**Official CANADIAN where are you going thread

[gochi]

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Hey guys,

Im sorta worried. I have just completed two semesters, undergrad.

Is a BSc a requirement for Dentistry, for schools in the US ?

Say if a person w/ a BSc degree had a GPA OF 3.3 , while another person had no BSc with a gpa of 3.3 aswell. Would the person w/o BSc degree not get in ?

Also, there really arent any major pre-reqs for dentistry, first yr math,chem,bio, math and eng is enough I think, for UBC atleast. Though Im not plannig to go there!

I really dont understand what courses to take...Im plannig to take about 8-10bio courses two phys,two gen chem, 1 orgo chem, and 1 eng, all these are second and third year courses. Again, what courses should I think about taking or how many courses should I take...maybe I should take enough courses to bump my gpa to the optimal amount, which is 3.1-3.5 ??


Thanks, guys

 

[boss123]

hey im new to this forum .. so im pretty sure this question has been asnwered before...

are there two different versions of the DAT (cdn and american) and as a student studying in canada but applying to american D schools which one should you take? are they both the same content ?

thanks in advance!🙂

 

[mymouthsmells]

boss123, most US schools that accept Canadian students accept the Canadian DAT, it only makes sense right? So, taking the US DAT or the CDN DAT will be to your preference (carving/orgo/math....).

 

[Visceral]

I always wondered whether American schools that took the Canadian DAT looked at the carving component as part of their admission criteria since it's so different from anything on the American DAT. Whereas the overall AA can be somewhat of a surrogate for the QR and OC sections, although not a perfect one.

 

[kxc106]

I will be going to Case Dental School in a year...
I am in a program where I am at undergrad for 2 years at case western and
move on to case dental school.
Wish y'all good luck!! eh!

 

[mymouthsmells]

I always wondered whether American schools that took the Canadian DAT looked at the carving component as part of their admission criteria since it's so different from anything on the American DAT. Whereas the overall AA can be somewhat of a surrogate for the QR and OC sections, although not a perfect one.

That's a good question, Visceral. I doubt they look much into the carving section as they may not be familar to it. In fact, most Canadian schools do not place a lot of weight on the carving section. This is a shame as I think, if anything, shows a lot towards what dentistry is like.

 

[mymouthsmells]

Just throwing it out there...has any one of you got your I-20 yet? How was the process?

 

[Nunn]

hey guys,
my first post here! i'm at UWO currently and i just found out i got accepted at BU! 🙂 unfortunately, i paid the UBC deposit 😡 that one's gonna hurt soon!

 

[gochi]

Nunn,

What was your GPA ?

THANKS

 

[markbird]

Congrats Nunn! So are you going to BU or UBC?

 

[Nunn]

Nunn,

What was your GPA ?

THANKS

my sciGPA is 3.97 and overall is 3.78. i'm definately picking BU over UBC. for starters...it has a SimLab! I mean it's great that UBC has these brand new buildings but is it worth much when u only spend 2 years of dental school doing dentistry? Also the APEX program at BU is very impressive! any of u guys apply to canadian schools?

 

[nemo2002]

Just throwing it out there...has any one of you got your I-20 yet? How was the process?

Yeah, how're we supposed to get that? Will the admissions send the related paperwork???

 

[zero_cool_ck]

hello,

i am from the west as well and I got into Boston University (my one and only acceptance and I'll take it!!)

good luck.

 

[ankadent]

Hi, congrats to everyone who got accepted!!

I am currently at UofT 2nd year. Got interested in coming to U.S., where I have better opportunities for specialities later on.

On average, what GPA do Canadians need to get into those "Canadian-accepting" dental schools in U.S.? Does it have to be like 3.8-3.9 as Canadian schools nowadays want from students?

Could you guys share your stats? Anybody?

And... financially, how can we pay $50000 and more a year? Are there enough fund or scholarship opportunities that support Canadians in U.S.? I am worried about paying like $70000 total including everything... (well, if I get accepted)... Hmm, anybody from UofT could you share stats and maybe what kinds of extracurricular activities you have done?

