How important are extra-curriculars???

[DMD-2-B]

Hey guys,

I'm kind of in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and I was wondering if anyone has any advice.

I'm a non-trad student who recently made the decision to pursue dentistry. I made the decision after much thought, then quit my job and jumped into school two weeks later. Since then I have been doing nothing but loading up on classes in order to finish my pre-reqs by application time for Fall '07.

The thing is I haven't done much in terms of:

- research (none),
- shadowing (none),
- volunteer work (some with groups for children who stutter)

I'm taking organic I and bio I now, which are both killer classes, and I'm taking part II of both in the spring.

I wanna do research/volunteer/shadow, but am worried that time away from my classes will bring my grades down, and I wanna keep them up so I can get accepted into dental school.

BUT I'm also worried that if I DON"T do research/volunteer/shadow I won't get accepted into dental school.

What on earth should I do??? What's more desirable:

a - great grades with almost no extra-curriculars

OR

b - decent grades with extra-curriculars

What would you do?

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[shabu2]

Hey guys,

I'm kind of in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation and I was wondering if anyone has any advice.

I'm a non-trad student who recently made the decision to pursue dentistry. I made the decision after much thought, then quit my job and jumped into school two weeks later. Since then I have been doing nothing but loading up on classes in order to finish my pre-reqs by application time for Fall '07.

The thing is I haven't done much in terms of:

- research (none),
- shadowing (none),
- volunteer work (some with groups for children who stutter)

I'm taking organic I and bio I now, which are both killer classes, and I'm taking part II of both in the spring.

I wanna do research/volunteer/shadow, but am worried that time away from my classes will bring my grades down, and I wanna keep them up so I can get accepted into dental school.

BUT I'm also worried that if I DON"T do research/volunteer/shadow I won't get accepted into dental school.

What on earth should I do??? What's more desirable:

a - great grades with almost no extra-curriculars

OR

b - decent grades with extra-curriculars

What would you do?

Get great grades and rock the DAT. Xtras matter if you had borderline grades and mediocre DATs

 

[DMD-2-B]

Get great grades and rock the DAT. Xtras matter if you had borderline grades and mediocre DATs

Shabu2, do you say this from personal experience? I see you're at Columbia - did you have extra-curriculars under your belt before you applied?

 

[aphistis]

Duplicate thread, closing. Feel free to contribute to the open pre-dental thread.