GPA Differences and Undergrad Transfer Student

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Swaggy B

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Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your input is greatly appreciated.

Okay, so I spent my first year as an undergrad student at CSUN but decided to transfer out. In order to do this, I attended a community college and took a bunch of GE courses and successfully managed to transfer to UCLA as a junior this coming fall. Now, my next goal is obviously dental school... (ps: I didn't take any dental pre-reqs at the community college since I heard it's frowned upon. All sciences were taken at my 4-year.)

I have a couple of questions...

To start, my overall GPA right now is 3.58 and my science GPA is much lower at 3.2-ish. Do dental schools completely disregard the 3.58? I've been taking 18-20 units each semester lately so I'm well above full-time. I've also been busy with classes during the summer and winter. I don't know if that matters or not but yeah...

Secondly, I'm worried about my GPA dropping a bit since UCLA is way more competitive than CSUN so earning high grades will be MUCH tougher, especially in the sciences. So my question is, would a dental school see a 3.2 student from UCLA and a 3.2 student from CSUN as equally strong applicants, assuming they have the same extracurriculars?

Extra Info: I'm a history major


Once again, thank you so much.
 
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Your input is greatly appreciated.

Okay, so I spent my first year as an undergrad student at CSUN but decided to transfer out. In order to do this, I attended a community college and took a bunch of GE courses and successfully managed to transfer to UCLA as a junior this coming fall. Now, my next goal is obviously dental school... (ps: I didn't take any dental pre-reqs at the community college since I heard it's frowned upon. All sciences were taken at my 4-year.)

I have a couple of questions...

To start, my overall GPA right now is 3.58 and my science GPA is much lower at 3.2-ish. Do dental schools completely disregard the 3.58? I've been taking 18-20 units each semester lately so I'm well above full-time. I've also been busy with classes during the summer and winter. I don't know if that matters or not but yeah...

Secondly, I'm worried about my GPA dropping a bit since UCLA is way more competitive than CSUN so earning high grades will be MUCH tougher, especially in the sciences. So my question is, would a dental school see a 3.2 student from UCLA and a 3.2 student from CSUN as equally strong applicants, assuming they have the same extracurriculars?

Extra Info: I'm a history major


Once again, thank you so much.

there is so much factors in in differentiating schools' curriculum rigor. i dont think dental school has specific algorithm to decide this. so the best put-advice is go to a school 4 year you can get high GPA on, I live in california also and i know the cal state universities are not as competitive as UC however just try hard.

3.3 in UCLA is similar to 3.4 in CSU northridge but UCLA's 3.3 and 3.5 CSU northridge (3.5 CSU is still higher)

even if you go to the most competitive school on earth, ur gpa still needs to be high to be competitive.

hope it helps
 
Geez. Now I'm questioning my decision to transfer...

Thank you for the response!
 
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