some advice!

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jle2k

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Hello SDN! been a lurker for a long time and decided to post. I'm currently a "pre-dent" student with roughly a 2.9 cGPA (i got 2 D's and a F, retook my F class got a C). I have 60 hours roughly volunteering at local dental school in their dental clinic, 60 hours of shadowing and 1+ year of working at a dental clinic as a sterilization tech. Right now I'm just at a loss of what to do and need some advice like the title says. I've been looking at the post bac program and such but many require a 3.0 GPA which is quite discouraging. I'm thinking about applying at a few dent post bac programs such as creighton, boston, and sfsu. Other than that, what are some things I can do? Any advice would help.
 
you could always do an informal post-bacc... like take a few classes for one semester, do your best to get the highest grades you can in ALL of the classes you take (and at this point you need to do that to pull that cGPA up) and see if you can apply to a formal post-bacc doing that. based on other people's opinions, if you have a low cGPA a formal (good) post-bacc will help you because of all the benefits you'll get as part of that program as well as the committee letter that you will get. these people have seen tons of students either make it or not make it to medical school, so adcoms will really take their opinion of whether you can or cannot do medical school into good consideration of you as a possible dental student.
 
Have you taken the DAT yet? If your DAT is 20 or above, you could apply to formal post-bac programs now and see what happens. A high DAT score will sometimes help to overcome a GPA that is below a 3.0 in formal post-bac admissions.

Otherwise, spend the next year taking classes (getting As), taking and scoring really well on the DAT and working in a dental setting. This will get your numbers into range and then you can apply for formal programs. With a GPA below a 3.0, I'm afraid, you will need more than a one year recovery.
 
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