Question for dental applicants/students

[M. Scotch]

Hello one and all,

I've been visiting this message board for about 4 days. I've been considering dental school for awhile. I would be a non-traditional student. I graduated college years ago and was a non-science major. I haven't completed any of the science pre-requisites yet.

I work full time and I don't think there is any way I can do more than one science pre-requisite at a time. <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" />

Do you think this will hurt me significantly when I apply to dental school or will dental schools not care as long as I do well in the classes? Should I just rough it and take the science pre-req's two at a time, such as Bio/Gen Chem?

I know that post-bacc pre-dental programs exist but I'd rather do the classes one at a time. What do you think?

Also, can someone share the percentiles that correspond with DAT scores? Such as, 18 equals ?%.

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[Yah-E]

M. Scotch,

Being a "Non-Traditional" applicant, there are absolutely no disadvantages in applying to dental schools. Taking one prereq. course at a time will not hurt your chances, but it will only prolong your application date. As long as you do well in these prereq courses, dental schools will not care if it took you 10 years to complete them all by the time you apply.

As far as what percentile an 18 is on the DAT, it all depends what sub-section score you're talking about. For example, an 18 in Academic Average may be in the HIGH 70th or LOW 80th percentile range, while an 18 in Organic Chemistry may be in the LOW 70th. percentile!

Generally, an 18 will correspond to a range from 70th to 79th percentile, a 19 will be in the 80-89th percentile, and a 20 on the DAT will be in the low to mid 90th percentile.

Good luck.

 

[M. Scotch]

Yah-E,

A hearty congratulations to you on getting accepted to Nova and NYU! I followed your progress as I read the messages and am impressed with your diligence.

I didn't phrase my initial post as clearly as I should have. I am not concerned about being a non-traditional applicant. What I'm concerned with is whether taking one course at a time will lessen my chances of being admitted. (I realize you responded to this question as well though.) As I visit the websites of various dental schools I notice that they make a point of stating they want to make sure the applicant can handle the courseload at dental school. I just suspect it would be less clear as to whether I can handle the courseload of dental school if I take the pre-req's one at a time. But I'd rather take them one at a time and do well than take them two at a time and do mediocre. I hope dental schools take into account that I'm working full time as I take the classes.

By the way, those percentile breakdowns have huge gaps (10%). I took the LSAT years ago and the gap in between percentiles was 4% at most. I realize the DAT is a completely different test but I'm hoping I can at least score in roughly the same percentile (84%).

 

[Yah-E]

M.Scotch,

Thank you for your kind words! My application to dental schools this past application cycle was definitely nerve wrecking as well as exciting. I am very pleased to see my positive results at the end of the cycle. Sharing my application experience with this SDN site not only brought out rewarding friendships, but also a great way to communicate with fellow applicants to work out issues.

Couple of points of clarification:

First: About what you read on the dental school websites wanting their applicants to take "heavy upper division course loads", they're most likely refering to applicants who are still working on their Bachelor's degree or who are trying to increase their competitiveness due to low GPAs or DAT scores. Since you already have your BS or BA degree, dental schools "may" not stress the "heavy load" method as much and YES with you working full time, schools will take that into consideration.

Secondly: about the DAT percentile gaps that you were refering to, let me clear that up as well.

when I say 70th percentile, what I was trying to say is a range form 70th to 79th percentile.....

An 80th percentile = 81-89th percentile and so forth...

I was giving you the ranges since I have no exact numbers, no gaps!