Looking for some advice (Post-Bacc, Non-trad)

[carlfusco]

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Hey folks,

So I'll apologize in advance for posting another one of these threads, I know there are many out there on this forum already. I've read dozens of threads similar to this, but few that addressed my particular situation.

I earned my B.S. in May 2010 from University of New Hampshire with a degree in Kinesiology: Outdoor Education with a 3.19 GPA. It took time to come to the realization that this was not the major for me, and by the time I had, I was three years into school and it was too late to change. So upon graduation, I moved back home to Albany and started taking the pre-req courses for dental school.

Because I work full-time as well, so far, I've only taken BIO I & II, Chem I, and Genetics (all through the University at Albany). I have a 3.58 GPA in these classes so far.

As I sit here at my computer, pouring over class schedules and making a tentative plan for the next year, I'm realizing that applying this coming summer (2012) is somewhat unlikely. Finishing the pre-reqs, studying for/taking the DAT, and gaining shadowing experience seem like a lot to complete in this upcoming year.

What I'm considering is the following -

Fall '11 - Chem II, Physics I (both at UAlbany)
Winter Break - Gain Shadowing experience
Spring '12 - ORGO I (HVCC), Physics II (HVCC)
Summer '12 - A&P I&II (HVCC), Studying/Taking DATs


So herein lies my questions:

- Some of the courses I listed above are only offered at the local Community College (Hudson Valley CC) at these particular times, would it be frowned upon to take them at HVCC? Is it a poor choice to take Physics I at Albany, then Physics II at HVCC?

- Should I apply this coming cycle if I am able to complete all the pre-reqs, or should I wait a year (Summer '13), make my application as strong as possible by taking extra courses and gaining more shadowing experience, then apply?

- If I continue to get high grades, do I have a real shot at getting into schools?

Again, I appreciate any insight you can lend to my situation!

Thank you,

Carl Fusco

 

[bing12]

you can still gain admissions to Dental school with CC(community college) credits, but some schools dont accept them, so your choices of schools may be limited ( such as Tufts,BU,etc). Taking anatomy over the summer while you study for the DAT is prob an extremely difficult task ( i havnt taken Anatomy yet, but from what I hear, it requires a great deal of time). I would suggest you to take the DAT over the winter break, while you shadow a dentist.

 

[TwentyTwelve]

The first question I have for you is why are you working full time? If you have a serious need to keep money coming (family, medical needs etc.) then fine, but otherwise why jeopardize a chance for dental school by working too much? I would suggest working part time if you absolutely need money to focus more on classes and making a 4.0 in what you have left. You mentioned that you moved home so your expenses should not be too bad.

Why you may ask? You have some pre-reqs remaining at a state school for a total cost of maybe $5000 in tuition (dunno Albany tuition), not much living expenses, and hopefully some savings from working full time AND living at home. The amount you are making now pales in comparision to the potential earning in dentistry...approx. 45,000 for a new grad to 110,000 for dental grad plus more later in your career. So why work full time and take time away from building a killer application and school? The $15,000 that you may go into debt is nothing compared to the $300,000 you will go into with dental school so I would not sweat this little bit.

Ultimately I feel that you are sacrificing time and resources that could be put into better grades and shadowing/volunteering to apply and get in sooner rather than later. Keep in mind it gets tougher every year to get into dental school. You NEED to be getting a 4.0 in the remaining classes to pull your GPA up. A 3.58 post-bac GPA does nothing to pull up what is a very low GPA and most likely a low science GPA. Keep in mind too that as post-bacs we have a story to tell...we were doing one thing and now we have found dentistry as our life passion and what we want to do for the rest of our lives. Your grades must reflect this passion and maturity that younger students do not have...in my opinion a 3.58 does not reflect this new passion to dental schools (not saying you don't have a passion, but work may be in the way).

Second question is in regard to your classes. Why not take classes at Albany instead of CC? I know Albany has Ochem....could working full time be in the way of better classes and a better overall transcript for dental schools? You do not need A&P for dental school so I would not even bother to take it....just concentrate on the DAT for the summer.

Since you will not have Ochem II done for the DAT that will take some time to get down some basic reactions and concepts that the class covers. If you take the DAT in late July and simply update your already submitted application then you will be golden.

Shadow as much as you can over each break. You can easily pick up 100+ hours over winter and spring breaks. You could maybe even take some time off over the summer from the DAT studying and shadow 4-8 hours here and there. Try and volunteer in clinics or hospitals too...

