thanks to all of you , I liked your experiences and good luck to the people who just started.
(acoburn73) , congratulation for having your baby, and good luck in your new career. can I ask you , for an engineer with not much biology information background, how did u find DAT, how long does it take to study for it??
Thank you again to all responders.
Oh I have plenty of biology background - I was once a biology major, have taken the DAT (twice), and was an accepted dental student (15 years ago at VCU)! However, life threw me a curve ball around the time of the acceptance letter (long story for another day), I transferred to the Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, and as a backup in case I didn't re-apply or get accepted again, I decided to switch majors to Bioengineering. If you haven't peeked at UIC's BioE curriculum, it is loaded with Biological-based courses like Genetics, Nerve and Muscle Physiology, and the like.
Fast-forward 15 years and I've reached the top of my career field - Principal Engineer - and am burned out on the corporate gobbledygook. So, rather than listen to my daily vent sessions about it, my wife suggested I do what I've been talking about wishing I had done 15 years ago - go to dental school.
And here I am - prepping again and refreshing my memory on Gen Chem, OChem, Bio, and some old high school math tricks for a July 11th date with destiny. I started studying "casually" about 2 weeks ago, but this week I've begun ramping it up. I spend around 1-2 hours during the day M-F at work looking at notes and watching Chad's Gen Chem and O-Chem videos, and then 3 hours every night (7-10 pm) doing the same, mixed with PAT practice tests, M-Th. I'm off at night on Fridays and Saturdays, and then I put in 5-6 hours every Sunday evening from around 4-10 pm. Wash, rinse, repeat. Overall, it will be roughly 3 months of review and practice testing leading up to July 11th test date. I chose the July 11th date to allow a retest within this same cycle - Oct. 15th is the last day for taking the DAT, and between test attempts there is a 90-day wait. Setting the test on July 11th allows me to quickly make a decision to retest before the Oct. 15th deadline and still make it in this application cycle.
Good luck to you, and at your young age, I'd jump on and give it a shot. But again, do plenty of research - you can find SO MUCH info here at SDN, so I recommend lurking a bit and picking up tidbits of advice. However, take what many people have to say about "chances of getting in" with a grain of salt. Everyone knows that top GPAs and high DAT scores will no doubt open doors. But when people ask questions regarding how to interview, how to study for the DAT, can they get in with so-and-so GPAs or DATs, I'd be cautious on some of the "advice" respondents like to give. Particularly because none of them work for an admissions office, and thus their only frame of reference is the same as the ones asking for advice - from the applicant looking in.
