New to Dental World

[kingovkeyz]

Hello everyone. I would appreciate any advice for my situation. (deep breath) here it goes.

I am a music major graduating in the spring of '09. I have recently decided to pursue a career in dentistry. I know that I need to complete lots of prereqs. My question is this: do I need to wait until I complete all of my prereqs before I apply to schools? Assuming I get a satisfactory score on the DAT, I will have about half of my prereqs completed by application deadlines for the next cycle. Should I even bother, or just wait until I finish?
I would have to put a lot of things together to have applications together by the upcoming spring. I'm studying like crazy for the DAT right now. Obviously completing the prereqs will only help my DAT score I'm sure, but if I can pull a good score, should I apply? (I would have the courses completed by spring '10, D school starts fall '10.)
I really want to go to Oklahoma. I live there and my undergrad is at OU, and I love OU. I would for sure apply there, how many schools should I apply to?
I realize that I may have to apply more than one cycle, but I feel very strongly about the profession, and I don't mind. But I also want to make good decisions concerning application, and nail it once

GPA 3.3, SCI 3.7, no DAT yet.

Any suggestions are welcomed, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[kingovkeyz]

I forgot to mention that I will have the prereqs finished before entering D school.

 

[Dentista08]

Hello everyone. I would appreciate any advice for my situation. (deep breath) here it goes.

I am a music major graduating in the spring of '09. I have recently decided to pursue a career in dentistry. I know that I need to complete lots of prereqs. My question is this: do I need to wait until I complete all of my prereqs before I apply to schools? Assuming I get a satisfactory score on the DAT, I will have about half of my prereqs completed by application deadlines for the next cycle. Should I even bother, or just wait until I finish?
I would have to put a lot of things together to have applications together by the upcoming spring. I'm studying like crazy for the DAT right now. Obviously completing the prereqs will only help my DAT score I'm sure, but if I can pull a good score, should I apply? (I would have the courses completed by spring '10, D school starts fall '10.)
I really want to go to Oklahoma. I live there and my undergrad is at OU, and I love OU. I would for sure apply there, how many schools should I apply to?
I realize that I may have to apply more than one cycle, but I feel very strongly about the profession, and I don't mind. But I also want to make good decisions concerning application, and nail it once

GPA 3.3, SCI 3.7, no DAT yet.

Any suggestions are welcomed, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks

You have to have at least you 2 semester of gen bio+lab, 2 sem of gen chem+lab and at least 1 semester of ochem done when you apply. My suggestion take a summer class- bio or chem and go from there. Also, it will be hard to get a good DAT without the science courses. I felt that 2 semesters of bio was not nearly enough for me. Course like Anatomy, endocrinology, physiology have definately improved my score. For the chem & ochem sections ochem! and gen chem 1&2 are a must!! But you can do it! Good luck!!

 

[dentalservant]

I'm not sure that you have to have everything done before you apply. I haven't done biochem or my OChem lab, and I am in the process of doing my bio lab and that didn't stop schools from giving me interviews.
Most kids apply to about 12 schools. Personally, I think we will see everyone applying to more in the future. When recessions hit people are more likely to switch over to health fields, so I imagine you will be battling with more people for spots. Personally I applied to 17 with 3.5 culm and 3.5 science, with a 20 dat. 10 interviews so maybe applied to too many.
Also if you haven't taken many upper division science classes some schools may not look too seriously at your application. They want to see that you can handle the tough courses too, so make sure you take some upper division courses. There is a lot of information in these forums you should look through I'm sure you will find a lot of other info that will be good for you. Good luck!

 

[DDSguyLA]

you're good to go.

 

[supraman]

Super Dental World

 

[sl2obel2ts]

Hello everyone. I would appreciate any advice for my situation. (deep breath) here it goes.

I am a music major graduating in the spring of '09. I have recently decided to pursue a career in dentistry. I know that I need to complete lots of prereqs. My question is this: do I need to wait until I complete all of my prereqs before I apply to schools? Assuming I get a satisfactory score on the DAT, I will have about half of my prereqs completed by application deadlines for the next cycle. Should I even bother, or just wait until I finish?
I would have to put a lot of things together to have applications together by the upcoming spring. I'm studying like crazy for the DAT right now. Obviously completing the prereqs will only help my DAT score I'm sure, but if I can pull a good score, should I apply? (I would have the courses completed by spring '10, D school starts fall '10.)
I really want to go to Oklahoma. I live there and my undergrad is at OU, and I love OU. I would for sure apply there, how many schools should I apply to?
I realize that I may have to apply more than one cycle, but I feel very strongly about the profession, and I don't mind. But I also want to make good decisions concerning application, and nail it once

GPA 3.3, SCI 3.7, no DAT yet.

Any suggestions are welcomed, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks

Hey how do you have GPA of 3.3 and SCI 3.7? Do you have below 3.0 nonscience GPA?

I ask this because some schools will reject you if you have sub 3.0 gpa in any section. This happened to me (<3.0 nonscience) thumbdown

 

[kingovkeyz]

Hey how do you have GPA of 3.3 and SCI 3.7? Do you have below 3.0 nonscience GPA?

I ask this because some schools will reject you if you have sub 3.0 gpa in any section. This happened to me (<3.0 nonscience) thumbdown

yeah, I messed up my freshman year, and sophomore year for that matter, and I did lots of extracurricular music courses that take up tons of time, and take away from other things.

 

[kingovkeyz]

you're good to go.

So you don't think schools would look down on not having all the prereqs done or just half done when applying?

 

[DocVT]

So you don't think schools would look down on not having all the prereqs done or just half done when applying?

You can go ahead and apply to d-schools even if you haven't taken all the prereqs just yet. But you need to have all pre-reqs completed by the time you matriculate into dschool.

 

[JamesOSU]

I know some schools, Ohio State, point out on their website http://dent.osu.edu that they require you have 2/3rds of your pre-reqs done before you apply.

 

[kingovkeyz]

All this makes sense. Thanks for the opinions.

I just want to be competitive with people who have already completed those courses on record for the committee to see. I know because of my music background I need to stand out. I don't want the committee to be like "well this guy's pretty cool, got a good gpa, but mostly music courses so far...should we take a chance on him???" I guess the only thing for me to do would be to just go for it, and if i don't get in anywhere to finish up my prereqs and re apply for the next cycle huh?

 

[ryanaj]

You're going to OU and you want to go to OU, right? Why don't you take a leisurely stroll down to the admissions office and ask them what your chances would be of getting in.

 

[kingovkeyz]

You're going to OU and you want to go to OU, right? Why don't you take a leisurely stroll down to the admissions office and ask them what your chances would be of getting in.

Good point...I guess I'm trying to find out some of the "green horn" questions before having big drawn-out conversations with admissions. But I imagine that would be a good idea. Thanks

 

[cobalt31]

also keep in mind i think OU requires at least 100hrs of shadowing experience, just so you know. (i'm going off of memory so i may be wrong - double check that with their website)