MCAT vs. DAT

[Doctor G]

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Hello! I will be a medical student this fall. I am just curious if there's anyone in this forum who WAS going for medicine AND TOOK the mcat but decided later to pursue dentistry and took the dat. If I had a mcat score of 25, what would I get approx. on the dat if I were to take one? My roommate was once a pre-med but now decided to go for dental school. Any input will be great. Thanks! 🙂

 

[fc.pride]

Hello! I will be a medical student this fall. I am just curious if there's anyone in this forum who WAS going for medicine AND TOOK the mcat but decided later to pursue dentistry and took the dat. If I had a mcat score of 25, what would I get approx. on the dat if I were to take one? My roommate was once a pre-med but now decided to go for dental school. Any input will be great. Thanks! 🙂

well, i took the mcat and the dat. mcat was considerably harder, dat was a joke after that. i scored a 34 on the mcat and my academic average was 27. i dont know the correlation, but if you do well on the mcat u should kick ass on the dat. this was about 6 years ago. since then i have finished dental school and residency, so things may have changed. with a 25 im guessing you could prolly score around a 18-20. since on mcats 8,8,8 is the national average and 18 is the dat average. hope that helped.

 

[kato999]

I would guess about that too. MCAT of 25 would correlate to a 16-18 DAT. I went 33 MCAT to a 23 DAT and someone else I know went 27 to a 20. I had decided that I wanted to do dentistry before I took the MCAT but took it anyway as a prep for the DAT.

Either way they test the sciences in a different manner, so there are exceptions. If you study hard I am sure you can pull a good score.

 

[thewash]

im a third year medical student. cannot find a field that i want to do for the rest of my life. i have a friend who is a dentist. as you all probablly know, residency will be btwn 3-6+ years. im looking at 5 years (+1 if i do a fellowship) after medical school before i get a job and start to pay of student loans.

im hearing that a dentist can make about 250 a year and it will take 4 yrs of dental school. im wondering if i should do dental school instead of a residency.

the only problem with this is my loans. i would have to borrow more for dental school.

any suggestions on job market after dental school. work hours in school ane when working in the field. any problems with malpractice and not getting reiebursments. roles of fellowships (othrodontis, peds, ect).

thank
thewash
ps. happy mom's day to all you moms

 

[DrTacoElf]

i had a 28 mcat: 11bio, 10physical, 7 verbal
i had a 23/23/17 DAT (23AA, 23TS, 17PAT)

 

[psiyung]

AA DAT = 23
MCAT score = 33

 

[Rezdawg]

MCAT: 7 verbal, 9 biological sciences, 9 physical sciences = 25

DAT: 21 AA, 20 TS, 18 PAT

 

[organichemistry]

I got a 16 MCAT (6 verbal/4 biological sciences/6 physical sciences), and haven't yet taken the DAT, but I am hoping for a 20 AA and 16-17 PAT.

 

[TucsonDDS]

I had a 27 MCAT (8,10,9) and a 24 AA on the DAT

 

[fc.pride]

im a third year medical student. cannot find a field that i want to do for the rest of my life. i have a friend who is a dentist. as you all probablly know, residency will be btwn 3-6+ years. im looking at 5 years (+1 if i do a fellowship) after medical school before i get a job and start to pay of student loans.

im hearing that a dentist can make about 250 a year and it will take 4 yrs of dental school. im wondering if i should do dental school instead of a residency.

the only problem with this is my loans. i would have to borrow more for dental school.

any suggestions on job market after dental school. work hours in school ane when working in the field. any problems with malpractice and not getting reiebursments. roles of fellowships (othrodontis, peds, ect).

thank
thewash
ps. happy mom's day to all you moms

if i were you i wouldnt quit to do dental. youre in med skool. i dropped outta of year 1 med to go to d. skool and certain days i regret it. dental is ok 250 k is an exagerration. especially for a gp. but it all depends where you are at, geographically speaking. if youre doing health sciences for the loot, you are in the wrong field. i make more money off other things in my life than dentistry. that goes for my undergrad roommate who is now a practicing derm. his life is nice and money is good but its not everything.
find something you like to do whether as an md or dds. but if you wanna do dental for the money... theres more money in med. ie.. plastics, optho, derm..etc. i liked med skool but had to drop out due to personal probs. went to dental skool and always wondered if i coulda made ophtho. also remember grass is always greener on the other side. hope that helped...
im out like the gracies..

 

[LSR1979]

I got a 16 MCAT (6 verbal/4 biological sciences/6 physical sciences), and haven't yet taken the DAT, but I am hoping for a 20 AA and 16-17 PAT.

Are you serious?

 

[InMyCrossHairs]

I got a 16 MCAT (6 verbal/4 biological sciences/6 physical sciences), and haven't yet taken the DAT, but I am hoping for a 20 AA and 16-17 PAT.

How do you get a 3.8 in college and then get a 16 on the MCAT. Must be another grade inflating southern state university. From the trends of previous posters getting between 7-10 points less on DAT than the MCAT, you should realistically hope to get a 6-9 on the DAT.

 

[InMyCrossHairs]

I got a 16 MCAT (6 verbal/4 biological sciences/6 physical sciences), and haven't yet taken the DAT, but I am hoping for a 20 AA and 16-17 PAT.

