june 2011 cycle applicant help !!

[acudental]

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i am reading all of these posts with the applicants doing special masters and post bac and so many shadowing hours and i am getting scared because i have not done much of shadowing yet and my master is not of hard science..so here is my situation :
i already graduated from a 4 year university with a cum GPA of 3.88, (non-science gpa is 4 and i dont know my science gpa) but i have gotten 5 W 🙁 ..i did research for a like a year and a half and i did co-publish a paper and i did work on 2 others research papers but no publications on those yet...i am currently doing a master in acupuncture and oriental medicine with a 4.00 gpa and i got 3 academic excellence awards for top 5 best students of the school ...i started to shadow a dentist for 23 hours and i am planning on having 115-130 hours of shadowing by the time i applied but is it enough?? how many more hours should i accomplish by the time i apply? what else do i need to do to make myself more competitive?? if anyone had my stats, which schools did you apply to? and where did you get in?? i went to a community college so i know that i cant apply to Tuffs, temple and boston university bc they dont accept cc credit 🙁
my DAT scores : AA-21 (97.2 percentile)
TS -22 (98 percentile)
PAT-17
bio-20
Organic chem - 25
general chem - 25
RC- 18
QR-17

 

[dentalWorks]

i am reading all of these posts with the applicants doing special masters and post bac and so many shadowing hours and i am getting scared because i have not done much of shadowing yet and my master is not of hard science..so here is my situation :
i already graduated from a 4 year university with a cum GPA of 3.88, (non-science gpa is 4 and i dont know my science gpa) but i have gotten 5 W 🙁 ..i did research for a like a year and a half and i did co-publish a paper and i did work on 2 others research papers but no publications on those yet...i am currently doing a master in acupuncture and oriental medicine with a 4.00 gpa and i got 3 academic excellence awards for top 5 best students of the school ...i started to shadow a dentist for 23 hours and i am planning on having 115-130 hours of shadowing by the time i applied but is it enough?? how many more hours should i accomplish by the time i apply? what else do i need to do to make myself more competitive?? if anyone had my stats, which schools did you apply to? and where did you get in?? i went to a community college so i know that i cant apply to Tuffs, temple and boston university bc they dont accept cc credit 🙁
my DAT scores : AA-21 (97.2 percentile)
TS -22 (98 percentile)
PAT-17
bio-20
Organic chem - 25
general chem - 25
RC- 18
QR-17

I wouldn't apply. Your 3.8 GPA won't cut it, and only 21Aa/22TS ?!?! Please... what about those nails-to-the-coffin 5 w's? You should switch careers now that the job market is picking up for fast food joints.



Okay that was me kidding around, your stats are great. Use this sticky here and aim at schools that are out-of-state friendly.... Oh and by the way, 100+ shadowing hours is all an applicant needs.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=635046

 

[r8 dds]

Non-traditional student (Masters in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine) with a 21 AA/22TS. You're good to go!

 

[lmaozedong1]

I don't know, man. Tuffs is very hard to get into...Tuffs is a top notch school...Tuffs only excepts the brightest individuals, which you clearly aren't w/ your crappy AA of 21...Tuffs i'm sure you've heard is spelled Tufts...

Stop worrying, you're fine...

 

[acudental]

tks for the encouraging words...i forgot to mention that my BS degree was in biochemistry and cell biology..am i still considered a non-traditional applicant??

however, if i do 130 or so hours of shadowing with a dentist, do i need to do anything else like volunteering ( if so, what type) for my application to make sure i get in the first cycle i m applying ?

 

[lmaozedong1]

People like you bother me...go away and stop fishing for compliments. You're FINE!


.......

 

[acudental]

wow u r harsh "lmaozedong1"...anyhow thanks

 

[dentalWorks]

tks for the encouraging words...i forgot to mention that my BS degree was in biochemistry and cell biology..am i still considered a non-traditional applicant??

however, if i do 130 or so hours of shadowing with a dentist, do i need to do anything else like volunteering ( if so, what type) for my application to make sure i get in the first cycle i m applying ?

Yes you do need volunteering, shadowing lets you understand what you are getting ur self into.... Volunteering shows adcoms that you are involved with helping your community.... the 2 activities serve different purposes.

Some people will argue that volunteering is overrated.....Maybe.... but you still need some volunteering done

 

[acudental]

oh ok thanks for the info " dentalworks"..do you know how many hours of volunteering the admission committees are looking for ? and for people who did some volunteering, which type of volunteering work have you done?

 

[dentalWorks]

oh ok thanks for the info " dentalworks"..do you know how many hours of volunteering the admission committees are looking for ? and for people who did some volunteering, which type of volunteering work have you done?

I don't know.... I don't think schools post how many hours they require.
I just know that they recommend volunteering.

As far as which type of volunteering, it can be ANYTHING you enjoy, it does not have to be healthcare related. For example, I've done some habitate for Humanity... Im a pretty good handiman around the house, so it was a good fit for me.

I also did volunteering at a hospital as a care-companion for about 1.5 years (200 hrs total). I did this because I wanted to gain insight into medicine and whats it like to be in a hospital, it helped me define why I wanted dentistry over medicine.

 

[shedara2008]

[People like you bother me...go away and stop fishing for compliments. You're FINE! ]


....... I agree

 

[persenmi]

Not a big deal but I just want to point out that if you are applying in June 2011, that is considered the 2012 application cycle. The 2011 cycle is already over 😉.

 

[acudental]

thank you "dentalworks"...do you know if the school sees the percentile of the DAT scores because i was looking at other people's score and one person had the same AA and TS score as me but with a different percentile (lower)..

 

[dentalWorks]

thank you "dentalworks"...do you know if the school sees the percentile of the DAT scores because i was looking at other people's score and one person had the same AA and TS score as me but with a different percentile (lower)..

Nope, they don't get access to percentiles. And you are right, like for example, I've seen AA 21 have 91-92% all the way up to 97.x%

 

[acudental]

oh that sucks !! thanks again dentalworks...