Non-traditional student pre-req advice

[USMCPreDent]

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Hi! I decided a few months ago that I am going to pursue a career in dentistry. I am currently an active duty Marine officer and twenty six years old. I had long been on course to attend law school, but found that path lost its appeal after having a few years to reflect on what I really wanted to do with my life. I am now trying to figure out how to best prepare myself for applying to dental school.
I have several factors working in my favor as an applicant. I graduated from Stanford with honors and a 3.8 GPA. I have completed the physics and math prerequisites along with a general chemistry course with a 3.7 GPA. I am also Native American.
Unfortunately, I studied international relations and history in college, which while I found it interesting, means I still have a lot of chemistry, biology, and anatomy left to take. Because I still have yet to complete a lot of the pre-reqs, I am planning to take a year off from work to go back to school. I will be getting off of active duty in April 2012 and would like to start attending dental school in fall of 2013.
The challenge I am facing is how to complete enough pre-requisites in order to be competitive during the summer 2012 application cycle since at my age I would prefer to avoid a “glide year”. Right now the best course of action I can think of would be to take one class in spring 2012, summer 2012, fall 2012, and then two or three in spring 2013 at a local community college. I know more courses per term would be ideal, but my job will remain pretty demanding until I am a couple months away from leaving active duty. I am concerned about how all that community college coursework will look, but I am not seeing too many other options since the four-year universities in my area do not offer night classes and I think the admissions committees would be even more skeptical of online classes. Of course the most convenient option for me would be to go to school full time at a four year school starting summer 2012, but I don’t think any dental schools would take my application seriously without a more significant portion of my prerequisites complete.
I am planning on applying to most schools that are near naval air stations since my wife is a Navy flight surgeon, as well as OHSU since I am an Alaska resident.
I am really exited about dentistry and I would appreciate any thoughts on what I can do to maximize my chances of starting school in 2013. Thanks.

 

[TwentyTwelve]

There are a lot of ways to approach your situation. First, it is mathematically impossible to complete your goal as stated below in that order. Assuming you still need to take Chem 1/2, O Chem 1/2, and Bio 1/2 , that will take a full two years to complete due to internal prerequisites. Basically you will need to complete Chem 1/2 BEFORE taking O Chem. Bio can be fit in anywhere but the chemistry is the rate determining step. By fitting that into your stated goal for a schedule, you would take Chem 1 in Spring 2012, Chem 2 Summer 2012, then O Chem during the following fall and spring semesters. Since you could plug in Bio while you take O Chem the earliest you could sit for the DAT and be reasonably successful would be in the spring of 2013. This would then eliminate you from entering school in fall of 2013 due to the glide year. Your best bet to TRY and enter Fall 2013 would be to go to school full time spring 2012 and take Chem and Bio, then Chem in the summer, following by O Chem 1 and Bio 2 in the fall. Then study like crazy over your winter break the remaining O Chem 2 mechanisms and take the DAT at the end of break. This would put you out of consideration for most school due to application deadlines, but (and I may be wrong) I believe some school accept apps up to Jan. 18th.

However, this does not take into account any upper level Bio classes that some school require and others strongly recommend such as Microbio, Biochem, Immunology, etc which you will not be able to start until finishing O Chem 1 or 2 depending on the school. It would be better to fit these classes into your glide year right before entering school.

I would also strongly advise NOT to take your classes at a CC due to the perception of a slack academic curriculum. I took warm-up classes at a CC before taking full time Chem as a non-trad and the classes were pretty good. However, the stigma is that they are easy/slack and thus you do not want that questionable class on your resume.

Like I said, lots of ways to look at this. I would suggest talking to a pre-health counselor at a school that sends plenty of kids off to med/dent/pharm school to get a good feel what is, an isn't possible.

Hope this helps and good luck...

