Planning On Taking the DAT this Summer...HELP!

[dentdavis]

Hey guys!
It will be the summer before my senior year of undergrad and I'm taking the DAT in early September. I'm taking a year in between undergrad and dental school b/c I really need my senior year to work a little harder on my gpa.

overall: 3.16
sgpa: 2.82

Anyways, I have heard that you can basically take the DAT whenever and I just wanted to make sure that was true? Also, I'm going to be taking the Kaplan Classroom Course as well as using the DAT Destroyer, Crack PAT, Cliff's AP Biology and my textbooks. Does anybody have any other advice? Also, I'm still so iffy on whether I should wait that year or not. If I get good DAT scores back in September should I just apply late and try my luck and see where I get in?

Here are my other stats:
200+ hours shadowing with dentist and orthodontist
180 hours at a retirement home
officer of public health club
officer of persian student organization
science writer on the campus newspaper staff for three years
research with molecular biology professor.

Any advice would be greatly appreciate!!! Thank you all and best of luck to each one of you!!!!!

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[doc toothache]

Your gpa might have been a little higher if you concentrated less on your ECs and more on your classwork.

 

[userah]

applying late won't help you with that GPA. The only people who should consider applying late are ones with phenomenal stats. Concentrate on the DATs and aim to do phenomenal; 21-22+ in the sciences. I hate to say it but that's your only chance of scoring interviews.

as doc_tooth put it, all the ECs in the world won't help you if your gpa and dat scores are suffering. Best of luck!

 

[dentalWorks]

I am guessing your first time applying will be summer of 2011 right?

You have this one year to go, work religiously on your GPA. You can certainly bring up that science GPA to above 3.0 with the right amount of classes and effort.

I think your making a wise decision, applying this year puts you at a disadvantage anyways (low GPA + late application). In a sense, you have no choice BUT to take this year off from applying and focusing your GPA

Taking the DAT in september is a good idea, cause that means you had this entire summer to prepare for it