What are your chances right now given your current plan? It will be an uphill battle...even with you post-bac GPA around a 3.6 your overall GPA will be very low...you will have CC classes...and little shadowing done very quickly which is not ideal. Everyone always says "but what if I rock the DAT?"....easier said than done given that a 20AA is an 85 percentile and that is becoming the new average to get into school.

Can you do it? Sure, with the right choices and changes to your plan it will become very feasible to get into school. Take my opinions as constructive criticism from a post-bac who has already gone through what you are undertaking right now...

Good luck!!

 

[kevinlawton]

Not to sound like an ass or start something, but sure it is nice that your opinion of his GPA would not look great, but how do you know what adcoms will think? Best thing you can do to find out is call the schools you are interested in and find out straight from them. No one here knows absolutely what schools think, get the information straight from the source.

A 3.58 isn't bad by any means and they will see he was working full time as well, which could work in his favor because he still did well and worked full time. You will have a lot going on in dental school and this could look favorably since you will have to have very good time management skills.

Also his science might be low, but how many units does he have for his BCP GPA. I would assume he has a low amount of credits attempted for that section and can easily bring up his BCP GPA, which I feel and I think I saw somewhere that GPA is weighted more heavily than Science GPA.

Also I find it kind of funny how a lot of people say, "oh well just go get a 4.0 for like 2 semester in a row." While that will help a lot, it can be quite difficult to get a 4.0 and isn't that easy because the way some people say that seems like they can achieve that no problem. Set realistic goals for yourself and go from there. If you only expect a 4.0 each semester, sorry but there is a very high chance you will be quite disappointed.

The last thing I find funny is how a lot of people say, "oh don't work just study for school." This statement kind of bugs me since this is assuming everyone is on the same playing field. A lot of people do not have the financial resources other people have and must work, they don't have a choice. Me for example, I had to work because that was a big source of income for my family, without it my family could have potential lost their home and business or I would have had to drop out because I would not be able to afford to pay for school plus housing. Some people have the luxury of growing up with a lot of financial resources; however, many don't have that resource, which is shown in the growing poverty rate.

Then other family responsibilities come into play as well. If you have sick parents, a wife, taking care of elderly grandparents or if you have a child, those can affect his ability to get a 4.0. I have a 1 year old daughter personally and as important as school is, she is more important to me. Someone might have that situation or something similar.

The main point is, you can't assume everyone is on a level playing field because they are not. Many factor come into play which can affect someones situation and while grades are a huge factor, if he can get respectable numbers to pass the initial screening, then they can see the other factors he had to deal with

 

[TwentyTwelve]

Not to sound like an ass or start something, but sure it is nice that your opinion of his GPA would not look great, but how do you know what adcoms will think? Best thing you can do to find out is call the schools you are interested in and find out straight from them. No one here knows absolutely what schools think, get the information straight from the source.

A 3.58 isn't bad by any means and they will see he was working full time as well, which could work in his favor because he still did well and worked full time. You will have a lot going on in dental school and this could look favorably since you will have to have very good time management skills.

Also his science might be low, but how many units does he have for his BCP GPA. I would assume he has a low amount of credits attempted for that section and can easily bring up his BCP GPA, which I feel and I think I saw somewhere that GPA is weighted more heavily than Science GPA.

Also I find it kind of funny how a lot of people say, "oh well just go get a 4.0 for like 2 semester in a row." While that will help a lot, it can be quite difficult to get a 4.0 and isn't that easy because the way some people say that seems like they can achieve that no problem. Set realistic goals for yourself and go from there. If you only expect a 4.0 each semester, sorry but there is a very high chance you will be quite disappointed.

The last thing I find funny is how a lot of people say, "oh don't work just study for school." This statement kind of bugs me since this is assuming everyone is on the same playing field. A lot of people do not have the financial resources other people have and must work, they don't have a choice. Me for example, I had to work because that was a big source of income for my family, without it my family could have potential lost their home and business or I would have had to drop out because I would not be able to afford to pay for school plus housing. Some people have the luxury of growing up with a lot of financial resources; however, many don't have that resource, which is shown in the growing poverty rate.

Then other family responsibilities come into play as well. If you have sick parents, a wife, taking care of elderly grandparents or if you have a child, those can affect his ability to get a 4.0. I have a 1 year old daughter personally and as important as school is, she is more important to me. Someone might have that situation or something similar.

