Struggling with confidence in wake of a retake

[Studmuffin123]

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The title just about says it all. I took my DAT back in May and scored an 18AA. I was on the fence about how I felt about it and decided that I wanted to do a retake to see if I could get a higher score. I've been studying for about 2 months now and have done just about every problem in the DAT Destroyer book. I feel like I'm better prepared going into this retake than the last, and that gives me hope, but I have always struggled with self confidence and lately I keep having negative thoughts creep into my head. My DAT is in 5 days and honestly I'm considering rescheduling it to a week after just to give me more time. Not sure what I should do. I'm only applying to the schools in my home state, and have already sent in my application. What should I do? I have about 500 volunteer hours, 200 shadowing, research experience, I'm the president of my university's pre-dental group and I have a 3.65 gpa. My biggest worry is that if I do worse on this retake I ruin my chances of getting in. Any advice will help!

 

[DAT Destroyer]

From what is posted you sound like a very hard working student, and with a great GPA. If your state school is like most they are very competitive due to the lower cost and they typically want a higher DAT score. I have said this many times on these forums, when in doubt it is always best to reschedule. You mentioned you are using the DAT Destroyer rather than doing most the problems in the Destroyer why not complete them all? Also if you are taking timed test at this point you might consider stopping. Taking timed test can often cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety and no test will accurately predict exactly what you will get on the DAT, know the concepts.

Hope this helps

Nancy, co/owner, DAT Destroyer, Orgoman, LLC

 

[Orka]

At this point you might want to do a timed-test for every section just to see where you stand. Don't bother getting carried away and doing 5+ timed tests, it's not worth your time and you won't gain much out of it. Based on how you do, you can access if you need to push the exam back or not. Best of luck!

 

[Studmuffin123]

Thank you for the advice everyone! I rescheduled my test. I'm definitely going to finish the destroyer book and make sure that I walk in with confidence this time around!