My plan for the DAT

[DDS4tehwin]

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I am planning on applying for dental school early next summer, but taking the DAT and sending them in mid summer. Here is my current plan:

11/06 - 1/07 = Kaplan DAT course
1/07 - 5/07 = Spring 2007 Semester at college
5/07 - 7/07 = Repeat Kaplan DAT course, along with doing DAT destroyer and Top Score practice.

I just took my diagnostic DAT at Kaplan, and scored a 16 AA. I was actually happy, taking into account that I did not study (or even open a DAT book before for that matter!). I am shooting for a 23 AA. Is it unrealistic for me to hope for that much of an increase?? Thanks guys, any tips or advice appreciated.

 

[dudewhensmydat]

I am planning on applying for dental school early next summer, but taking the DAT and sending them in mid summer. Here is my current plan:

11/06 - 1/07 = Kaplan DAT course
1/07 - 5/07 = Spring 2007 Semester at college
5/07 - 7/07 = Repeat Kaplan DAT course, along with doing DAT destroyer and Top Score practice.

I just took my diagnostic DAT at Kaplan, and scored a 16 AA. I was actually happy, taking into account that I did not study (or even open a DAT book before for that matter!). I am shooting for a 23 AA. Is it unrealistic for me to hope for that much of an increase?? Thanks guys, any tips or advice appreciated.

It is not unrealistic at all!!! Don't bog down to others' conceptions that perfection is unattainable...when I walked in to take my DAT, I expected nothing less than 29's across the board (didn't happen), but b/c I aimed really high I did very well. Good luck to you. That sounds like a good plan. I highly recommend that you also buy DAT Achiever. Learning and studying DAT Destroyer will help you destroy the DAT.

- dude

 

[djeffreyt]

I'm not going to say your expectations are unrealistic, they aren't.

And I think you are more than welcome to do whatever you want to do in order to get whatever scores you want to get. But I am a little curious about why you are taking the Kaplan Course twice. I am more than willing to grant you that you might get more out of it the more times you take it, and thus do better on the test, but the class isn't cheap.

Yes, it is only $2,400 to take the course twice...what is that in comparison to how much dental school is...1/100th. The argument that it will pay off in the end and thus be worth it is a big argument, but $2,400 is $2,400 and despite it being 1/100ths of the cost of dental school, it's still money. Do you really think retaking the class is worth it?

 

[Streetwolf]

What Kaplan let me do is extend my online portion of the course until I took the DAT. Of course I took the test a month after the class ended, so I don't know if they'd be willing to grant you a 5 month online extension. You could apply for the higher score guarantee thing in May perhaps... just make sure you attended all the classes and did the online work.

 

[DDS4tehwin]

What Kaplan let me do is extend my online portion of the course until I took the DAT. Of course I took the test a month after the class ended, so I don't know if they'd be willing to grant you a 5 month online extension. You could apply for the higher score guarantee thing in May perhaps... just make sure you attended all the classes and did the online work.

Thats exaclty what I am going to do. They told me I can re-take the class on the TSG. Now, is my plan for applying okay? Can I afford to push the DAT back even further, or is it okay as it is?

 

[jmick101]

Listen, the Kaplan class is a waste of your valuable time. The resources are good but why do the class? Your best study time will be you taking practice tests (Topscore, Achiever) and then you hammering away on your weak areas. There is no magic formula that will replace you puting in long hours studying on your own. Two months of good studying should be enough to get the score that you want. Here would be a good plan for getting good scores on the DAT:

Bio: Read Kaplan and re-write everything in your own words. Do this twice and I promise you will master the material. This will take 2-3 weeks.

Chemistry: Same as Bio

OCHEM: Master the mechanisms and memorize reagent lists. Kaplan was sufficient.

QR: I only got a 17 on this section, so I am not much of an expert here, but let me tell you that I was unpleasantly surprised by this one. Know your trig and be able to solve problems quickly and accurately.

PAT: Do the Topscore and Achiever tests over and over. About an hour everyday.

Reading: Uhmm... read. And decide upon a technique (search around).

Obviously I am not a fan of sitting in class. Just about everyone I have talked to said that Kaplan lecture was a waste of time. Good luck!

 

[djeffreyt]

Your timetable seems perfectly good. you have obviously allotted a lot of study time, and you approx. date to take the DAT is generally fine, however it depends on what schools you want to apply to whether you can push it back.

If you really want to go to a texas school or to Case or UOP, you shouldn't push your DAT date back further than middle of July like you have because those schools start looking at your application and DAT scores earlier than others.

Schools like UCLA, BU, and many others don't start looking at apps until a little later, so you could push the DAT back another couple weeks.

I've been telling beople that they should try to take it before August no matter where they plan to apply. Thus far, I've seen several people with similar scores to mine who took the DAT just a few weeks after me (in mid august) and they are getting much later interview dates than I had. I had 4 of my interviews in October, and have 2 set up for january. Many people who took the DATs a few weeks after me also have interviews, and some have more interviews than me, but the interviews are all around end of novemeber at the earliest to late january.

Does that matter...well, it seems to matter a lot to some of us and it seems to matter for certain schools.