunately, only one professor teaches it in my school and he was was very very difficult. I have had straight A's in all my pre reqs, except for 1 B in chem 2...

My question is, do you think I should still apply to the schools that require biochemistry? Or do you think i probably won't have a chance at all, so I should save my money?

I know some of you might suggest that I retake the class, but honestly speaking, I don't think I can get an A even if i retook the class (since he is the only professor in the school).. and I know taking it at another school will probably be frowned upon.. I will be taking another 300 class next semester to hopefully bring my gpa up, and also show dental schools that I can handle harder classes... Do you guys think I should definitely retake Biochem?

To give a general idea : my OGPA : 3.1, SGPA is now 3.6ish after BIOCHEM grade, DAT : 18 (retaking in may and applying next cycle again)

Thank you for any advice in advance.

 

[Jyggaswoop]

Hi everyone. I recently finished taking my last pre req for dental school and unfortunately did poorly.. I received a D in Biochemistry. Unfortunately, only one professor teaches it in my school and he was was very very difficult. I have had straight A's in all my pre reqs, except for 1 B in chem 2...

My question is, do you think I should still apply to the schools that require biochemistry? Or do you think i probably won't have a chance at all, so I should save my money?

I know some of you might suggest that I retake the class, but honestly speaking, I don't think I can get an A even if i retook the class (since he is the only professor in the school).. and I know taking it at another school will probably be frowned upon.. I will be taking another 300 class next semester to hopefully bring my gpa up, and also show dental schools that I can handle harder classes... Do you guys think I should definitely retake Biochem?

To give a general idea : my OGPA : 3.1, SGPA is now 3.6ish after BIOCHEM grade, DAT : 18 (retaking in may and applying next cycle again)

Thank you for any advice in advance.

Hello, you should probably retake biochemistry for every school, because a D in it looks bad as the NBDE has biochemistry. Even not attaining an A is fine (make sure it's atleast a B). I think the biochem grade + the DAT score isn't a hot look for you. For the DAT I recommend taking it later than May, because there are no more batches anymore, thus submitting your application june 1st doesn't have much of an advantage over submitting everything say mid july. Because everything is online now, I recommend trying to get atleast a 22+ on the DAT by giving yourself more time rather than taking it May and getting say a 20, especially with your oGPA.

 

[predent2151]

It’s really not that big of a deal if you take it somewhere else, if it’s really that hard for you that’s what I would do

 

[Predental4657]

It’s absolutely fine to take it somewhere else, a 4 year University would be preferred however, over a community college. You absolutely have to retake your DAT and do well on it, 18 won’t be helping you out too much especially with a poor grade in biochem.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Predental4657]

It’s absolutely fine to take it somewhere else, a 4 year University would be preferred however, over a community college. You absolutely have to retake your DAT and do well on it, 18 won’t be helping you out too much especially with a poor grade in biochem.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Also, just wondering, what is your major? You definitely have a great Science gpa for applying, but what’s going on with that overall gpa?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

 

[Likkriue]

You will have to retake it for some schools and biochem in dental school is a whole nother beast. So try and figure out what went wrong the first time and fix your mistakes.

 

[Dentalgloss]

Also, just wondering, what is your major? You definitely have a great Science gpa for applying, but what’s going on with that overall gpa?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

Hello,

I was an accounting major when i first started college, I did poorly in all my classes and realized it wasn’t for me, most of my “bad grades” were accounting classes. 🙁 I worked really hard to bring my GPA up to 3.1 by taking dental pre reqs. That’s why there’s such a huge difference between my science GPA and my OGPA

Also, I thought it might be bad because I’ve been to three schools already.. after graduating from undergrad I went to two other schools for my pre reqs, wouldn’t having three other schools for pre reqs look bad?

 

[Dentalgloss]

Hello, you should probably retake biochemistry for every school, because a D in it looks bad as the NBDE has biochemistry. Even not attaining an A is fine (make sure it's atleast a B). I think the biochem grade + the DAT score isn't a hot look for you. For the DAT I recommend taking it later than May, because there are no more batches anymore, thus submitting your application june 1st doesn't have much of an advantage over submitting everything say mid july. Because everything is online now, I recommend trying to get atleast a 22+ on the DAT by giving yourself more time rather than taking it May and getting say a 20, especially with your oGPA.

Thank you for the advice, what do you think about retaking it elsewhere? After graduating from SBU, I started taking pre reqs at HUNTER, and transferred to CITY TECH because hunter didn’t offer orgo I during the fall semester and meant I had to wait a whole year, if I take biochem in Baruch, that would be 3 different schools for pre reqs..

Yes I know my DAT needs a lot of improvement I am trying my best to improve the score

 

[ssdent18]

Thank you for the advice, what do you think about retaking it elsewhere? After graduating from SBU, I started taking pre reqs at HUNTER, and transferred to CITY TECH because hunter didn’t offer orgo I during the fall semester and meant I had to wait a whole year, if I take biochem in Baruch, that would be 3 different schools for pre reqs..

Yes I know my DAT needs a lot of improvement I am trying my best to improve the score

I would just retake the same exact biochem class with the same professor. You might not get an A, but try to aim for a B- at least. Sometimes taking it during the summer helps because there's less students and you can get more help and put all your focus on it. Since you've been through the class once, your second time around you can really aim to score higher on those exams rather than learning the material in detail, since you wont be seeing it for the first time

 

[MLC45]

Thank you for the advice, what do you think about retaking it elsewhere? After graduating from SBU, I started taking pre reqs at HUNTER, and transferred to CITY TECH because hunter didn’t offer orgo I during the fall semester and meant I had to wait a whole year, if I take biochem in Baruch, that would be 3 different schools for pre reqs..

Yes I know my DAT needs a lot of improvement I am trying my best to improve the score

Don’t worry about having 3 schools that you’ve gone to. I had 5 different schools I had to send transcripts from. No one asked or questioned me about it. They only cared which prerequisites I had from a community college and which ones were from a University.

 

[MendiT13]

When I took biochem, I watched Kevin Aherns videos lectures on YouTube. They helped a ton!

 

[doc toothache]

Biochemistry is a course that is part of the ds curricula. Having difficulty with such a course, might make one wonder if history will repeat itself while in ds. If remediation doesn't meet with better results, it might be a case of repeating the year or in the worst case scenario, schools might have to scramble to fill a vacant slot.