Is there such a thing as a Safety School nowadays...

[artmed12]

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for a student with 3.8 gpa and assuming 20+ on the dat, i still feel that no school is a safety school.

every school feels like a reach.

 

[thedudeabides6]

I would say that assuming you have sufficient extracurricular activities, you should be able to get into plenty of schools. And this can't be said enough, apply early.

 

[PickMe]

dont worry too much! my gpa was about a 3.7 and i had a 20 on the dat, but i didnt have many extracurricular activities. i applied to 5 schools, got interviews at 4, got accepted to the 3 schools where i went to the interview, and only got rejected by 1 school (after they had my app for 6 months with no response i called and yelled at them and got my rejection shortly after, haha). but with stats like that, i dont think you'd have to worry about safety schools. however, this past cycle, temple offered interviews to those above a 3.0 and a 17(maybe 18?0 DAT...so out of the schools i applied to, i considered them my safety school.

 

[Lilstar0024]

however, this past cycle, temple offered interviews to those above a 3.0 and a 17(maybe 18?0 DAT...so out of the schools i applied to, i considered them my safety school.

umm not necessarily. I had a 3.5 and a 24 on my DAT's and the only things I heard from temple was a letter asking for a secondary deposit and, 5 months later, a letter letting me know I was rejected. I think with your scores you will have a very easy time getting into at least a couple schools. But as far as which ones they are, I thinks its more relative to your personal application and what the school is looking for...

 

[S Files]

for a student with 3.8 gpa and assuming 20+ on the dat, i still feel that no school is a safety school.

every school feels like a reach.

NYU, Howard, Temple, UMDNJ.

 

[S Files]

for a student with 3.8 gpa and assuming 20+ on the dat, i still feel that no school is a safety school.

every school feels like a reach.

NYU, Howard, Temple, UMDNJ.

 

[PickMe]

umm not necessarily. I had a 3.5 and a 24 on my DAT's and the only things I heard from temple was a letter asking for a secondary deposit and, 5 months later, a letter letting me know I was rejected. I think with your scores you will have a very easy time getting into at least a couple schools. But as far as which ones they are, I thinks its more relative to your personal application and what the school is looking for...

did you apply late? my interview was in early november and thats what they said in the interview...everyone with those scores up to that point got interviews.

 

[beannaithe]

NYU, Howard, Temple, UMDNJ.

if you apply early!

 

[dentwannabe]

if you apply early!

lol at whoever listed those schools.. don't listen to this guy.. has no idea.. not really many safety schools..

UMDNJ - No way safety. They WILL reject ur ass in a heart beat if ur not qualified

HOWARD - Yea, low averages but VERY STRONG emphasis on extracurriculars and community-oriented

TEMPLE - Yea, still selective. They like all-rounders.

Now... the 2 schools which are also selective but can be seen as "safety" by some are BU and NYU simply because they're very expensive and many accepted students turn them down because they get in elsewhere at less $$$. This happends especially w/ NYU.. the most expensive dental school (probably in the world)!

 

[fightingspirit]

for a student with 3.8 gpa and assuming 20+ on the dat, i still feel that no school is a safety school.

every school feels like a reach.

i dont think i agree with this. with these stats, one can indeed have a few "safety schools"....i suggest you visit predents.com and examine the average entering class stats for the top schools. note how one with the stats you mentioned qualifies for all of them. sure, the likelihood of getting into UCLA or Harvard is not above 50% with these stats. but it surely is above 50% for all other schools.

 

[RockstarDMD]

I don't know where the bright idea came from, where any individual would consider Temple a safety school. Two of my friends had interviews there this cycle as well as many other schools, and were rejected from Temple but were excepted to a few other very competitive schools. Temple is a very good school, highly clinical. There is no such thing as a safety school and anyone that feels this should review the stats from this cycle. 🙂

 

[ItsGavinC]

Traditionally there have been several schools that have been safety schools, but that isn't the case these days.

Still, there IS such a thing as safety schools for each applicant (assuming you are a decent applicant).