The main point is, you can't assume everyone is on a level playing field because they are not. Many factor come into play which can affect someones situation and while grades are a huge factor, if he can get respectable numbers to pass the initial screening, then they can see the other factors he had to deal with

No problem...I actually enjoy alternate opinions because it invokes the thinking process...👍

My point with my post was to indeed outline the most ideal situation to get into dental school since the OP asked for opinions. I understand that everyone has different situations (i.e. family, medical issues etc.) that I outlined in my earlier post and may need to work full time. The OP mentioned that he moved back home and I assumed (maybe incorrectly) that this might drastically reduce rent/mortgage/food expenses to where they would not be a need to work full time. In this scenario, he would be able to pour more time into studies to get better grades, which would pull up a low GPA.

A 3.58 is a solid GPA for dental school. However, the OP has a 3.19 overall GPA with approx. 120 credits from a degree in a science field. Thus, a 3.58 in four classes will not budge this overall GPA or really move the science GPA. Only a lot of A's will do the trick and as I mentioned, this would be ideal to show adcoms that you really mean business. I understand it is not easy to do, but again assuming that a full time job is not a need while living back home, I figure that a dedicated student taking only 2-3 classes could pull a 4.0.

I have spoken with admissions boards, graduated dentists, friends in dental school, other pre-dental students, and pre-health counselors to where I have a pretty good idea what is needed to get into a school. Do I know everything?...of course not...but I was just passing along my knowledge to him instead of sugar coating an uphill climb that he will need to have a good shot of getting into school.

Dental school is getting harder and harder to get into....to the point where in order to handle the massive amounts of applications (3000+ at some schools) they have developed stricter cut-offs and expect more from students. DAT scores have risen to 19.6-20AA and GPA's 3.5/3.6 overall to get into school over the past 5-10 years.

Thus, I was simply advising that if you do not have to work and can take out some small loans to pay for school this will drastically improve the amount of time the OP can use for school/shadowing/volunteering to develop a killer application in the time period he requested opinions. If he does have to work then by all means do what you gotta do...and there would need to be an alternative approach...

 

[kevinlawton]

While talking to the board is a good source, the other areas might not be very reliable, which is why I suggested calling the schools and talking to a counselor or some there. That would be the best way to get feedback on ones application.

I'll use me as an example, some people would look negatively at my stats, but I talked to an admissions counselor she looked over my transcript. The information she gave me was I had a rough first 2.5 years but in my last 2 years where i had taken I think about 60-70 semester units with about 3-4 science upper div classes while pulling a 3.51 gpa off in those 2 years. She said the committee would then look at that heavily and would help me since I improved a lot from my original 2.8-3.07 gpa I was around my first 2.5 years. I also had good DAT scores which I think help offset my gpa.

So by calling the schools you can get what each school thinks about your specific situation and get advice about what you should do. Like I get You are just giving your opinion, but I realized peoples opinions are nice but what. I really needed to do is talk to the schools to get the information I needed about what I really needed to do. Main point is contact schools and get their opinion since that's the one that matters

 

[carlfusco]

Thank you both for your responses, I really do appreciate different viewpoints and the time you've taken to express them. I feel the need to clarify a bit, to give you a better idea of the situation I'm in. I work full time at the YMCA so I can pay for school, and I do plan on cutting back my hours this school year so I may devote enough time to get good grades in all of my classes from here out. I may not be able to get a 4.0, but I will do my best, as this will give me the best chance of getting into school. I understand that as a non-traditional student who has not yet proved themselves in school, the goal of going to dental school will be a constant uphill battle. That said, I am devoted to this and will do anything in my power to make this goal feasible.

To clarify, during undergrad much of my courses were through the Kinesiology department and will count toward a science GPA. I believe my Science GPA is around a 3.25 and consists of ~80 credits. This past year, however, was the first time I have taken Biology or Chemistry classes, so my BCP GPA only consists of 16 credits (3.58 GPA), making it easily improved. I am hoping that if I continue to do well in my post-bacc courses, this will be indicative of my devotion to success in this field.

Given the information I've provided, does it seem wise to apply this year, or might it be a better idea to spend another year taking upper level courses (microbio, biochem) to prove myself more to schools? Would applying with a 'longshot' application this summer look irresponsible to schools? Again, thanks for the honesty, you've both provided helpful, relevant information to my situation.

-Carl

 

[kevinlawton]

If you mean this cycle I'd wait till next year since I don't think you can complete all the pre-reqs this year if you have not taken any bio or chem classes before this plus you still have to study for the DAT and take it. Then also make your account, write a personal statement and a lot more