Should I wait to apply next cycle? Help!

[BecomingDentist]

Hey friends pls help

I committed to wanting to go to dental school last year, my sophomore year of college (a little late, I know) . I have finished most of the courses and will be almost done by the end of this summer if I take summer school. My friends are advising me to apply next cycle, because it doesn't look good to not have your requirements done before applying, and I would like to know to what extent that is true. I will be done with everything except Biochemistry and Chem lab by the end of summer. I would take those fall semester senior year. Should I wait a year or do you think I should go for it?

Ex: If I apply during May, and they don't see the courses I'm taking in the summer are finished (Physics/Physics Lab/Ochem Lab), will they scream and spit on my application and throw it away??? These are the things that keep me up at night.

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[darknightzzz]

just take your DAT and apply this summer ( specifically june 1st, submitted your app then) if you have solid stats, you can put those classes as planned courses in your app and finished in your last year (no need to be done in the summer). as long as those 2 courses are done before matriculation (before you actually start dental school) you are good to go.

don't wait a year because of that. your friendS may want to limit the competition.

 

[BioForLife]

Shouldn't hurt to apply this cycle after your DAT. Some schools may wait to interview you until your "in progress" classes are finished and you update the grades (and send updated transcripts), though, so just keep that in mind. Do you have enough shadowing hours and maybe some EC's to put? If not, you may want to work on those before applying. Otherwise, I think you should give it a shot.

 

[MolarBear11]

No I don't think you should wait a year. Sounds like you have a majority of the pre reqs done already which is fine. They won't interview you until after the summer anyways, so they will see your summer class grades (interviews start in August).

I decided on dentistry during my soph year too and am now a senior starting dental school in the Fall

 

[BecomingDentist]

Got a lot of EC's and shadowing hours so I'm thankfully good on that. I'm taking the DAT soon and I'm confident (aka begging on my knees) that it will be a pretty decent score. My GPA's a little shaky unfortunately (3.3 - will raise it to a 3.4 this semester hopefully) since I wasn't as focused on my Bio and Chem classes during freshman year, I was regrettably more focused on Advertising. I've just been told to apply immediately once apps open so that there's more spots open, and I'm just concerned they'll look at my app in June and not see some pre-reqs and toss it out. If interviews start in August, does that mean that they'll take a look at my application again at that point? I would be done with summer classes by August 14th, and I would immediately send out my transcript to them after. The school I'm aiming for because of location and family doesn't seem to be a top dog, they accept 3.2 GPA's so I might be in the clear. I'm OOS from UT Austin though, and they're in California, so that might affect it.

Sorry if this all sounds unclear and confusing. I'm just lost and dazed and just really want to know what the best option would be for applying.

 

[fogorvostan]

I would go ahead and plan on applying unless you totally bomb your DAT.

 

[RuffDay]

If you wait a year, there is a good chance that your GPA will decrease especially if you are saving the harder classes for later. I suggest you to apply this year.