 

[I'mFillingFine]

Still, there IS such a thing as safety schools for each applicant (assuming you are a decent applicant).

well said. In some cases, it's your state school. For others, it's a school that loves whatever you happened to give a high priority to in college (research/shadowing/non-science stuff/volunteering). Some may have alumni relatives who are active with their alma mater......some may match you with an interviewer who you bond really well with......etc. etc. etc.

I think the best thing is to apply to a comfortable number, and to make sure you apply to schools that vary from each other in some way so you get a "sampling"....it's really just a waste of money to apply to an enormous amount if a lot have similar acceptance stats or approaches.

 

[PDizzle]

I still gotta say NYU is a safety school for many applicants.

They accept hella people, often w/out an interview.
The class size is huge.
It's expensive as hell, so it's not a top pick for most applicants.


Having said that, now-a-days the term "safety school" means less cuz so damn many people apply.

 

[DentistDevilDog]

If you're worried my advice would be to use the shotgun approach. Apply to a lot of schools and see what bites.

 

[Haga]

If you're worried my advice would be to use the shotgun approach. Apply to a lot of schools and see what bites.

Seems like they would call this the bait and lure approach

 

[DentistDevilDog]

Seems like they would call this the bait and lure approach

I guess we're both kind of right, because typically bait will only catch one. I should have said Use the shotgun approach and see which one of your friends you shoot in the face.

 

[JC_GT]

The only safety school I would say is NYU. Other than that its iffy. I had a 3.9 gpa 4.0 sci gpa DAT's were AA/TS/PA 24/22/21. I got straight rejected from Temple which happened to be my first choice. I'm still scratching my head about Temple??? Provided I applied a bit late, I dont think Temple received my app from AADSAS until late November. Even so, I thought I'd get in considering my friends that are there now were telling me not to sweat bc they knew classmates that didnt interview till March/April. Moral of the story is with so many applicants now ppl need to apply June 1.

 

[tinman831]

Shoot NYU didn't even give me the light of day and I thought I had pretty decent stats. 🙄

 

[1992Corolla]

Isn't that why they call it Just in Case Western??? 😛 😉 😀

 

[tinman831]

Isn't that why they call it Just in Case Western??? 😛 😉 😀

Case Western didn't give me the light of day either! 🙄 🙄 🙄

 

[maksidaa]

Case Western didn't give me the light of day either! 🙄 🙄 🙄

i feel like i have good dat scores and a good gpa, good dental experience, etc., but i don't feel like any of the schools i applied to are safety schools b/c i think a lot of it is up to chance. last year when i applied i got interviews from schools i didn't expect to hear from and the schools i expected to hear from didn't do anything. i don't think state schools are safe b/c they get so many applications from second year applicants and highly qualified first year applicants. private schools and out of state schools aren't much better b/c they get thousands of applications and they might or might not give you an interview based on something totally random. and then depending on who interviews you, you might or might not get in b/c of how they portray you to the other adcoms. great stats certainly help, but i personally don't feel any school is really a "safety school".

 

[natroncb]

Isn't that why they call it Just in Case Western??? 😛 😉 😀

I used to think the same thing. But if you think about the 2000 applicants and only 70 spots you'll realize it is still pretty competitive. The only people that have ever heard "just in Case" are people from that region of the country where Case takes a high number of applicants. If you leave Utah and ask about Case's reputation elsewhere they are HIGHLY respected. And if you spend any time at Case you will see it is a great dental school.

 

[docious]

I think it's fair to say that even with good grades, DAT scores, xtracuricular activities... the application process to dental schools is the among the arbitrary of graduate schools.

Because most applicants have such similar grades, etc, there is not always a rhyme or reason to most applicants' rejections/acceptances. All you can do is get the highest scores you can, apply early, and know you that applying to your state school helps tremendously.

 

[armorshell]

All you can do is get the highest scores you can, apply early, and know you that applying to your state school helps tremendously.

Unless your state school happens to be UW 🙁

 

[MansonTiles]

YEah, my state school is not so easy either! COLORADO.

anyway, what do others THINK would be the LOWEST DAT to be accepted into these "safety schools?" WITH an early application, and blah blah...

17?

 

[zbruinz]

there is ONE safety school on the planet we call earth.
--> USC!

This is coming from a bruin by the way 😉