One more thing, I thought Alabama changed there old state law and now made reading a requirement in order to graduate from college, I must have been mistaken, it must be West Virginia that changed there law. 😀

 

[organichemistry]

what's so funny? so what i didn't knock out the mcat. i wasn't prepared enough for it. i'm confident i will do really well on the DAT.

as far as grade inflating, i don't really know. i feel like i've earned my grades, but i don't really know if my classes are easy or hard compared to the rest of the country.

and enough of the jabs on my state and school. it's uncalled for.

 

[mvs04]

what's so funny? so what i didn't knock out the mcat. i wasn't prepared enough for it. i'm confident i will do really well on the DAT.

as far as grade inflating, i don't really know. i feel like i've earned my grades, but i don't really know if my classes are easy or hard compared to the rest of the country.

and enough of the jabs on my state and school. it's uncalled for.

16 ?!? Um... one of my apartment mates took the MCAT because his g/f dragged him along for the moral support (yes he coughed up a few hundred to take a test, yes his family is rich and he is weird) ... and he got a 23 on the MCAT... and he's a design major! So... after that, no respect for MCAT test anymore, if you can read and think, you can do well on that ****.

 

[psiyung]

MCAT Score: 7 (total: P: 3, B: 3, V: 1, Writing: L)
DAT Score: 13 AA, 20 PAT
Undergrad GPA: 3.1 Overall, 3.0 Science

Still haven't gotten into dental school. Hoping to get into a Caribbean dental school...

holy **** 😱

 

[45540]

holy **** 😱

me thinks it's a joke

 

[fc.pride]

16 ?!? Um... one of my apartment mates took the MCAT because his g/f dragged him along for the moral support (yes he coughed up a few hundred to take a test, yes his family is rich and he is weird) ... and he got a 23 on the MCAT... and he's a design major! So... after that, no respect for MCAT test anymore, if you can read and think, you can do well on that ****.

you better rethink that. that exam is more challenging than anything dental skool can throw at you..boards 1 and 2 are a big joke next to it. the dat is a breeze next to that exam. it takes good analytical and good conceptual ability, not just memorizing a bunch of old exams. by the way, 23 is not well.. it is average. i know art majors who are now in very competive med residencies. one's major should not predict one's intelligence.

 

[organichemistry]

you better rethink that. that exam is more challenging than anything dental skool can throw at you..boards 1 and 2 are a big joke next to it. the dat is a breeze next to that exam. it takes good analytical and good conceptual ability, not just memorizing a bunch of old exams. by the way, 23 is not well.. it is average. i know art majors who are now in very competive med residencies. one's major should not predict one's intelligence.

yeah but those art majors probably took all the prereqs...

 

[fc.pride]

Yeah, possibly. Not to mention the writing sample - that can be pretty tough, especially if you don't know how to spell school or competitive...and have no idea how to correctly indicate ellipses. As the Ob-Gyn said to the pregnant teen - "I'm afraid you're one period short."

On a related note, you seem to have a pretty negative attitude about dentists and dentistry...are you just a completely miserable tooth monkey, a total a**hat, or a little of both?

pretty harsh comments. fyi, im a practicing dentist..not negative about dentistry, nor a tooth monkey. i actually enjoy what i do and think its a good field, overall. i guess it takes a tooth monkey to call someone else one. i was replying to someone's comments regarding these examinations. having taken them both i felt i could offer my opinion. my point is/was someone's choice of major should not say how intelligent they are or the related difficulty of an exam. to lose respect for an exam just because someone of more esoteric major performed better is silly.
btw, i dont no hau to spell skool or anyding else kan u show me. let's all be mature and end this here and stop the flaming.

 

[Rezdawg]

I gotta side with fcpride on this one. You cant lose respect for an exam because you know someone who did average on the test without majoring in a science. That line of logic doesnt make sense. That test craps all over the DAT...look at all the people who got between 20-28 on the MCAT and then match it up with their DAT scores.

Im 50th percentile on the MCAT, yet 97th percentile on the DAT. That kind of discrepancy is common among people who have taken both exams, showing that the MCAT demands much more respect than the DAT.

 

[fc.pride]

I gotta side with fcpride on this one. You cant lose respect for an exam because you know someone who did average on the test without majoring in a science. That line of logic doesnt make sense. That test craps all over the DAT...look at all the people who got between 20-28 on the MCAT and then match it up with their DAT scores.

Im 50th percentile on the MCAT, yet 97th percentile on the DAT. That kind of discrepancy is common among people who have taken both exams, showing that the MCAT demands much more respect than the DAT.

that was the crux of my argument. i didnt appreciate the criticism especially, when i did not say one comment about dentistry. was just replying to someones question...as objectively as possible.

 

[psiyung]

As I mentioned in another thread, the MCAT is much more grueling than the DAT. Although I did pretty well in both, I barely studied for the DAT. The MCAT, however, did take away some of my time.

 

[kato999]

I totally agree that the MCAT had more teeth than the DAT, but it still wasn't near the material needed to be mastered for the NBDE part 1.

IMO the MCAT is a thinking test while the DAT is a memorizing test.

 

[WildcatDMD]

IMO the MCAT is a thinking test while the DAT is a memorizing test.

I agree 100%.