Do schools really look at applications in the order they are received?

[lilchinoboy03]

There probably isn't a definitive answer for this question on this forum, but do you guys really think dental schools review applications in the order they are received. Let's say a dental school begins reviewing applications in August. Do you think they will just look at all the complete applications they have in no particular order? Or do you think they keep track of date of completion of applications and look at the ones they received first before later ones?

Answering this might not change much, but it's interesting to think about and discuss.

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[z3u2]

well there's gotta be "some" particular order that they look at, even though i doubt if any ordering makes a difference

reason why i think there's some particular order is because they have to store all the data on their computer in certain order, whether by applicant's last name + first name, social security number, aadsas id, dat score, gpa, birthday etc (last name or ssn or aadsas id is the most reasonable way)

they are not only going to pull out an applicant's data at random, review it and put it back in, there's gotta be an order one way or the other

 

[whoaaitzkyle]

I don't know anything myself about the process. I would think it doesn't matter when you submit as long as they have it received before they begin reviewing. Let's say they review in August... if you don't have your app in, I would think you'd be looked at after the apps they received early but in terms of submitting May or June I wouldn't think there's a diff but that's just my opinion. who knows, all we're told is it's rolling admissions and it's smart to apply as early as you can!

 

[SugarNaCl]

One school that I called said "your application I'm sure is in the pile somewhere. We will just say it is under review." That is when I realized it was a waste of money for me to have applied to Howard.

I have no idea what order they use or if they lump different AADSAS sent outs together and review them in order... but I do know that some schools just look at GPA and DAT first to see if you make their personal cutoff before they review your application at all.

 

[collegeboy30000]

One school that I called said "your application I'm sure is in the pile somewhere. We will just say it is under review." That is when I realized it was a waste of money for me to have applied to Howard.

::cough:itt

..... but I do know that some schools just look at GPA and DAT first to see if you make their personal cutoff before they review your application at all.

::cough::Nova

 

[osuwannabe]

I know that some schools will begin working on apps immediately and group them together and accept the best of that group. (Case specifically, but others also)

If your app is submitted to these schools later, you are at a severe disadvantage due to the statistics.

NaCl is right though. If you don't meet the minimums for DAT and GPA you won't get past the first cut anyway.