i'm new and need advice :)

[banana414]

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Hello everyone! 🙂

I recently switched my career choice from dentistry to optometry, and I don't know where to start and I don't know if I'm even competitive enough for this field.

I would like to start by knowing a few things. Does anyone know the average matriculated GPAs and OAT scores? Do schools care mostly about cGPA rather than BCP?

My cGPA is 3.54.
My BCP is about 3.08
My sGPA is about 3.38 (I don't know exactly what specific classes count here... anyone know?)
I have a bachelor's degree in biology.

I don't know what OAT score I should be aiming for to be a competitive applicant. Do schools only care about Academic Average and Total Science, or will they care if I bombed a section (physics, for example) but did well in others.

Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks! 🙂

 

[bobbio]

Hello everyone! 🙂

I recently switched my career choice from dentistry to optometry, and I don't know where to start and I don't know if I'm even competitive enough for this field.

I would like to start by knowing a few things. Does anyone know the average matriculated GPAs and OAT scores? Do schools care mostly about cGPA rather than BCP?

My cGPA is 3.54.
My BCP is about 3.08
My sGPA is about 3.38 (I don't know exactly what specific classes count here... anyone know?)
I have a bachelor's degree in biology.

I don't know what OAT score I should be aiming for to be a competitive applicant. Do schools only care about Academic Average and Total Science, or will they care if I bombed a section (physics, for example) but did well in others.

Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks! 🙂

Just curious, why the change?
You can try opted.org to see if it answers your questions. If not, then you can probably search these forums.
I think bombing any section will raise red flags so it's best to try to do well. Good luck with the application process.

 

[banana414]

I realized I couldn't see teeth everyday for the next 40 years. Also, my fiance is in his last year of Optometry school and got me interested in it 🙂

Do you think I am competitive enough for optometry? I don't know how well I'll do on the OAT.... Physics scare me.

 

[Rhodopsin]

Hi Banana414: lol, totally agree about the teeth. Plus, a lot of people associate their dentists with pain, so it tends to be quite a thankless profession. I've never met anyone who hated their optometrist- although I've met quite a few who hated their ophthalmologist haha.

To answer your question, you are definitely competitive for optometry! (from what we know anyways- OAT is like 50% of the application usually. Did you take the DAT? If you did well on that the OAT is very similar, even made by the same company) Every school calculates their gpa differently, so it's hard to tell on what they prefer. Your science gpa is fairly comparable to your cgpa, which is an awesome sign (obviously the schools want to know that you can handle heavy science courses) I don't think they'll care a ton if your BCP gpa isn't overly awesome, because everyone has their weaknesses. (Mine is biochemistry- where my gpa ia 2.6. I didn't even get asked about it because the rest of my marks are quite good) Science gpa is just your classes in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, and I'm pretty certain they count math in there too. (Anthropology, psychology and stuff like that doesn't count- even if it's a very science-y type course, like brain physiology or evolution) How is your sgpa that much higher than your bcp? Pacific where I'm going only really counts your last 1.5-2 years depending on courseload- so if you have an upward trend that will only help your odds. (all schools love an upward trend anyways- if you show you've grown and matured you're golden)

As far as being competitive with OAT, obviously it depends on which school you're wanting to go to. The Opted website is extremely helpful with this stuff. It's sometimes hard to navigate though, so I'll help you. http://www.opted.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3343 Click on "Profile of entering class" and you'll get all the relevant stats for the year's worth of admission! As a general rule they say that if you get over 300 on all sections you won't raise any red flags, and that seems to be fairly standard among the schools.

I realized I couldn't see teeth everyday for the next 40 years. Also, my fiance is in his last year of Optometry school and got me interested in it 🙂

Do you think I am competitive enough for optometry? I don't know how well I'll do on the OAT.... Physics scare me.

 

[banana414]

Hi Rhodopsin 🙂 Loving the name, heheh.

Thanks for your feedback and helpful advice! 🙂 I did take the DAT after studying 2 weeks for it. But I wish I studied a little more. I made average scores (18AA/19TS with a 21 in GC and 20 in OC). What scares me about the OAT is the physics section. I don't know where or what equations I need to know for physics (I dislike physics very much).

My BCP is much lower than my sGPA, because BCP only counts biology, physics, and chemistry courses (I made several C's in my biology classes). My sGPA counted all my math and other-science courses (which I made mostly A's in). I found out what courses count towards sGPA on the optomcas website and recalculated my sGPA. My sGPA is 3.45 and my cGPA is still 3.54. According to optcomcas, kinesiology, health, and nutrition courses count as other-science courses.... 🙂

So far, I'm aiming for the schools in Texas (I'm a TX resident), Berkley, Western, or SUNY 🙂

 

[Commando303]

Hello everyone! 🙂

I recently switched my career choice from dentistry to optometry, and I don't know where to start and I don't know if I'm even competitive enough for this field.

I would like to start by knowing a few things. Does anyone know the average matriculated GPAs and OAT scores? Do schools care mostly about cGPA rather than BCP?

My cGPA is 3.54.
My BCP is about 3.08
My sGPA is about 3.38 (I don't know exactly what specific classes count here... anyone know?)
I have a bachelor's degree in biology.

I don't know what OAT score I should be aiming for to be a competitive applicant. Do schools only care about Academic Average and Total Science, or will they care if I bombed a section (physics, for example) but did well in others.

Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks! 🙂

The answers to most of your questions can be found, here:

http://www.opted.org/files/Applicant.pdf.

Good luck.

 

[Rhodopsin]

Haha thank you! And you're totally welcome, I've been through the application process so it's fun to pass on my knowledge haha. That's awesome that your Kines courses count as science for Optomcas, pushes your sgpa up even further. I wouldn't worry so much for the physics section, the key is to not overthink the questions, and understand the conceptual elements of physics rather than just numbers. Equations do you little good if you have to figure out the direction of a magnetic field coming from a moving electron! Plus, if you understand the concepts you can check your math way quicker and are less likely to make calculation errors. Get ahold of a good OAT physics textbook and read it- don't just skim it and go do practice questions- cause that seems to be the first instinct with physics (I personally used MCAT stuff which worked out really well for me, but I'm sure Kaplan has a good OAT text) Obviously you need to memorize the equations also, but that tends to fall into place if you understand the material thoroughly. Once you have the concepts completely down, that's when you practice your brains out 😉

Hi Rhodopsin 🙂 Loving the name, heheh.

Thanks for your feedback and helpful advice! 🙂 I did take the DAT after studying 2 weeks for it. But I wish I studied a little more. I made average scores (18AA/19TS with a 21 in GC and 20 in OC). What scares me about the OAT is the physics section. I don't know where or what equations I need to know for physics (I dislike physics very much).

My BCP is much lower than my sGPA, because BCP only counts biology, physics, and chemistry courses (I made several C's in my biology classes). My sGPA counted all my math and other-science courses (which I made mostly A's in). I found out what courses count towards sGPA on the optomcas website and recalculated my sGPA. My sGPA is 3.45 and my cGPA is still 3.54. According to optcomcas, kinesiology, health, and nutrition courses count as other-science courses.... 🙂

So far, I'm aiming for the schools in Texas (I'm a TX resident), Berkley, Western, or SUNY 🙂

 

[bobbio]

I realized I couldn't see teeth everyday for the next 40 years. Also, my fiance is in his last year of Optometry school and got me interested in it 🙂

Do you think I am competitive enough for optometry? I don't know how well I'll do on the OAT.... Physics scare me.

I think you'll be competitive if you do as well on the OAT as you did on the DAT. The tests are pretty much identical with exception of the visual perception section of the DAT. Again, good luck!