I just finished my freshman year in college. I am a biology major and have decided that I want to go into dentistry. For all of the people that got into multiple dental schools, what extracurriculars did you participate in? What kinds of activities should I engage in, in order to get into dental school? What kinds of research(the school I am transferring to doesn't do any kind of dental research)? When did you start studying for the DAT? What materials did you use? Any advise is appreciated.
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getting into dental school
- Thread starter pre_dental_Dana
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Dana (assuming that's your name):
You have many great questions. Although it's never too early to plan your career move, but I feel that you may be trying to do too much at this time of your academic time line.
Couple of suggestions I can share with you. Since you've just completed your freshman year in college, your undergraduate GPA is what you want to concentrate on! Your GPA is the most important thing at this time.
Second, find a dentist to shadow. Spend a good amount of time shadowing a dental private practice. I'd recommend 4 hours/day at least 2 days/week during this summer.
Aside from these two things, GPA and shadowing, the rest is all extras.
Dental research: unless you're extremely interested in research, I don't recommend it until your Junior or Senior year. I say this because during a research experience, there will be A LOT of research "lingual/vocabularies" that you will not have learned or even heard yet such as endonuclease restriction enzymes, enzyme-linked immunoassay, or a SDS-PAGE. You see, by the time, you're a Junior in college, you should at least have heard of these terms or techniques if not already performed them. Plus a lot of the time, research labs will discourage college sophmores in their labs because they don't like to train the students since they have very little exposure to research and background.
DAT studies: again, don't wory about this until your summer after your sophmore year at the earliest! Same deal, a lot of the DAT content/materials you have not had yet. It would be very frustrated for you try to study the DAT right now.
Extracurriculars: just continue to do what you do, whether it's clubs or organizations. If you're not involved, then get involved. I say this not because dental schools like it, but it's just things to do to better your college experience!
RECAP: start to shadow dentists to learn what dentistry is all about and keep up your GPA!
Good luck and great to have you on Dental SDN!
😎
You have many great questions. Although it's never too early to plan your career move, but I feel that you may be trying to do too much at this time of your academic time line.
Couple of suggestions I can share with you. Since you've just completed your freshman year in college, your undergraduate GPA is what you want to concentrate on! Your GPA is the most important thing at this time.
Second, find a dentist to shadow. Spend a good amount of time shadowing a dental private practice. I'd recommend 4 hours/day at least 2 days/week during this summer.
Aside from these two things, GPA and shadowing, the rest is all extras.
Dental research: unless you're extremely interested in research, I don't recommend it until your Junior or Senior year. I say this because during a research experience, there will be A LOT of research "lingual/vocabularies" that you will not have learned or even heard yet such as endonuclease restriction enzymes, enzyme-linked immunoassay, or a SDS-PAGE. You see, by the time, you're a Junior in college, you should at least have heard of these terms or techniques if not already performed them. Plus a lot of the time, research labs will discourage college sophmores in their labs because they don't like to train the students since they have very little exposure to research and background.
DAT studies: again, don't wory about this until your summer after your sophmore year at the earliest! Same deal, a lot of the DAT content/materials you have not had yet. It would be very frustrated for you try to study the DAT right now.
Extracurriculars: just continue to do what you do, whether it's clubs or organizations. If you're not involved, then get involved. I say this not because dental schools like it, but it's just things to do to better your college experience!
RECAP: start to shadow dentists to learn what dentistry is all about and keep up your GPA!
Good luck and great to have you on Dental SDN!
😎
