- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
- Messages
- 34
- Reaction score
- 12
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- 4,621
- Pre-Health (Field Undecided)
Hey everybody, this is my first, and kinda long post here. I've basically been a lurker for quite a while. I just want to say that this site is a tremendous resource for anyone curious about entering the healthcare field.....be it dentistry or anything else. I wish I would have known about it a long time ago......things may have turned out differently for me, but who knows.....maybe not. Anyway, thank you to everyone who posts on here. All the breakdowns, school info, etc. are invaluable.
As for me, I'm a 30 year old former dental student. I started school when I was 22 and subsequently performed very poorly. Honestly, I'm not sure why. Basically I didn't work anywhere near hard enough or commit to the level that one needs to in order to succeed in professional school. I really didn't appreciate that and suffered the consequences. You need to be completely committed to it. I unfortunately wasn't. I prepped for exams just like undergrad.......study a day/couple days before, and not much during the week. In hindsight, I think it was just immaturity. I felt stupid after performing poorly and wasn't used to asking for help, so I didn't and my grades suffered severely leading to a dismissal and subsequent denial of appeal.
That was 2006, so since then I went through a pretty rough time till about 2010. I worked a lot of *^#@ jobs, etc. and finally got my act together around 2009. I got a job in a denture lab just to see if I should try for dentistry again. I worked there for about a year, enjoyed it; given it was super stressful, then went back to school......finished my bachelors then tried to get into a grad program. It took about a year and a half to get admitted to one after several attempts at several schools, but I got in finally and will finish this spring with my MS. GPA right now is about 3.6. Meh, but with my work schedule I'm proud of it. Just about all of our classes are with the med students, so its pretty tough. I work in the lab at an oil refinery now......swing shifts, so it is pretty difficult to study yet alone attend class.......never wanna work another midnight again!
Anyway,I took the DAT today. Its been about 10 years since I've had 95% of the stuff on the DAT, so I'm happy with the scores given the separation from the material. I studied from about the first week of May till yesterday......took a week long break first week of July and sevral days off spaced out. My scores aren't anything near most if the posters on here, but I'm satisfied with mine.......obviously they could always be better but whatever. It's done.
AA:21
TS20
RC:23
GC:22
OC:21
BIO:19 ? Don't know what happened
QR:18 Expected(little prep)
PA:18 Expected(little prep)
I hoped for better given my obviously large red flag, but it is what it is.
Prep:
GC/OC: 21/22 95% of my prep was Chad. I watched the videos/took notes multiple times (nice way to kill time at work). Seriously, I probably watched them 4-5 times. I'm more of a visual/auditory learner I guess. I did a little Bootcamp my last week, but it was almost all Chad. If you utilize the other resources there's no doubt you could do better, but considering how long I had been away from the material he did the job just fine. Bought Destroyer, but didn't have time for it.
Bio: 19. Actually pretty bummed about this. Its my best section as far as prep goes. I averaged 21 QVault, and 23 Bootcamp. I got several plant questions unfortunately, as well as several weirdly worded genetics questions. As an aside, I think its kind of a dick move to have plant questions......JMHO. Anyway, its kind of a toss up. You know how broad the questions are. Just prepare yourself. You can prepare all you want, but it just depends on what they ask. You can know 95% of Cliffs or whatever, but they can still throw questions at you that you won't know. I'm pretty strong in anatomy/phys, cell bio, but ended up getting pbly around 30-35% plants/genetics/other poorly worded q's.....unlucky I guess. Just study as much stuff as you can. Like I said, its kind luck of the draw here.
QR: 18. Not too disappointed here. I would have liked better, but considering prep time I'm good with it. I used the Math questions in regular destroyer, but only worked on them this past week. If you can devote a fair amount of time to it, you can def. make QR a strong section, I just couldn't rationalize the time commitment to getting 20+. I needed to devote my time to relearning GC and OC.
RC: No real prep. Did 1 practice Bootcamp test and got a 20. I'm a SLOW reader, so I pretty much maxed out my 20 min per section. I did a combo of jotting down notes/ S&D. This is kind of a personal choice......whatever works best for YOU. The passages, at least one or two are fairly dry, so for me it is hard to remember specifics.....mainly just because scientific articles are not all that engaging, so scribbling down something at least gives me a map to go back and look. Bootcamp was great as far as length/content as well as questiin type. I had several tone questions.
PAT: Very little prep. Ran out of time and money here. I bought the full version of Bootcamp, but not until the last week b/c my Chads subscription had expired and wanted all the subjects instead of just CDP. Bootcamps explainations and diagrams were great. I wish I could have devoted more time to it. I don't have any experience with CDP, but Bootcamp is plenty for PAT, I just didn't utilize it all. I only did 1 full length practice to check my timing. Got a 19. I also did a few random q's but not many. As with QR, and RC, I wanted to put my time in on other sections. It didn't work out great, but I'll def take it.
So, in summary, I used Chads, Cliffs, Ferralis notes, Bootcamp, a little QVault, internet, and very little Destroyer. (10 weeks)
Like I said before, given my background, I needed to get at least above a 20 to even have a prayer, and even then its pbly a stretch. I didn't meet my goal by much, and not in every subject, but I'm happy with my scores. There is always room for improvement, but it was a pretty jam packed 10 weeks with a full-time job. I had to give up the majority of the summer studying at work, after work, and used my vacation from work to cram the last two weeks. I'm not sure of the hours, but I hope its gonna be worth it. I just wanted to post in case anyone else is in my situation, or anything similar and wanted some support. Let me know if you want to know any specifics.......I'll do my best. Good luck to everybody! I hope you all do really well.
