I'm very new to this pre-dental forum, so everyone is of course welcome to tear me up to their heart's content. Anyway...on to my question.
I'm currently about to start my second semester as a junior at Louisville. I'm extremely unfamiliar with the application process. I know I'm starting late, and it's unlikely I'll graduate in 4 years as Louisville is my 3rd school (mainly due to financial reasons). My major is chemistry, but my sciGPA is relatively low, below a 3.0 and my genGPA is a 3.4. I was wondering if someone could run me through the application process and how I might go about starting it. I was wondering as well about how to get shadowing experience in a dental office. Is there an application process or is it just asking a dentist you know if you can?
Applying to dental schools is the easy part, just go to AADSAS early June of every year and fill out the online application. It doesn't have to be early June, but, general consensuses states that early June applicants have stronger chances of landing pre-december interviews. Is this theory correct? I dunno
The PAINFUL PART(S) are (and they "usually" must be complete before AADSAS):
-->Building up the GPAs, generally speaking, students with 3.5 overall and science GPAs are considered "strong"
-->Getting some shadowing hours. This shadowing is usually to be done while you are still in undergrad, in the "I dunno what to do with my life" stages, so you shadow a dentist and a light bulb
idea
moment appears. IMHO, 50-150 hours is more than enough. You can get them from 1 or multiple dentists. I always recommend doing them from a GP (general practice dentist). You are right, just call up / or stop by a dental office and ask to see if he/she would be willing to let you shadow.
-->Letters of recommendations. Generally speaking one of the following options is what you need: 3 letters are "good enough", 4 is great, and committee letter is best (if your undergrad institution has this service). Letters of recommendations are what I call "gray area" lol, some schools want to see 2 letters from science professors, and 1 non-science or dentist. OTHERS on the other hand, are VERY specific, they want two letters from 2 different biology professors, 1 non-science, and 1 dentists. So.... The SAFEST thing you can do is to get 2 letters from biology professors, 1 from a non-science professor, and 1 from the dentist you'll shadow.
-->Volunteering experience (aka ECs), its usually a good idea to show that you are interested in your community. Volunteering shows your "humanitarian" side. This does NOT have to be dental related, it can be anything: habitat for humanity, at your local hospital, free dental clinics, etc etc.
-->DAT, but this is the least of your worries at this time, the 4 things I posted above are what you need to work on now, DAT is the final stages before applying, worry about it when the time comes.
So, you do have a good overall GPA, but you REALLY need to work on that science. From what I hear, its looked upon more favorably (makes sense ~ dental school is a "science" based curriculum).
Good luck to you
