No. It merely completes your application. The crowning jewel. Schools can decide to accept or reject based on entirely undisclosed criteria. So long as they don't blatantly discriminate, everything is fair game. Nothing I've read says they actually
require scores or anything other than having
taken a specific list of classes and having
taken the DAT. True, an interview could be required-but it could just as easily be waived. In the end, it is entirely an unknown why dental schools admit anyone. Show up and don't drool in public-you could be in. Or maybe not.
Think of the entire process objectively - 12K people spending about 1K eack on AADSAS plus DAT prep and testing, plus scores (minimum $200-max >1K). Then you have secondaries, secondary fees, and flying out for and interview. When all is said and done it could be $500 per school just to sit down in an interview, listen to yourself talk to someone who has heard it all before, and then have that same someone sit on your application until Dec 1. That is when you have a heart attack at the first thin envelope that hits the mailbox. Years of your life go into this process. Adcoms get paid to evaluate you and your puny accomplishments, and your wrinkled shirt. It makes me sick to think that a rejection might be on the way just because my socks don't match. But then again, it wouldn't surprise me at all.