I was looking through my ADA guide and saw that few schools had accepted students--one school with very low GPA's like 2.09 and 2.32 and was wondering under what circumstances do adcoms accept students with low GPAs? I'm sure is based on potential, but what would make it ok in the eyes of the adcoms? Many students have rough starts in college and many low grades and then a huge upward trend with very high GPA's and DAT at the end, but still their first yrs keeps their GPA low....but what kind of things are they looking for? That it was health related, death in the family, financial hardship.....or the other side like too young and irresponsible, immature, and that the student is mature now, etc....
Where or how do they draw the line? What would make them close the door on some and open the door to others?
UOP has 2.64 and 2.67 GPA low range. I have the 2008 guide.
First of all, I wouldn't really trust all the numbers and statistics that I see. I'm not saying that the ADA guide is making up numbers. What I mean is that if you actually ask students who are already attending schools like UCLA, UCSF, UoP, etc. they'll tell you that very few people in their class have low GPAs and low DATs. Of course, there are always those few who make it with mediocre stats. So, when a school says that their minimum GPA requirement is lets say 2 something, you gotte ask yourself: how many applicants with a GPA in that range actually get accepted into that school? After all, there are many applicants with extremely high GPAs and highly competitive DAT scores out there, and as long as schools have such a competitive applicant pool to choose from, I don't see why they would consider people with low GPAs and/or DAT scores, regardless of what the justification for their poor performance might be. So, although schools may post a low minimum GPA requirement on their websites, I think it'll be very difficult to get into a decent school with anything below 3.2, considering today's competition, and even then you'll need competitive DAT scores to compensate for the relatively low GPA.
Of course, schools claim that they look at the entire application (volunteer work, shadowing experience, research, etc.). But lets face it, high GPA and DAT scores are very appealing to each and every dental school, because they are indicative of your academic performance, which will in fact determine whether or not you could survive dental school. So, personally, I think that even if you have a heap of extra curricular activities, but your stats aren't that impressive, then you'll have a hard time getting into many dental schools; whereas, if you have amazing stats and very little extra curricular activity under your belt, your chances of getting acceptance would be much greater.
Again, this is simply my opinion and you shouldn't take it as a fact!
