Taking the DAT one year and applying the next (Need Advice)

[HeadgearBraces]

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Hi everyone, I am a sophomore right now with a decent amount of time before I take the DAT but I would appreciate some advice on my plans. I took my worst subjects (spanish, maths, couple other general classes) at one college my freshman year and didn't do so well. I transferred to a different college my sophomore year and took gen chem 1 and gen bio1 with calculus and writing 2 and did decent. Now that I look back, all of these classes besides calculus would have very easy to get an A in, but as noticed by my advisor I stretched myself out too much with classes and many hours at work. Now I know better to pace myself, I developed study skills, and I discovered coffee lol. I plan on doing 5 years of undergrad in order to pace myself to make sure I can get A's and retake a couple of classes that I did bad in. I am in line to get all A's this semester in gen chem 2, gen bio 2, and sociology, and I'm taking general classes this semester that I should get A's in. I know the upper division classes are harder, but I feel I can get mostly all A's as long as I balance school and work and keep doing what I am doing now.

-My question is, after my 3rd year i will have completed from what I have gathered on the forum everything that will be on the DAT (gen bios, gen chems, o chems), would it be smart to take it at the end of the summer after my 3rd year? I have heard that taking upper division bios will help but aren't necessary, any truth to this?
-If I did take it at the end of my 3rd year summer to give me all summer to study, I didn't plan on applying that cycle because I want to have one more year of A's to boost my gpa and it would be considered late. The whole purpose of taking it would be to get experience before I take it right before the beginning of my 4th year summer (trying to get it done and have my application in close to the June early apply date), and because i might actually do good with all the time id have to study and getting the gen bios and chems and ochems done relatively close to the DAT. Good idea/suggestions?
-Say I got a very high score when I took it during the 3rd year summer, would my score still be relevant to admissions when I apply with a boosted GPA at the end of my 4th year? Or would it be ideal to take the DAT a second time at the end of my 4th year right before I apply risking getting a lower score?

If you read this far I give you a 👍 , and if you could help I would greatly appreciate it!! 😀

 

[HeadgearBraces]

I reread my post and i might have made it more confusing than I intended. Basically I did bad my first year, im about to finish my second year doing much better and im doing 5 years of undergraduate. My plan from here on out is:

2nd year summer
-Boost GPA with classes

3rd year semesters
-Boost GPA with classes
-Finish ochem and already have gen bios and chems done

3rd year summer
-Maybe take one summer class to help GPA
-Study for DAT all summer and take in August before classes again
(Won't apply, but will gain experience and preparation from attempting)

4th year semesters
-Take upper div. bios (necessary for DAT or no?) and boost GPA
-Start studying for the DAT late spring semester, take it, and apply as close to June 5th as possible

4th year summer
-DAT and application process
-Interviews

5th year semesters
-Take physics (not on DAT) , required senior classes.
-Hopefully get into dental school 😀

Also shadow and volunteer throughout. I hope this made it clearer and not confuse more lol. Any suggestions/thoughts?

 

[dymm]

I am applying this June, and already took the DAT so I hope I can help you out with some things.
Looks like you are planning on taking the DAT twice, but I would suggest taking the DAT after you have studied 5-8 hours a day during the summer without doing anything else (like summer classes, jobs, etc..). I would just take it once, and do well on it. Preparing for the DAT and the DAT itself is an arduous journey, and I wouldn't want to spend ~6 months of being anxious, worried, and tired (from studying too much) if I were you. I also think you will be more than ready from completing bio, gen-chem , and o-chem series after your 3rd year. Yes, more upper div bio classes can help (I am a BIO major myself) but I don't really think it is completely necessary to do well on the bio section. I think the bio section of the DAT expects you to know a great breadth of topics, but they rarely go into gory details of any topic especially for upper div topics like cell-bio, physiology. With that said, just using various basic bio review materials to go over stuff you haven't learned should be sufficient, imo. I love and hate bio, because its very interesting but at the same time there's always going to be random facts that you have not memorized that they could test you on.

Best of luck with school, DATs, and everything else.

 

[HeadgearBraces]

I am applying this June, and already took the DAT so I hope I can help you out with some things.
Looks like you are planning on taking the DAT twice, but I would suggest taking the DAT after you have studied 5-8 hours a day during the summer without doing anything else (like summer classes, jobs, etc..). I would just take it once, and do well on it. Preparing for the DAT and the DAT itself is an arduous journey, and I wouldn't want to spend ~6 months of being anxious, worried, and tired (from studying too much) if I were you. I also think you will be more than ready from completing bio, gen-chem , and o-chem series after your 3rd year. Yes, more upper div bio classes can help (I am a BIO major myself) but I don't really think it is completely necessary to do well on the bio section. I think the bio section of the DAT expects you to know a great breadth of topics, but they rarely go into gory details of any topic especially for upper div topics like cell-bio, physiology. With that said, just using various basic bio review materials to go over stuff you haven't learned should be sufficient, imo. I love and hate bio, because its very interesting but at the same time there's always going to be random facts that you have not memorized that they could test you on.

Best of luck with school, DATs, and everything else.

Hey thanks for the reply. I was looking at the DAT like it was the ACT or SAT as far as taking it multiple times, thanks for clearing that up. I will definitely try to just prepare my best and take it one time during the end of the summer after I finish OChem2 next Spring. Then I can just apply the next upcoming June with my DAT scores ready. I really like bio too, but like you said you gotta have a pretty good memory for it all and even then its still not enough sometimes lol. Thanks again for the help, I greatly appreciate it and wish you the best of luck in the application process!! I'm sure you'll make it in to dental school 👍👍

Edit: Just seen the picture of your scores, congratulations on getting into dental school lol