 

[dentalWorks]

Hi! I decided a few months ago that I am going to pursue a career in dentistry. I am currently an active duty Marine officer and twenty six years old. I had long been on course to attend law school, but found that path lost its appeal after having a few years to reflect on what I really wanted to do with my life. I am now trying to figure out how to best prepare myself for applying to dental school.
I have several factors working in my favor as an applicant. I graduated from Stanford with honors and a 3.8 GPA. I have completed the physics and math prerequisites along with a general chemistry course with a 3.7 GPA. I am also Native American.
Unfortunately, I studied international relations and history in college, which while I found it interesting, means I still have a lot of chemistry, biology, and anatomy left to take. Because I still have yet to complete a lot of the pre-reqs, I am planning to take a year off from work to go back to school. I will be getting off of active duty in April 2012 and would like to start attending dental school in fall of 2013.
The challenge I am facing is how to complete enough pre-requisites in order to be competitive during the summer 2012 application cycle since at my age I would prefer to avoid a “glide year”. Right now the best course of action I can think of would be to take one class in spring 2012, summer 2012, fall 2012, and then two or three in spring 2013 at a local community college. I know more courses per term would be ideal, but my job will remain pretty demanding until I am a couple months away from leaving active duty. I am concerned about how all that community college coursework will look, but I am not seeing too many other options since the four-year universities in my area do not offer night classes and I think the admissions committees would be even more skeptical of online classes. Of course the most convenient option for me would be to go to school full time at a four year school starting summer 2012, but I don’t think any dental schools would take my application seriously without a more significant portion of my prerequisites complete.
I am planning on applying to most schools that are near naval air stations since my wife is a Navy flight surgeon, as well as OHSU since I am an Alaska resident.
I am really exited about dentistry and I would appreciate any thoughts on what I can do to maximize my chances of starting school in 2013. Thanks.

its going to be next to impossible to complete ALL of those pre-reqs WHILE applying to dental school at the same time.

Do you know that if you want to enter dental school in fall 2013, then you NEED to apply in summer of 2012? The application process takes approx a year to complete. While it is true that you don't have to have all of your pre-reqs complete when you apply, this sort of doesn't apply to you cause you don't have 90% of your pre-reqs complete by time you start applying (summer 2012)

Spend 2012 and most of 2013 working on your pre-reqs (Organic 1&2, Biology 1&2, whatever general chem you have left over, whatever labs you need for biology, general chem, and orgos). Oh and I forgot, most people now-adays who apply, have multiple upper level sciences taken cause it makes your application stand out even more, classes like biochemistry, anatomy, microbiology, histology, and physiology (just naming some).

The best think you can do is to apply in summer 2013 for the 2014 fall-entering class. Lets not forget the dreaded DAT lol, you need to devote 1 to 2 months of alone time with this test. Obviously you don't need to dominate it, your GPA is amazing, but you still need to prepare for it.

good luck on whatever you decide

 

[Act0fgod]

I disagree with the 2 previous posts. I think I was in a worse position class wise. I was 25 and an AF officer and my wife is also an AF officer. Like you I wasn't a science major but did have physics (6 yrs earlier), chem (6 yrs earlier) and 1 bio course (4 yrs earlier). But had only 1 year until I wanted to be sitting in the classroom as a dental student.

In Aug 08 I decided that I wanted to go to dental school. I opened up an AADSAS application and looked at the deadlines for applications to all the schools that I was interested in. I also looked at the pre-reqs to all the schools since I was only going to have time for the minimum. I pretty much figured the base pre-reqs. I needed O-Chem 1/2, a Bio course and biochem.

I signed up for O-Chem 1 at the University of MD (they have a thing called science in the evening) I also signed up for the DAT scheduled for Nov 08. I utilized tuition assistance to pay for the class which is how I let my commander know that I was going to take some classes. Classes meant cutting back on hours at work as I was previously working 12 hour days 5 days a week and going in on some Saturdays. To study for the DAT I went to the public library and got a Kaplan DAT book that had a few practice tests and pages of content. Contacted some of my old teachers to get letters of recommendations (there are specific requirements on who writes letters). Took leave the day of my exams for O-Chem and took a week of leave before the DAT. Did well enough on The DAT that I figured I'd submit my application the day after taking the DAT in Nov (with only 1/2 of O-Chem 1 and no O-Chem 2). I had no grades for 4 of the pre-reqs. I then took Ochem 2 , Micro (both at MD) and Biochem (at a community college that started about 1/2 way through the UMD semester and ended later much easier class as well). I ended up getting into UCLA (close to Pt Mugu NAS) in early April 09, somehow finished classes, separated in Aug 09, and started Sep 09.