Oh, yeah... sorry that I have to ask this question. But I am still confused about how U.S. schools convert Canadian GPA... At U of T, 85 and above is 4.0 (i.e. A+ and A-), however it changes for Canadian medical schools (I believe) to 90 and above = 4.0...

I saw the scale of 4.33 for U.S. dental schools. How does this work for Canadians?

Thank you very much!

This is a nice forum!

 

[mymouthsmells]

Hi, congrats to everyone who got accepted!!

I am currently at UofT 2nd year. Got interested in coming to U.S., where I have better opportunities for specialities later on.

On average, what GPA do Canadians need to get into those "Canadian-accepting" dental schools in U.S.? Does it have to be like 3.8-3.9 as Canadian schools nowadays want from students?

Could you guys share your stats? Anybody?

And... financially, how can we pay $50000 and more a year? Are there enough fund or scholarship opportunities that support Canadians in U.S.? I am worried about paying like $70000 total including everything... (well, if I get accepted)... Hmm, anybody from UofT could you share stats and maybe what kinds of extracurricular activities you have done?

Oh, yeah... sorry that I have to ask this question. But I am still confused about how U.S. schools convert Canadian GPA... At U of T, 85 and above is 4.0 (i.e. A+ and A-), however it changes for Canadian medical schools (I believe) to 90 and above = 4.0...

I saw the scale of 4.33 for U.S. dental schools. How does this work for Canadians?

Thank you very much!

This is a nice forum!

ankadent, nice to meet another fellow Canadian on here. All of your questions can be found in a search of this forum; however, since you're a fellow countryman/woman, I'll share with you answers to some of your questions.


First of all, the beauty of US d-school is that you don't need as high of a GPA to be accepted as oppose to Canadian schools. In fact, it is most likely that Canadian schools are tougher to get accepted than even the toughest US schools. That being said, you could get into US d-schools with a GPA as low as 3.0.

This ties into your next question. The price of being academically easier to get into than Canadian schools is the financial cost of tuition. Most Canadian students will take a line of credit from a bank. RBC gives out $150k for 4 years. That's usually not enough as most Canadians end up at BU, NYU, UPenn. Those places have higher living expenses. You can also try OSAP, but they'll give you a max of $11k (pennies). To supplement the rest you can go through a private company like CanHELP.

 

[pinguette]

or let me add to this:

For more money, go to BMO. If your rents own a house, they could probably be your guarantor.

ankadent, nice to meet another fellow Canadian on here. All of your questions can be found in a search of this forum; however, since you're a fellow countryman/woman, I'll share with you answers to some of your questions.


First of all, the beauty of US d-school is that you don't need as high of a GPA to be accepted as oppose to Canadian schools. In fact, it is most likely that Canadian schools are tougher to get accepted than even the toughest US schools. That being said, you could get into US d-schools with a GPA as low as 3.0.

This ties into your next question. The price of being academically easier to get into than Canadian schools is the financial cost of tuition. Most Canadian students will take a line of credit from a bank. RBC gives out $150k for 4 years. That's usually not enough as most Canadians end up at BU, NYU, UPenn. Those places have higher living expenses. You can also try OSAP, but they'll give you a max of $11k (pennies). To supplement the rest you can go through a private company like CanHELP.

 

[gochi]

whoa a 3.0 gpa!!!!!! nice...are you sure though ?

I have taken calc (2sem) bio (2sem) I got c's in all of them

As you can see Im pretty stupid 🙂 But I think if I try hard enough I can probalby get into dental school..

I believe I still have to take 2 bio's (anatomy/phisiology) 1 math (stats), immunology, genetics, biochem, molecular bio, chem 2nd, orgo chem, eng, philosophy. Are these pre-reqs right ?

What are your opinions??

Also I dont understand what courses to take....can I find them from a site ?

Also, say if I do finsih the pre-reqs for Dentistry....can I take additionaly courses to up my gpa..or will I have to obtain a BSc ?

thx

 

[pinguette]

k, this is my honest advice.

