Online courses! urgent.

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drbatman

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How do the adea, and dental schools view online courses taken in undergrad?????
i took a few, should i re take them in course!! please help my refestration dead line is next week for courses i can take in the fall (im in 3rd year going to my last yeaR) and if they dont accept online courses id have to switch (and retake) a few....i emailed some schools but they dont answer u in like weeks...someone know about online courses? or opions pleas??
 
If the courses are pre reqs for the dental program, it depends. Some schools accept. Some don't. I don't have an official list of each school's opinion though. I'd call directly. That will yield a faster response rather than waiting for them to email you back.
 
Try to avoid taking any online courses If you can...Many schools will want to see your improvement in general in a course based lecture setting, as it shows them that you can do well on the floor...GL
 
online pre-req courses are generally not accepted, you need to take lecture
 
I don't know about your school, but mine makes no note of whether a course is online or not on my transcript. If that's the case i see no reason why you would have to disclose this.
 
anyone know first hand? for my school, im not sure if dental schools will catch on, but the course section is different for online vs in class courses, for instance in class courses have the section -01, and online its -91
 
I am still concerned why schools think online courses are easy or does not show your potential...i took a couple live online courses ... and just one (self paced online course)...all my live online courses were structured same as the regular face to face classrooms...I had popup quizzes during class time had to login for class at specific time and the instructor was teaching right then and there...and had to take all my exams on campus...also we had a lot of assignement that were not part of regular class....what i mean to say is all my online courses were by all means much harder to take than regular classes...and the only reason i chose them because I work full time and can take classes in the evenings or lunch breaks or early in the morning before my office time ...but then I have to commute back to school....and not all classes were offered in the evening time. ( there were no upper level bio or chem classes offered online at my school ....so I only took few math classes like calculus...poli sci..publiv health etc)
 
Try to avoid taking any online courses If you can...

This. Don't waste your time taking online courses. Most schools aren't going to accept them from what I've read on their websites. I'm too lazy to look this up for you, but you can look it up or call them yourself.

Also, don't waste time on SDN and make a plan on how to improve that low GPA.
 
Looks like I'm one of the few people around that has first hand experience with this or at least is willing to admit to it.

I took multiple semesters of science pre reqs with lab in on online self paced program and got accepted into multiple dental schools, some of which stated they did not accept online courses. I called the schools individually before applying and asked them about the requirements and my situation which prevented me from taking my post bac classes in person. One school told me sure no problem. Most schools said it would not affect my application, but I would be expected to retake the classes in person before matriculation and to indicate my planned classes on my application. I planned these for the spring and summer before dental school started. Some of the schools at the bottom of my list I wasn't upfront about this and they never asked. I don't think many schools label classes as "online" so it is your responsibility to be forthcoming about this. I never ended up re-taking the classes.

Having been through this I would not recommend taking online classes to anyone if you have the ability to take them in person. I felt like I was taking a lot of chances applying to dental school with these on my transcript and in addition to a few online courses I had a good undergrad gpa and a very strong application overall. There are exceptions as another poster already pointed out, but for the most part ONLINE CLASSES ARE A JOKE. It is very likely you will have to put in a lot of extra time studying for the DATs because your course was easy, didn't require a lot of memorization, or didn't cover the material in sufficient depth.

You have the time and ability to take the classes in person and probably not a good reason (correct me if I'm wrong, but this is based on the minimal information you gave earlier) for not being able to take regular classes. My advice is to put in the extra effort now and not be worried about it down the road during the application process.
 
Unless it's elective or a non-science avoid.
 
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