-Adam
As for me, I'm a 30 year old former dental student. I started school when I was 22 and subsequently performed very poorly. Honestly, I'm not sure why. Basically I didn't work anywhere near hard enough or commit to the level that one needs to in order to succeed in professional school. I really didn't appreciate that and suffered the consequences. You need to be completely committed to it. I unfortunately wasn't. I prepped for exams just like undergrad.......study a day/couple days before, and not much during the week. In hindsight, I think it was just immaturity. I felt stupid after performing poorly and wasn't used to asking for help, so I didn't and my grades suffered severely leading to a dismissal and subsequent denial of appeal.
That was 2006, so since then I went through a pretty rough time till about 2010. I worked a lot of *^#@ jobs, etc. and finally got my act together around 2009. I got a job in a denture lab just to see if I should try for dentistry again. I worked there for about a year, enjoyed it; given it was super stressful, then went back to school......finished my bachelors then tried to get into a grad program. It took about a year and a half to get admitted to one after several attempts at several schools, but I got in finally and will finish this spring with my MS. GPA right now is about 3.6. Meh, but with my work schedule I'm proud of it. Just about all of our classes are with the med students, so its pretty tough. I work in the lab at an oil refinery now......swing shifts, so it is pretty difficult to study yet alone attend class.......never wanna work another midnight again!
Anyway,I took the DAT today. Its been about 10 years since I've had 95% of the stuff on the DAT, so I'm happy with the scores given the separation from the material. I studied from about the first week of May till yesterday......took a week long break first week of July and sevral days off spaced out. My scores aren't anything near most if the posters on here, but I'm satisfied with mine.......obviously they could always be better but whatever. It's done.
AA:21
TS20
RC:23
GC:22
OC:21
BIO:19 ? Don't know what happened
QR:18 Expected(little prep)
PA:18 Expected(little prep)
I hoped for better given my obviously large red flag, but it is what it is.
Prep:
GC/OC: 21/22 95% of my prep was Chad. I watched the videos/took notes multiple times (nice way to kill time at work). Seriously, I probably watched them 4-5 times. I'm more of a visual/auditory learner I guess. I did a little Bootcamp my last week, but it was almost all Chad. If you utilize the other resources there's no doubt you could do better, but considering how long I had been away from the material he did the job just fine. Bought Destroyer, but didn't have time for it.
Bio: 19. Actually pretty bummed about this. Its my best section as far as prep goes. I averaged 21 QVault, and 23 Bootcamp. I got several plant questions unfortunately, as well as several weirdly worded genetics questions. As an aside, I think its kind of a dick move to have plant questions......JMHO. Anyway, its kind of a toss up. You know how broad the questions are. Just prepare yourself. You can prepare all you want, but it just depends on what they ask. You can know 95% of Cliffs or whatever, but they can still throw questions at you that you won't know. I'm pretty strong in anatomy/phys, cell bio, but ended up getting pbly around 30-35% plants/genetics/other poorly worded q's.....unlucky I guess. Just study as much stuff as you can. Like I said, its kind luck of the draw here.
QR: 18. Not too disappointed here. I would have liked better, but considering prep time I'm good with it. I used the Math questions in regular destroyer, but only worked on them this past week. If you can devote a fair amount of time to it, you can def. make QR a strong section, I just couldn't rationalize the time commitment to getting 20+. I needed to devote my time to relearning GC and OC.
RC: No real prep. Did 1 practice Bootcamp test and got a 20. I'm a SLOW reader, so I pretty much maxed out my 20 min per section. I did a combo of jotting down notes/ S&D. This is kind of a personal choice......whatever works best for YOU. The passages, at least one or two are fairly dry, so for me it is hard to remember specifics.....mainly just because scientific articles are not all that engaging, so scribbling down something at least gives me a map to go back and look. Bootcamp was great as far as length/content as well as questiin type. I had several tone questions.
PAT: Very little prep. Ran out of time and money here. I bought the full version of Bootcamp, but not until the last week b/c my Chads subscription had expired and wanted all the subjects instead of just CDP. Bootcamps explainations and diagrams were great. I wish I could have devoted more time to it. I don't have any experience with CDP, but Bootcamp is plenty for PAT, I just didn't utilize it all. I only did 1 full length practice to check my timing. Got a 19. I also did a few random q's but not many. As with QR, and RC, I wanted to put my time in on other sections. It didn't work out great, but I'll def take it.
So, in summary, I used Chads, Cliffs, Ferralis notes, Bootcamp, a little QVault, internet, and very little Destroyer. (10 weeks)
Like I said before, given my background, I needed to get at least above a 20 to even have a prayer, and even then its pbly a stretch. I didn't meet my goal by much, and not in every subject, but I'm happy with my scores. There is always room for improvement, but it was a pretty jam packed 10 weeks with a full-time job. I had to give up the majority of the summer studying at work, after work, and used my vacation from work to cram the last two weeks. I'm not sure of the hours, but I hope its gonna be worth it. I just wanted to post in case anyone else is in my situation, or anything similar and wanted some support. Let me know if you want to know any specifics.......I'll do my best. Good luck to everybody! I hope you all do really well.
-Adam