If you apply with a 3.0, you better apply in May...otherwise your chances are minimal.

You need to also ace your DAT. Take the American DAT...you'll most likely fare better.

All schools have different prerequisites but the following couses seem to be constant across the board:
1 year general chem (including labs)
1 year organic chem
1 year English
1 year Bio incl labs
1 year physic incl labs

and to answer your last question...not a whole lot of ppl get in without completing their BSc. Some schools actually request that you graduate before getting in their dental school. Some schools just say taht they prefer you do (probably they want you to apply in your last year).

aite...thats it from me...G luck with your applications 🙂

whoa a 3.0 gpa!!!!!! nice...are you sure though ?

I have taken calc (2sem) bio (2sem) I got c's in all of them

As you can see Im pretty stupid 🙂 But I think if I try hard enough I can probalby get into dental school..

I believe I still have to take 2 bio's (anatomy/phisiology) 1 math (stats), immunology, genetics, biochem, molecular bio, chem 2nd, orgo chem, eng, philosophy. Are these pre-reqs right ?

What are your opinions??

Also I dont understand what courses to take....can I find them from a site ?

Also, say if I do finsih the pre-reqs for Dentistry....can I take additionaly courses to up my gpa..or will I have to obtain a BSc ?

thx

 

[gochi]

Right, I will defnetly apply early.

ok, so If I dont have a Bachelors degree, will all the extra science courses including the pre-req's be included in my gpa ? Im only taking these extra courses to up my gpa, so If I took them and they were not counted then I would be wasting my time.

I really need to know this, as my course registration is next Monday!!

Maybe I can go ahead and take these extra courses and see if I get in w/o a BSC ? But again , I need to know if the extra courses are going to be counted towards my gpa, for admissions into dentistry.

Thanks

 

[The Musketeer]

Yes, contact the admissions office and they will issue the I-20 to you. Then you will just have to go to the border customs to get it certified.

Yeah, how're we supposed to get that? Will the admissions send the related paperwork???

 

[dentalfairy]

Hi Everyone,
It's nice to see how people help each other in these groups. I have a question:

I'm a canadian and just got accepted to NYU. I'm happy about it, but the high tuition has really spoiled my happiness🙁. I've heard that banks such as RBC and Bank of Montreal give you line of credits, but then the downside is that they ask you to pay interest each month. I've heard dental school is a lot of work so you won't have time to have a job. How am I going to have the money to pay the bank's interest? There are a lot of canadians studying in the US, does anyone know what they do?

Any help is much appreciated
Dentalfairy

 

[mymouthsmells]

df, it would be a great time to ask your parents for financial support, in terms of paying of the interest while you're at school. Else, if you live in Ontario, you can get OSAP and use that money to pay your monthly interest.

 

[gochi]

Right, I will defnetly apply early.

ok, so If I dont have a Bachelors degree, will all the extra science courses including the pre-req's be included in my gpa ? Im only taking these extra courses to up my gpa, so If I took them and they were not counted then I would be wasting my time.

I really need to know this, as my course registration is next Monday!!

Maybe I can go ahead and take these extra courses and see if I get in w/o a BSC ? But again , I need to know if the extra courses are going to be counted towards my gpa, for admissions into dentistry.

Thanks

Any answers ?

 

[mymouthsmells]

gochi, unless you have an extremely high GPA, you can forget about getting into dent without finishing a Bachelors degree.

Every course you take gets included into your GPA average. However, if you are in the midst of taking these so-called courses to up your GPA and applying, the universities will only look at the ones you've completed as they are tabulated in your GPA.

 

[The Musketeer]

You get about $9000 Cdn per year from OSAP....and line of credit is usually prime or prime+1%.

df, it would be a great time to ask your parents for financial support, in terms of paying of the interest while you're at school. Else, if you live in Ontario, you can get OSAP and use that money to pay your monthly interest.

 

[gochi]

gochi, unless you have an extremely high GPA, you can forget about getting into dent without finishing a Bachelors degree.

