question

[lakersfan]

ok...i have a question and some people might flame me for this but i'll go on anyways...i have a 3.6 and 33 mcat and am getting pretty annoyed that i might not get into a decent medical school. i'm so annoyed that i dont even want to bother applying to med school again nor do i want to go to the carribean.

if i changed to applyng to dental school, would it be that hard? i know i have to take the DAT but im sure i can study for a couple of months and be fine with that. my dad is a dentist so i know how much money can be made in dentistry (way more than i would probably make as a physician). if i take the DAT in april/may and start shadowing my dad and a few of his dentist friends, would applyinhg in june mean i have to wait till the next year to start dental school? also, for those of those converted premeds to dentists, how hard is it to get a residency in ortho or surgery? thanks.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[redhead]

ok...i have a question and some people might flame me for this but i'll go on anyways...i have a 3.6 and 33 mcat and am getting pretty annoyed that i might not get into a decent medical school. i'm so annoyed that i dont even want to bother applying to med school again nor do i want to go to the carribean.

if i changed to applyng to dental school, would it be that hard? i know i have to take the DAT but im sure i can study for a couple of months and be fine with that. my dad is a dentist so i know how much money can be made in dentistry (way more than i would probably make as a physician). if i take the DAT in april/may and start shadowing my dad and a few of his dentist friends, would applyinhg in june mean i have to wait till the next year to start dental school? also, for those of those converted premeds to dentists, how hard is it to get a residency in ortho or surgery? thanks.

Maybe you should start first by shadowing your dad. How do you know if you actually like dentistry? It is way different than medicine. Don't just chose it because it is your back-up plan!

 

[lakersfan]

Maybe you should start first by shadowing your dad. How do you know if you actually like dentistry? It is way different than medicine. Don't just chose it because it is your back-up plan!

i pretty much know what dentistry is all about since my dad is a dentist and all his friends are dentists and all their kids (my friends) are going to be dentists. i'm not doing it as a backup plan really since I've had interviews at some pretty good med schools imo and i still have some upcoming interviews...im just annoyed by applying to med schools and dont want to go through the process again and would rather just chill and do dentistry if this is the way its gonna be for the rest of my life (i wouldn't mind my dads 4.5 day workweek...maybe even less if i can open a few practices and manage them )while making more money than i could as a doctor

 

[lunguv]

Yea, if you applied in May/June it would be for the 2006 entering class. So you would have to take a year off. But during that year you could shadow some more dentists. You bring up a good point though about applying to medical school and the MCATS. I know so many people from my school who have had 3.9's and MCATS in the 32-35 range, but they would only get admitted to our state school. It seems that if you want to compete for good out of state med schools you need an MCAT score at or above 36. If you switched to dentistry, with your GPA, if you could score in the 20's on all the sections you would get many interviews and probably many acceptances if you interview well. I know many of my colleagues are surprised that I have received so many interviews for dental school, when every single person in my biology major class only received interviews from our state school.

 

[eric275]

if i take the DAT in april/may and start shadowing my dad and a few of his dentist friends, would applyinhg in june mean i have to wait till the next year to start dental school?

If you apply this June you will be applying for the 2006 cycle, so yes you would not start dental school until the fall of 2006.

 

[lunguv]

If you apply this June you will be applying for the 2006 cycle, so yes you would not start dental school until the fall of 2006.

Guess I will be seeing you at Louisville on the 7th .

 

[lakersfan]

thanks for the help everyone

 

[lakersfan]

are kaplans books the best thing to use to study for the dat or is it worthwile to enroll in the kaplan course even though i have taken an mcat course from the pr?

 

[CalRunner04]

are kaplans books the best thing to use to study for the dat or is it worthwile to enroll in the kaplan course even though i have taken an mcat course from the pr?

hi... I went to Berkeley, too (Class of 2004), and I am currently in the process of admissions, etc. for entering classes of 2005. I took a Kaplan class out in San Francisco, and it must've helped becuase I had a 24 Academic Average on my DAT (and I was a Sociology major in undergrad.!!)... at the same time, though, I feel that if you've already studied for the MCAT, taking another prep course might be a bit of an overkill. The best thing about the Kaplan course is that they have LOTS of practice tests and computer facilities.

I'm not sure if any of that really helped, but good luck anyways!!

 

[frogger33]

Since you took Kaplans MCAT, I would just buy the DAT books from a bookstore. Make sure to practice the PAT section LOTS (since there is nothing like that on the mcat) and I would also look into getting practice tests from topscore (scholarware). That should do the trick!

 

[IWuvTeef]

why so much emphases on money?...

 

[lakersfan]

why so much emphases on money?...

because i like money, lol.

 

[dentaldaddy]

ok...i have a question and some people might flame me for this but i'll go on anyways...i have a 3.6 and 33 mcat and am getting pretty annoyed that i might not get into a decent medical school. i'm so annoyed that i dont even want to bother applying to med school again nor do i want to go to the carribean.

if i changed to applyng to dental school, would it be that hard? i know i have to take the DAT but im sure i can study for a couple of months and be fine with that. my dad is a dentist so i know how much money can be made in dentistry (way more than i would probably make as a physician). if i take the DAT in april/may and start shadowing my dad and a few of his dentist friends, would applyinhg in june mean i have to wait till the next year to start dental school? also, for those of those converted premeds to dentists, how hard is it to get a residency in ortho or surgery? thanks.

Go into medicine. Let the students who want to be dentists get into dental school and you can go elsewhere!

 

[GoGatorsDMD]

because i like money, lol.

Ha, at least you're honest. You're going to have to think of some other reasons for an ADCOM though.

If your daddy's a dentist, you won't have much of a problem.

 

[Dentist 2 be]

Actually, my father, mother and unlce are all dentists and at my interviews, the adcoms kept asking me questions and acting as if the only reason I was going into dentistry was because my family was into it and I would get my own practice once I would finish dental school. So, be very prepared to answer the question of why you truly want to go into the profession and make sure that your answer has no mention of the fact that you want to be a dentist due to your family.

 

[ecdoesit]

May I know why did you decide to be a premed at the very beginning?
Fear of not getting into a decent med sch is not the answer to leave medicine.
I have a friend who studied a quarter in a dental school and left and now apply for medical school. (everyone has their own reasons).
Do think carefully before you made that switch.
Talk with everybody to see how they think. Shadow a dentist. Ask your family physicians. Come to the predental denture course at UCLA to see what waxing is all about. Ask your dad to teach you some basic hand skills. try to drill a few teeth to see if you like it or not.
Think of the pros and cons. If your only reason to switch is that you may not get into a decent med sch, I highly doubt you would enjoy being a dental student later on. Meanwhile, keep exploring, dentistry has a lot more to offer.

ok...i have a question and some people might flame me for this but i'll go on anyways...i have a 3.6 and 33 mcat and am getting pretty annoyed that i might not get into a decent medical school. i'm so annoyed that i dont even want to bother applying to med school again nor do i want to go to the carribean.

if i changed to applyng to dental school, would it be that hard? i know i have to take the DAT but im sure i can study for a couple of months and be fine with that. my dad is a dentist so i know how much money can be made in dentistry (way more than i would probably make as a physician). if i take the DAT in april/may and start shadowing my dad and a few of his dentist friends, would applyinhg in june mean i have to wait till the next year to start dental school? also, for those of those converted premeds to dentists, how hard is it to get a residency in ortho or surgery? thanks.