High School Student

[azncheng]

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Im currently a high school student..
My Stats.
1180 SAT (math+reading)....🙁
3.6 GPA
17th percentile class rank
lots of extracurriculur including gov. school

Im really interested in dental. so what should i do to prepare?
and what are my chances?
I'm also interested in UPITT for undergrad, the gov school was also
hosted there. And i am also interested in the gauranteed admission for dental school. Any ideas? support?

 

[Dent010]

take a science major since it falls in line with dental pre-reqs. Do your best to get as close to a 4.0 as possible. Volunteer in your community. Shadow a few dentists. Join a pre-dental club. Ace your DAT the summer before your senior year and apply to schools. Do all of that and you are a sure shot somewhere! TAKE MY ADVICE! do your best! every year it really does continuously get more difficult to get into school. Good luck and pm me if you have questions. i am no pro, but i can tell you what not to do.

 

[TedyBearSuicide]

Only math and reading? Did you take the old version of SAT?

Where are the scores of the new writing/essay portion?

 

[azncheng]

Only math and reading? Did you take the old version of SAT?

Where are the scores of the new writing/essay portion?

writing is 610 and essaay is 9

but the schools that im applying to don't look at writing

 

[azncheng]

take a science major since it falls in line with dental pre-reqs. Do your best to get as close to a 4.0 as possible. Volunteer in your community. Shadow a few dentists. Join a pre-dental club. Ace your DAT the summer before your senior year and apply to schools. Do all of that and you are a sure shot somewhere! TAKE MY ADVICE! do your best! every year it really does continuously get more difficult to get into school. Good luck and pm me if you have questions. i am no pro, but i can tell you what not to do.

thanks for the advice!

by the way...if you were a biology major...how hard/tough/demanding is it?

 

[cmcner]

A bio major isn't easy. Most schools have a weeding out process and less than half of the people who start out as bio majors will actually finish as bio majors. That being said the required courses for dental school almost make you a bio major any way so there is no easy road and I'd either do a bio major or some slightly science major if it was offered.

As far as advice goes if I could do it over again and I knew going into college what I wanted to do I would go to a school with a 7 year dental program. Saving that year would be nice.

I also would take as many non science AP exams as possible (not necessarily the classes) and just study from the book. That free college credit such a great time saver and can give you other advantages like early scheduling at some schools. I say not science because most dental schools don't accept AP credit and you'll have to retake the class anyway even if you got a 5.

Also in high school I had fluff classes to raise my GPA and I didn't have them in college. I learned the hard way that a B- is a 2.7 and that they really take a toll on your GPA. Actually even a B+ is a 3.3 and you will want to graduate above that so every under an A- will hurt you.

Finally, admissions committees want to see interesting people find stuff you love and do it. Become a leader be diversified and in the process you'll obtain the strength to do a number of things, including dentistry.

Good luck and I hope you do well.

 

[azncheng]

A bio major isn't easy. Most schools have a weeding out process and less than half of the people who start out as bio majors will actually finish as bio majors. That being said the required courses for dental school almost make you a bio major any way so there is no easy road and I'd either do a bio major or some slightly science major if it was offered.

As far as advice goes if I could do it over again and I knew going into college what I wanted to do I would go to a school with a 7 year dental program. Saving that year would be nice.

I also would take as many non science AP exams as possible (not necessarily the classes) and just study from the book. That free college credit such a great time saver and can give you other advantages like early scheduling at some schools. I say not science because most dental schools don't accept AP credit and you'll have to retake the class anyway even if you got a 5.

Also in high school I had fluff classes to raise my GPA and I didn't have them in college. I learned the hard way that a B- is a 2.7 and that they really take a toll on your GPA. Actually even a B+ is a 3.3 and you will want to graduate above that so every under an A- will hurt you.

Finally, admissions committees want to see interesting people find stuff you love and do it. Become a leader be diversified and in the process you'll obtain the strength to do a number of things, including dentistry.

Good luck and I hope you do well.

so i was thinking...since bio is such a tough major...
what about something really random like chinese..since im really
into it? how woudl that work out..do i have to tell the college advisor that i want to go to dental school and they need to put me in the pre-req courses..also would a chinese major be something that stands out
for the commitee?

 

[cmcner]

so i was thinking...since bio is such a tough major...
what about something really random like chinese..since im really
into it? how woudl that work out..do i have to tell the college advisor that i want to go to dental school and they need to put me in the pre-req courses..also would a chinese major be something that stands out
for the commitee?

You can major in anything you want. The thing I've heard over and over again is that no major puts you at either an advantage or a disadvantage for dental admissions. You would have to tell the college adviser that you want to be pre-health because if you don't start your science classes freshman year you get behind. The only difficulty with choosing a non-science major is fitting in the classes, basically you'll be close to double majoring if you're not a science major.

The prerequests for dental school are:
1 year Bio w/ lab, 1 year gen chem w/ lab, 1 year organic chem w/ lab, 1 year physics w/ lab
and then depending on the school sometimes calculus, biochem, anatomy, physiology, statistics, english, and social sciences to name a few.

Choosing a different major is fine and you should study something you're interested in but make sure you realize that you have to fit all of those required courses in as well. And in the end they don't care about your major only your GPA so don't overload and set yourself up for failure. That being said you will have core classes for your college and you will get to try out some of your interests in those courses to see if you want to take them further and major or minor in them.

 

[erichen]

You can apply to fast track programs offered by UoP, UPenn, and a few others. Just do some research, most of them are 7-year programs. I was admitted to the UPenn one where I would go to Lehigh University (feeder school) for 3 years, and if I completed the undergrad program with a 3.3+ GPA (I think) and 18 minimum in Total Science, Academic Average, and PAT, I would have guaranteed admission to UPenn. I opted out of the program because of cost, but I sometimes regret that. I don't know any state schools that do this, but there might be some. If you are confident you will do well in the undergraduate institution of your choice (3.5+) then perhaps going to a more expensive fast track program might not be necessary. The programs are very selective, my stats were 4.2, 2100, and VP NHS, Varsity Captain tennis and badminton, and I think i just barely got in. Good luck though!

Blessings,

Eric

 

[azncheng]

You can apply to fast track programs offered by UoP, UPenn, and a few others. Just do some research, most of them are 7-year programs.

for pacific...with my sat's...i don't qualify to be considered for
their 7 year dental :[ but i'm retaking SATs in october...and therefore need to jump 70 points.... :\
anyways..how competitive is the program? and since im out of state...how good are the chances?

 

[wantVCUdental]

I agree with eric, to be admitted in to the accelerated programs, u need very very high stats.
i had the same stats as him when i applied, but i was applying from outside the country i guess, cuz i got rejected... lol
though no matter, my advice is to go to a crappy school and get as high a gpa as u can, don't go to competitive schools where it's hard to get marks