Every course you take gets included into your GPA average. However, if you are in the midst of taking these so-called courses to up your GPA and applying, the universities will only look at the ones you've completed as they are tabulated in your GPA.

Ok...but Im going to take the courses for sure!!!

I dont understand what you mean by "the universities will only look at the ones you've completed as they are tabulated in your GPA"

are you reffering to the pre-req's ?

 

[mymouthsmells]

What I mean is that your GPA will only include the courses you've completed. If you were to apply in May, the courses that you're currently signing up for won't be included in your GPA because you have no marks for them. But seeing that you just started university, you still have a good chance to up your grades.

 

[gochi]

alright, great! yeah Im in my second semester right now..

ok so I can take any SCIENCE course, like anataomy and phisiology, even though its not a pre-req ?

Isnt that sort of unfair to other applicants who have a BSc...I mean i can do the pre-req courses and then take a bunch of random easy courses and obtain a very high GPA. Do you get what Im sayin?

 

[PhysEd]

If you can obtain that "very high GPA" in general then you should have nothing to worry about....

 

[prez_al]

Anyone hear back from the Ontario schools?

 

[Nunn]

did anyone get interview from western? i got the email yesterday.

 

[Gsman]

ya i got one too.

 

[prez_al]

same here

 

[PhysEd]

Anyone interviewing at UT next weekend?

 

[Gsman]

me as well!!!

 

[Dentalgurl]

Hey guys,

I'm from Ottawa, in my third year and I'm thinking about applying this coming fall after I get my DAT scores. I was wondering how hard it is to get into Western, since they only count 2 consecutives years? Can the ppl who got accepted say their stats and tips..much appreciated 🙂

 

[gochi]

Hey guys,

I'm from Ottawa, in my third year and I'm thinking about applying this coming fall after I get my DAT scores. I was wondering how hard it is to get into Western, since they only count 2 consecutives years? Can the ppl who got accepted say their stats and tips..much appreciated 🙂

Whoa !!! What do you mean by two consecutive years ???

I dont understand, I thought the pre-req's for dentistry were 90 credits. That takes about 3 years. Do you mean that if you did really poorly in your first year of undergrad, but did extremely well the next 2 years, Western would look only at the last 2 "consecutive" years, and base your gpa upon the courses which you took in the last two years!! ?]

Also, must you take 5 courses/semester in order to not obtain a penalty or something ? And, If you take courses in the summer, say in 2006 and apply in 2008, then wil those courses not get counted for the academic average ?

thanks!

 

[S Files]

my sciGPA is 3.97 and overall is 3.78. i'm definately picking BU over UBC. for starters...it has a SimLab! I mean it's great that UBC has these brand new buildings but is it worth much when u only spend 2 years of dental school doing dentistry? Also the APEX program at BU is very impressive! any of u guys apply to canadian schools?

did you speak to UBC and BU 3rd and 4th yr students???
don't judge a school based on a SimLab...even based on that, BU's isn't anything special. my suggestion is UBC. overall better didactics and clinical experience. BU has problems with getting a clinic chair time, getting a diverse patient pool (the specialty programs take anything remotely complex from dent students) and i believe UBC students do better on the US boards which is important if you want to specialize - i suspect they do better b/c their first 1.5 years of didactics is so extenstive. i guess what i'm saying is the only thing BU does better than UBC is probably the marketing of their school to pre-dents.

 

[Jaba]

Whoa !!! What do you mean by two consecutive years ???

I dont understand, I thought the pre-req's for dentistry were 90 credits. That takes about 3 years. Do you mean that if you did really poorly in your first year of undergrad, but did extremely well the next 2 years, Western would look only at the last 2 "consecutive" years, and base your gpa upon the courses which you took in the last two years!! ?]

Also, must you take 5 courses/semester in order to not obtain a penalty or something ? And, If you take courses in the summer, say in 2006 and apply in 2008, then wil those courses not get counted for the academic average ?

thanks!

you need to take 5 courses/sem yes. Also spring/summer courses do not get included (this is the case for many Canadian Universities). The average for this year is about 89%, from what I recall.

