one very low dat score

[yasc]

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Hi everybody i took my dat in September and got a 19 but i got a very low score in chem (15) im not exactly sure what went wrong since chems one of my best subjects. I also got a 24 in reading and every other score was either a 19 or 20. im wondering what i should do next. Im applying for the 2018 cycle so i guess i have some time but id rather not retake my dat what are my chances of getting interviews?

I have a solid gpa, my first 2 years in community college were rough but since transferring to uni ive been able to bump my gpa to around 3.6 but im still worried that my chem scores gonna ruin my chances. Thanks for any advice guys.

 

[8_man]

Retake my friend

 

[OnlyIfICouldTurnBackTime]

Schools want to see 17+ on all sections and desirably 20+ on sciences

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[yasc]

Schools want to see 17+ on all sections and desirably 20+ on sciences

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Yeah I know but the two guys I studies with both got 19s as well albeit without a extreme low score and both got 2 acceptances each I know every applicant is different but they give me hope lol

 

[super frank]

You're going to need a retake with that 15. Your friends that got in didn't have a 15.

 

[airstrikee]

Simple answer: Retake and study harder.

 

[Bingwen]

I am going to agree with everyone so far and say that you are probably going to need to retake your DAT. One thing you can do though is call the admissions people at all of the schools you are applying to and ask if the 15 will take you out of the running. One thing you are going to want to think about too is that you probably don't want to apply, get rejections because of the DAT and then waste another year and have to retake it.

 

[yasc]

I am going to agree with everyone so far and say that you are probably going to need to retake your DAT. One thing you can do though is call the admissions people at all of the schools you are applying to and ask if the 15 will take you out of the running. One thing you are going to want to think about too is that you probably don't want to apply, get rejections because of the DAT and then waste another year and have to retake it.

Thats what i was thinking. The reason i didn't want to retake it was because i was planning on taking biochem over the summer but i just found out its a 5 week course so i should have plenty of time to study thx for the reply

 

[RDH.2.DDS]

Hi everybody i took my dat in September and got a 19 but i got a very low score in chem (15) im not exactly sure what went wrong since chems one of my best subjects. I also got a 24 in reading and every other score was either a 19 or 20. im wondering what i should do next. Im applying for the 2018 cycle so i guess i have some time but id rather not retake my dat what are my chances of getting interviews?

I have a solid gpa, my first 2 years in community college were rough but since transferring to uni ive been able to bump my gpa to around 3.6 but im still worried that my chem scores gonna ruin my chances. Thanks for any advice guys.

Absolutely retake. Keep in mind every grade you have ever made in college will be averaged when applying, even those you've have retaken (both grades will be averaged). My first 2 years of CC were also not the best, I did well the next 2 years in the dental hygiene program. I graduated with a 3.5 for associates in dental hygiene (I took like 3 classes again in my first 2 years and the original grades were not included in GPA average). I transferred and got my bachelor's, finishing with a 3.9 GPA. My AADSAS GPA ended up being a 3.6 after combining all of my college grades. I just wanted to give you some perspective of how the GPA is averaged for AADSAS because I thought my GPA was going to be higher until I realized how everything is calculated. Good luck!

 

[tyjacobs]

Hi everybody i took my dat in September and got a 19 but i got a very low score in chem (15) im not exactly sure what went wrong since chems one of my best subjects. I also got a 24 in reading and every other score was either a 19 or 20. im wondering what i should do next. Im applying for the 2018 cycle so i guess i have some time but id rather not retake my dat what are my chances of getting interviews?

I have a solid gpa, my first 2 years in community college were rough but since transferring to uni ive been able to bump my gpa to around 3.6 but im still worried that my chem scores gonna ruin my chances. Thanks for any advice guys.

retake. 15 is too low for chem you want 19+

 

[FeralisExtremum]

Definitely retake. 15 in a section will probably get you screened out of some schools before they even look at the rest of your application.

 

[yasc]

Absolutely retake. Keep in mind every grade you have ever made in college will be averaged when applying, even those you've have retaken (both grades will be averaged). My first 2 years of CC were also not the best, I did well the next 2 years in the dental hygiene program. I graduated with a 3.5 for associates in dental hygiene (I took like 3 classes again in my first 2 years and the original grades were not included in GPA average). I transferred and got my bachelor's, finishing with a 3.9 GPA. My AADSAS GPA ended up being a 3.6 after combining all of my college grades. I just wanted to give you some perspective of how the GPA is averaged for AADSAS because I thought my GPA was going to be higher until I realized how everything is calculated. Good luck!

Thanks for the reply but what do you mean by averaged? I haven't had to retake any classes do you mean that they'll look at my entire college career?

 

[yasc]

Definitely retake. 15 in a section will probably get you screened out of some schools before they even look at the rest of your application.

Thats my biggest fear. that ill be removed from consideration before they even look at the rest of my app especially since my chem grades are good.

 

[MaxSnast]

FWIW as a counterpoint here, I was accepted and will be starting d-school this fall with 19AA / 19TS and a 15 in organic chemistry. Granted I'm a non-traditional student at 35 with a unique academic background, so I think that, along with PS & LoRs, certainly helped overcome the 15.

That said, unless there were extenuating circumstances around your DAT (which I did have, and communicated with admissions counselors about), I would also recommend a retake. I just wanted to chime in because I was told similar things about my 15 "disqualifying" me in a sense, which it didn't. I also second the recommendation of contacting schools to see if they have minimums, etc.




