New. Progress+Advice Please

[NoSugarAdded]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hello all,
I am new to the SDN community and had questions about my progress as well as general questions. For the sake of privacy I have kept the majority of my information vague, but hopefully it will not impede members from giving good feed back. I attend a "top 20" university according to the US News & World Report. My concentration is a social science. The disparity between my ADEA GPA and University GPA is due to the +/- scale of the ADEA, where an A+ is weighted as a 4.33. I am a junior however I plan to take a year off and continue research or hopefully do a fullbright.

Year: Junior
ADEA GPA: 3.85
University GPA: 3.80
Science GPA: 3.60
Non Science GPA: 4.00
DAT: Not Taken Yet
Shadowing hours: 50

Extra-curricular (kept vague)
President of a service organization (1 years)
President of an academic organization (1 years)
Fraternity
Scholarship Chair (1 year)
Secretary (1 year)
Historian (1 year)
Counsel representative (1 year)
Many honors societies with minimal involvement including Golden Key etc.

Research
Community health based research (2 years)
Published in a medical journal (3rd author)
Will most likely be published again at least once more before graduating.

Work Experience
Waiter (1 year)

Awards
Dean's list every year
Essay contests winner (2x)

I was wondering how I could improve my application and if my non-science major will hinder me from getting accepted into dental school. My concentration is directly pertinent to my research and I wanted to explore another passion of mine while in undergrad that I would not be able to explore once in dental school.

Other than the fact I have declared myself a pre-dental student, there is not much in my application that would support that besides perhaps my community health based research. My science GPA, although not low, is lower than my over all GPA and was wondering how the disparity would be viewed.

I was wondering if other pre-dents take a gap year and if so, is a fullbright a valid reason? If accepted, the fullbright would be related to my current concentration and not the dental field.

 

[sacapuntas]

How do you know you want to be a dentist and what have you done to show that you want to be a dentist?

 

[Silencio]

At what restaurant did you work as a waiter? (I think I'm onto something)

 

[arionbarry]

what ????????
Too confusing . . . .

 

[AwesomeTeeth]

You should go shadow a dentist and see if that's really what you want to do.

 

[NoSugarAdded]

Typo with the shadowing hours: 50*

 

[NoSugarAdded]

Any advice?

 

[UltimateHombre]

Any advice?

First off... i really like your user name. lol

I think you are looking pretty good. Your app seems well rounded. Your non-science major will not hurt you, just make sure you do well in all the prereqs. However, you may want to take a couple extra upper level sciences to boost your application. I am communication major, but in addition to the prereqs i will have: biochem, micro, a+p 1 and 2, and a couple other random upper division bios.

You may also want to get your shadowing up to about 100 hours. Try shadowing a couple specialists. However, the most important thing is that you keep your grades up and get a 19+ on the DAT.

EDIT: Also, your research is awesome!! Keep up the good work there!