 

[gochi]

you need to take 5 courses/sem yes. Also spring/summer courses do not get included (this is the case for many Canadian Universities). The average for this year is about 89%, from what I recall.

Thats ridiculous, how am I suppose to take biochem, orgochem, microbio, anatomy and physics, in one semester and get an A in all of them.....there are very few students who can do that!!

 

[Jaba]

Thats ridiculous, how am I suppose to take biochem, orgochem, microbio, anatomy and physics, in one semester and get an A in all of them.....there are very few students who can do that!!

I know... but there are students out there that can. The key is to ballance the courses out to get the highest marks as possible. I think that Dalhousie wants just about every science course to be an A- at minimum (dont quote me on this though).

 

[gochi]

Yeah..a few, but why are they so strict about their gpa. People in the USA get into d-school with a 3.0 GPA, and were expected to get a 3.7 !!! Ridiculous!!!

 

[Jaba]

Yeah..a few, but why are they so strict about their gpa. People in the USA get into d-school with a 3.0 GPA, and were expected to get a 3.7 !!! Ridiculous!!!

Canada has what 10 dental schools in total? two of which are french speaking (laval & montreal).. therefore for most of us that leaves 8 to choose from. I know several people with 90-95% averages, is it right that ONLY they get in? NOPE, but this is the reality. You do have better odds of making it into a school in USA, but then again you have to make sure that they are schools that accept Canadians (some dont). It is also very horrible that only a select few individuals are accepted from out of province (and these individuals have to have a % has to be slightly higher again)..

Its tough, but you just have to keep focus. I am now in my 4th year and have yet to hear from Canadian dental schools. Also, trying to come up with ~300,000 USD vs something like ~ $150,000 Canadian tuition is another factor. It is cheap to do dentistry here, but getting in is rediculous.

Non the less not impossible.


If anybody here was accepted to Western or U.T dental, could you please share some of your stories? What % were you accepted with for your 2 best years? & What about overall GPA?

Jaba

 

[canadiancal]

In terms of GPA calculation, do US schools consider your program of study and its difficulty?

 

[Jaba]

In terms of GPA calculation, do US schools consider your program of study and its difficulty?

Some do yea, but I think the majority dont care if you are an art major or a chemical engineer major...as long as the GPA is high.

 

[dent hopefule]

I think I know the answer to this question, but I wonder if I can apply to US universities with only the Canadian DAT scores? I know that Org and QR is missing from the Canadian DAT, so if I want to apply to US unis should I redo the DAT? THanks! 🙂

 

[Jaba]

I think I know the answer to this question, but I wonder if I can apply to US universities with only the Canadian DAT scores? I know that Org and QR is missing from the Canadian DAT, so if I want to apply to US unis should I redo the DAT? THanks! 🙂

Hey!

I dont think so no... I know several people that got in with the Canadian DAT. After all, some might argue that the carving section is quite difficult (compared to ORgo or QR). Also, I think that the Canadian reading section is quite a bit harder (from what I have heard).

 

[dent hopefule]

Hey!

I dont think so no... I know several people that got in with the Canadian DAT. After all, some might argue that the carving section is quite difficult (compared to ORgo or QR). Also, I think that the Canadian reading section is quite a bit harder (from what I have heard).

Oh! Datz definately good news! Thanks!

 

[reallylostnow]

is there a predents.com for canadian schools?
does anyone know about the calculation of gpa's for candian dental schools?

 

[Jaba]

is there a predents.com for canadian schools?
does anyone know about the calculation of gpa's for candian dental schools?

you need to check the specific sites. USA seems to have a consistant format, whereas in Canada many schools calculate the GPA differently.

Wester for example uses %. U.T uses standard GPA's, Dalhouse uses Letter grades, Univeristy of Manitoba uses some really messed up calculation, as I think same as Alberta.

I wish Canada had something similar to the AADSAS, so that we wouldn't have to re-submit EVERYTHING ever cycle (unless you are fortunate to be accepted on first attempt).