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[yasc]

FWIW as a counterpoint here, I was accepted and will be starting d-school this fall with 19AA / 19TS and a 15 in organic chemistry. Granted I'm a non-traditional student at 35 with a unique academic background, so I think that, along with PS & LoRs, certainly helped overcome the 15.

That said, unless there were extenuating circumstances around your DAT (which I did have, and communicated with admissions counselors about), I would also recommend a retake. I just wanted to chime in because I was told similar things about my 15 "disqualifying" me in a sense, which it didn't. I also second the recommendation of contacting schools to see if they have minimums, etc.




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Hi max thanks for the reply it looks like i have similar scores to albeit im not sure of the rest of your situation. Did you just email admission counselors to tell them about your circumstances?

 

[MaxSnast]

Hi max thanks for the reply it looks like i have similar scores to albeit im not sure of the rest of your situation. Did you just email admission counselors to tell them about your circumstances?

Precisely. I actually had signed up for a retake, but ultimately emailed them again to say I was going to cancel it due to the ongoing time commitment to said circumstances.

Whether my communications with them about it all made adcoms look at the scores any differently, I'm not sure. My main focus was just making the bigger picture available to them.


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[yasc]

Precisely. I actually had signed up for a retake, but ultimately emailed them again to say I was going to cancel it due to the ongoing time commitment to said circumstances.

Whether my communications with them about it all made adcoms look at the scores any differently, I'm not sure. My main focus was just making the bigger picture available to them.


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Thats exactly what i want to do as well, show them the bigger picture and that my low score isn't an embodiment of my overall app. Ill probably be sending out a bunch of emails getting opinions from schools and then go from there hopefully i won't have to retake the dat. If you don't mind me asking how many interviews did you get?

 

[MaxSnast]

I wanted to stay in Chicagoland so my family/kids could stay put, so I only applied to UIC & Midwestern-IL. Interview & acceptance at MWU, still waiting on word from UIC.


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[yasc]

I wanted to stay in Chicagoland so my family/kids could stay put, so I only applied to UIC & Midwestern-IL. Interview & acceptance at MWU, still waiting on word from UIC.


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Thats a funny coincidence cause so would I, I live right next to midwestern. A friend of mine has a interview there next week.

 

[rippedbx]

Retake. It sucks to mentally accept having to study for it again. I've been there. but if you study, I promise you'll get a higher score.

The EASIEST and LEAST time consuming way to better your application is to study and retake the DAT. Think about it, 200 hours of studying WILL increase your DAT. If you study that much for it, I promise your DAT score will increase.
And it's better than the 1000+ it'll take to increase your GPA to have them overlook one bad chem score.

 

[RDH.2.DDS]

Thanks for the reply but what do you mean by averaged? I haven't had to retake any classes do you mean that they'll look at my entire college career?

You have to turn in all transcripts from any college you have attended and all the grades are averaged together. That's good you haven't had to retake anything, so your GPA should be 'true'. My AADSAS calculated GPA for the community college I attended was lower that what I had on my final transcript due to all the grades being weighted ( instead of the ones I retook being replaced with the second grade). This shouldn't be a problem for you though.

 

[yasc]

You have to turn in all transcripts from any college you have attended and all the grades are averaged together. That's good you haven't had to retake anything, so your GPA should be 'true'. My AADSAS calculated GPA for the community college I attended was lower that what I had on my final transcript due to all the grades being weighted ( instead of the ones I retook being replaced with the second grade). This shouldn't be a problem for you though.

Thanks for the clarification. How does

You have to turn in all transcripts from any college you have attended and all the grades are averaged together. That's good you haven't had to retake anything, so your GPA should be 'true'. My AADSAS calculated GPA for the community college I attended was lower that what I had on my final transcript due to all the grades being weighted ( instead of the ones I retook being replaced with the second grade). This shouldn't be a problem for you though.

Cool thanks for the clarification just one more question though does the aadsas use its own way of assigning credits to certain classes or does it use the credits assigned to them by the school? For example my chem 2 class at my community college was 5 credit hours but its worth 4 at my university. I couldn't find any info on this on there site.

 

[FeralisExtremum]

Cool thanks for the clarification just one more question though does the aadsas use its own way of assigning credits to certain classes or does it use the credits assigned to them by the school? For example my chem 2 class at my community college was 5 credit hours but its worth 4 at my university. I couldn't find any info on this on there site.

Credit hours should be equal to what they were at the original institution (in the example you gave, AADSAS should calculate your chem 2 class at 5 credit hours, even if your university only converted it to 4).

 

[RDH.2.DDS]

Credit hours should be equal to what they were at the original institution (in the example you gave, AADSAS should calculate your chem 2 class at 5 credit hours, even if your university only converted it to 4).

I second that.

 

[cystinosis]

Hi everybody i took my dat in September and got a 19 but i got a very low score in chem (15) im not exactly sure what went wrong since chems one of my best subjects. I also got a 24 in reading and every other score was either a 19 or 20. im wondering what i should do next. Im applying for the 2018 cycle so i guess i have some time but id rather not retake my dat what are my chances of getting interviews?

I have a solid gpa, my first 2 years in community college were rough but since transferring to uni ive been able to bump my gpa to around 3.6 but im still worried that my chem scores gonna ruin my chances. Thanks for any advice guys.