need some advice

[Cruzangurl81]

Hi my sister just applied to dental school and took her DATS again, she scored the same, improved in certain areas, but went down on her PAT. I know this is not what people on SDN are here for, but would anyone feel free to offer any advice, stories, help for anyone who was in the same situation and got in. I am saying this because she applied her second time, studied for months, volunteer, shes definatley dedicated, and i hate to see her upset like this. I konw everyone is going through the same thing, but if you know of any info that could be helpful thanks. She had scored a 17 avg, pat 14

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[Envision]

Hi my sister just applied to dental school and took her DATS again, she scored the same, improved in certain areas, but went down on her PAT. I know this is not what people on SDN are here for, but would anyone feel free to offer any advice, stories, help for anyone who was in the same situation and got in. I am saying this because she applied her second time, studied for months, volunteer, shes definatley dedicated, and i hate to see her upset like this. I konw everyone is going through the same thing, but if you know of any info that could be helpful thanks. She had scored a 17 avg, pat 14

Hi Cruzan,

I hate to tell you this, but your sisters DAT scores are pretty low. 17 is national average...although its been unofficially predicted to go up. and PAT is a gauge of suitibility in dentistry...although different schools emphasizes on this section differently (UOP=high PAT, UPENN=whatever PAT), i believe there is a cutoff at most if not all schools at around 16 or 15. A 14 shows that your sister may be guessing on most of her answers because thats like getting more than half wrong. my suggestion, tell your sister to retake and if she wants a more official opinion, tell her to call up her top choices. Whats her GPA like? either way i think it may be very difficult to compensate for that DAT score.

 

[djeffreyt]

Here are my words of advice based on what little info there is:

1) retake the DAT again. Study so hard that your brain will pop (literally study for 3-4 months). The DAT is not a heavy thinking test...it can be studied for and improved upon...a DAT score of 17 with a PAT of 14 is marginal. Very few people with scores like that get into dental schools nowadays unless they know someone in the ADCOM office. Can I cite statistics for what I've just said? No...but this is just my opinion.

2) apply to as many schools as you can as it increases the chance of acceptance. Sure, you have to explain later why you applied to so many schools, but it's still better than not applying.

3) If after retaking the DAT your scores don't improve much and your GPA is low, do not bother to apply to the top schools as it will be a waste of money. When I say top, I do not mean dental school rankings which no longer occur, but look for schools with lower minimal and average GPA and DAT scores.

4) No matter what school you apply to, know the school like the back of your hand. That way, if you get an interview, you will be knowledgeable about the school and can talk about it in a way that shows you were very interested in the school.

5) do not be afraid to call schools to ask about chances and minimal requirements in order to be a good applicant...calling and asking at least shows you have an interest in the school.

That's my 2 cents

 

[jkh1886]

If she hasn't done well the first two-three attempts, "studying harder" for the third won't help tremendously. She's doing something wrong. She may not be learning the right material. She may be learning unnecessary information. Many, many students just don't necessarily do well on standardized tests, because they don't key in to the right things. If she's for real about this, she may need to ask for help from another student who HAS done well. He can target her trouble spots and help her improve.

The DAT is not really an intelligence test. Most students CAN do well with practice. I think she'd benefit greatly from private tutoring.

 

[Cruzangurl81]

Are you someone who did well on it? DO you have any suggestions books, cd's you used? She used Topscore, SAT MATH, DAT PRinceton books, Kaplan course, GRE MATH...some more i dont know the names though.

 

[jkh1886]

I'm one of those people who took the test without really focusing on it and did great. so I'm one of those people you made you hate. lol. But it's okay. Let's help your sister now.

I used Kaplan, Barron's, TopScore, my college Orgo Txtbk, and Cliff's AP Bio. That was it.

A large portion of why some people may not do so hottt is because the practice exams are soooo off-point. I know this from studying (not necessarily studying FOR) the MCAT's and LSAT's.

TopScore was good practice, but the questions were entirely off-point. Hard yes. Ultimately off-point and futile? yes. The MATH tested you on many wrong concepts and tasks. People didn't seem to realize that. They had hard questions for the sake of having hard questions, not hard questions that test a certain skill. The RC tested you on one of the 5 question types, and they made zero effort to put in popular distractors.

Don't let the mistakes in the answer key turn you off from Barron's. They did a very good job at keying me into several knit-picky particularities of the test.

The rest of it may be your sis's test-taking skills.

 

[KIMOANGELO]

i used examcrakers for orgo and genchem, acethedat for pat.

i am a 3d idiot so i bought some dices to
practice 3d visualization.

good luck !

 

[JeanetteYu]

I basically just used kaplan materials and topscore. I think the kaplan blue book is enough information for the test. Also, taking a lot of practice exams helped. It gets you more into test-mode.

For the PAT section, there are strategies that I used from kaplan and it works great. It teachs you to go through the PAT section relatively quickly while still getting the correct answers. It just takes a little practice.

Hope that helps!

 

[pine88]

Kaplan course, barrons, and topscore pro. The key for me was all the subject tests Kaplan has on file, not the actual course itself. You have access to these files if you sign up for a class. I felt they prepared me way past the level of the DAT. Good luck to your sis.