How do YOU retain Science information? Should I take the easy road?

What makes or breaks an A student from what I've seen is how many times you review the material. For orgo for example, I would go through the required readings in the textbook for a certain test slowly once and would know it inside and out over a course of a couple days. But there's always that kid who started maybe a week earlier and went over the required readings twice. These people recognize the small things that a professor may ask on a test and get those couple points extra. I got an A- in orgo while that kid who always went through the material more than once got an A. Being in a frat is quite the distraction and you just need to manage your time between school and having fun. Take days off from going out before tests and actually care about your grades and you will be successful.

 

I would highly suggest majoring in something that you actually enjoy, and like you said, just hit all the prerequisite classes needed for dental schools. That's exactly what I did, and I was able to balance all my major, pre-health, and general school requirements by only taking 4 courses a semester and their accompanying labs (I went to a liberal arts college so we had to take religion, philosophy, history, art, cultural, etc. on top of everything else). It's do-able and not frowned upon to major in something other than the physical sciences. It might even actually make you stand out as an applicant and show to adcoms that you may be a little more well-rounded in other aspects than purely science.

 

I haven't even applied yet lol because I intend on applying next cycle. But I know from reading other threads in the past that it ultimately does not matter what you major in as long as you finish the prerequisites. Dental schools stress this as well; it's mentioned on their websites. What you choose to major in is ultimately up to you, and dental schools won't penalize you for it. My pre-health committee gives us a packet of information every year and compiles statistics of other alum at my college who have gotten into medical/dental/vet schools and I have seen math, English, sociology, visual arts, economics, and psych majors get accepted.

For instance, I'm looking at the packet right now and there was one alum '08 who majored in visual arts and got accepted to NYU, Buffalo, Uconn, and Pitt with a 3.4 GPA/2.81 sGPA/19 AA DAT. Another example: alum '10 majored in economics, got accepted to Columbia, Marquette, and BU with a 3.19 GPA/2.54 sGPA/23 AA DAT. Those two applicants applied in 2012. Although these stats look low, take them in with a grain of salt because 1.) this was 3 years ago; 2.) my school is notoriously difficult with grading so our scale may be viewed a bit differently to adcoms. Keep in mind that the numbers aren't everything! Be involved in activities as well.

 

Just take the pre reqs and major in something you like and that can provide a back up I case you don't get in

 

Get a major in whatever you like. (In your case it might be good to have a major that provides you with a plan B.) And it's pretty simple: If you want to do good in science courses you need to spend a lot of time. Read the book. Reread the book. Look over the class notes. Do an ample amount of practice problems. Go over practice tests. Make flashcards. Talk to the professor if you really don't understand something. Simply put, if you study hard you will get good grades. Some science classes just require more work.

 

It depends. With organic chemistry, there are a ton of sites that you can find to help you with IR spectroscopy and proton NMR and things like that. However, with most science classes professors will have practice tests that are from previous years that they will let students look over to get a feel for what the test will be like. So yeah, it's all depends at the class you are taking. For biology, our professors made us do masteringbiology.com homework sets that helped immensely to learn the material. But yeah, all that type of stuff will be discussed in the respective classes.

 

Yes it will.