Also not sure if you're interested in HPSP but at least for the AF there is a separate process for active duty folks to obtain an HPSP slot (there are 4 slots for academy grads, ROTC health scholarship types and active duty).

If I were you I'd start with the pre-reqs in Jan 11 by taking chem 2 and ease into it (that was my thought process). Submit your application in June 11 (definitely helps you out to apply early which I didn't). Take a course during the summer semester (I'd suggest O-Chem 1). Then take Ochem-2 Aug 11 and take your DAT during this time (I really don't feel you need much in O-chem 2 for the DAT so the earlier the better). That will leave you Jan 12 - Sep 12 to take Bio 2 and probably biochem.

I wouldn't worry too much about taking the classes at a CC based on the fact that you proved yourself with your undergrad GPA and the fact that you will be doing it while working. Make sure you do well on the courses that you will have completed at the time your application is submitted. Also there appear to be some schools that really look for previous military students (I've heard some of the AZ schools and I know UCLA does as I'm pretty certain that's the only reason I got in). Also be prepared to apply a year later if it doesn't work out.

Feel free to ask other questions privately or on the forum as there are many military folks on this board.

 

[Lethstang]

this thread has shown you that there is alot of bad advice floating around (besides actofgod, hes pretty spot on). Here is my advice from someone who started his dental journey this past january, and is getting accepted this december.

read the stickies at the top about which dental schools to apply to and the other good ones. theyre so full of information that most ppl dont bother to read, so they then ask about. having not read them, they then perpetuate silly "facts".

spend a few days absorbinbg the forums. old posts, new posts etc. i did this my first week, and became somewhat of an expert on the application process. This allows you to put together a realistic timeline.

do this asap. its the worst feeling ever to realize you cant get in this current cycle because you messed your timeline up (ive personally seen this happen many times).

after youve done this, if you dont have a rock solid plan, PM me and I will help you smooth it out. But trust me, after following those steps you will know exactly what to do, when to do, and how to do it.

oh and while i am here, cc classes wont matter for you, you went to stanford. dont listen to your pre health counselor, they are complete garbage the vast majority though u may get lucky. no u dont need your pre reqs done to apply or even take the dat. yes you can get accepted like that. with your background and stats, you are a shoe in the first cycle you apply as im sure your dat will reflect.

 

[emh25]

With your background, high gpa and degree from Stanford, you can absolutely take your prereqs at a community college. I am a non-traditional career-changer applicant (I also started this process at age 26) with a bachelors from an ivy league school. Having majored in economics, I needed all the prereqs, and I took them ALL at a local community college (which offered late weeknight, Saturday and Sunday classes and was really cheap compared to any four-year school) so that I could continue to work full-time while taking 2-3 science courses a semester. I was nervous about how the cc credits would look on my application; there are a lot of people on this forum, as well as school counselors, etc., who will tell you not to take the prereqs at a cc. However, I have had five pre-December interviews and another scheduled for January, so I should (fingers crossed!) be starting dental school next summer.

You should, of course, plan to ace the cc courses, and score well on the DAT (to show that you've learned the material as well as other students who've taken prereqs from a four-year school), but that probably goes without saying. There are some schools (several on the east coast) that will not accept any courses from a cc, but as long as you don't have your heart set on any of those particular schools, then it shouldn't be an issue (I just didn't apply to those schools).

I hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[USMCPreDent]

Thanks for the advice and encouragement from those that posted, I am in the process now of registering for spring sememster classes for when I get back from my current deployment. Good luck to all those waiting to hear back from schools they have applied to!