Predents

[Waitlisted2009]

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[PDizzle]

A message system is in the works but I need to be careful about it. Many of my users like the anonymity of their record. Others do not necessarily want to be PM'ed, so-to-speak. I will implement something soon while protecting my users.

 

[adizzle87]

Perhaps you should make registration mandatory for the site. I know mandatory registration is controversial but I've started to look at the site less because its not representative of the applicant pool. I remember last year MWU had a predents GPA of 3.5 (just like many other schools) but according to ADEA its actually just 3.26. The DAT side of it is no different, 20s on Predent but in reality it was just 19ish.

Requiring registration will ensure that people who sign up are posting at least their GPAs and if they lie then they will know that they are hurting the integrity and legitimacy of the Predents.com statistics. This is just my take though...

 

[PDizzle]

Perhaps you should make registration mandatory for the site. I know mandatory registration is controversial but I've started to look at the site less because its not representative of the applicant pool. I remember last year MWU had a predents GPA of 3.5 (just like many other schools) but according to ADEA its actually just 3.26. The DAT side of it is no different, 20s on Predent but in reality it was just 19ish.

Requiring registration will ensure that people who sign up are posting at least their GPAs and if they lie then they will know that they are hurting the integrity and legitimacy of the Predents.com statistics. This is just my take though...

Interesting thought, but what do you mean by "registration" exactly? In order to enter statistics, I require a unique and valid email address to activate an account. What else would constitute registration? Please clarify your request.

PDizz

 

[adizzle87]

Didn't mean to sound ambiguous or redundant....

So what I meant was to allow users to view the site you would require people to login in, along with having them input their GPA into their profile. I personally have taken off my predents profile from the SDN side panel not because I don't like the site. I love the site, its just I feel that its sort of unfair for people to "leech" of statistics and not contribute to it. I know a lot of people out there probably have subpar stats which is why they always view Predents but don't use it themselves.

I think by just incorporating those stats into the profiles of whichever dental schools the user applies to, without having to have their profile listed, it would help maintain the anonymity of the user and have them contribute their stats at the same time. For example if I had a 2.95 sGPA and I got interviewed at school X, then I could select for my profile to not be listed in the "interviewed" list while still having my sGPA contribute to the average of those interviewed. This is a much better alternative than having people just view and not contribute to Predents.com or lying about their stats alltogether (I don't know if people actually lie but some people on the forums are saying this).

Hope that helped...

 

[PDizzle]

Interesting idea and it has been brought up before. Thanks for the suggestion.

There really isn't a perfect solution to this. I can't mandate an account just to view the site because of the people planning to apply to DS. I think they should be able to view it.

By creating a made up user name, I honestly do not see the reason why people wouldn't put their legitimate stats. I feel its anonymous enough but some would disagree.

Also, the original idea of the website was to enter all your info(stats, interviews, etc, etc) so these forums wouldn't be swamped with a million, "What are your stats?" posts and the ,"Official Interview Threads". The statistical relevance came later when the sample pool became quite significant, although skewed towards the high end, like you mentioned.

I guess some people don't like entering in their stats when they see other applicants that have superior numbers.

In the end, I can't make people contribute to the site if they otherwise would not want to. If I mandate data entry, they will just enter erroneous data, which is worse than blank entries.

I could be wrong. If the people that read this post feel that if I made records have the option of remaining anonymous, but yet contribute to the averages, that it would increase both the number of participants and the accuracy of their records, by all means let me know with a shout out!

 

[eldirty]

PDizz - can you expand predents to allow for previous DAT scores to be stored? I can see my 2007 application but when I updated my DAT scores it auto overwrote my previous scores. Maybe have a link under DAT scores that allows users to store up to 3 total scores. Just a thought