i was wondering, since schools get thousands of applications for about 80 seats then how come the average gpas are for a lot of schools are around 3.2-3.3ish. i mean, im sure they get more than 80 applications that have 3.7 and 20+ DAT and since these guys are the most competitive why dont the averages reflect these type of numbers. im having a hard time explaining this question so i know it sounds confusing. but if anyone gets it, please shine some light on this paradox.
The Numbers Game
- Thread starter pupsingh
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Well you're wrong. Not everybody has amazing stats like that.
J
jackbauer!
the average stats of a dental school enrollee are more like 3.4-3.5 GPA and 20 DAT. the minority of applicants get in with stats less than this. there lies part of your answer.
you also need to consider that there are only seats for about 40% of applicants.
in addition, although a school may have 80 seats and 80 applicants with a 4.0 GPA and 23+ DAT... that does not suggest that all 80 of those applicants are going to attend that school--it's just not going to happen.
lastly (and most importantly), numbers are just that: numbers. you can have a 3.7 and 22 DAT but if you've never shadowed a dentist in your life, tell your interviewers that you only want to be an ortho or OMFS, think your God's gift to the world, have no social skills whatsoever, or any combination of the above, then you will not be accepted. simple as that. a number of SDNers each cycle that have exceptional stats are not offered admission.
hope that helped, jb!🙂
you also need to consider that there are only seats for about 40% of applicants.
in addition, although a school may have 80 seats and 80 applicants with a 4.0 GPA and 23+ DAT... that does not suggest that all 80 of those applicants are going to attend that school--it's just not going to happen.
lastly (and most importantly), numbers are just that: numbers. you can have a 3.7 and 22 DAT but if you've never shadowed a dentist in your life, tell your interviewers that you only want to be an ortho or OMFS, think your God's gift to the world, have no social skills whatsoever, or any combination of the above, then you will not be accepted. simple as that. a number of SDNers each cycle that have exceptional stats are not offered admission.
hope that helped, jb!🙂
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I agree with jackb... Just because you can get great grades and rock your DAT doesn't mean you are going to get accepted or be a good doctor. That is why they interview people. A lot of these "great" students make really, really bad doctors and are not accepted. The stats only take you so far...
ok well yea i realize that a lot of the great stats people are poor in other areas but my focus was more towards the other aspect: how do so many people with much lower stats get in? because don;t u have to have the great numbers to get an interview in the first place? so since the average of a school, like say NYU for example, is 3.2, they actually accept some 3.0 students over some 4.0 students?
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Take the following scenario:
Two students:
Student One:
-4.0 GPA, some school/community college
-17/17/18 (AA/TS/PAT) DAT
-Some dish-washing "research" experience
-Practically no EC's
-Letters talking about how this student got an A in the professors class
-Somewhat shy
Student Two:
-3.1 GPA, competitive undergrad program
-24/25/22 DAT
-Multiple Research Publications
-Letters sincerely discussing student's maturity and intellectual ability
-Outgoing
-Personal statement explores impact of some personal obstacle (i.e. working while in school to support family) that impacted academic performance
Now tell me...who would you prefer to interview/accept?
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I agree with bruinpredent...grades don't reflect WHO a person is. It reflects a students ability to succeed in his/her academic environment. The average entering GPA at berkeley for undergrad is a 4.21 with I think it was a 1300 SAT back in the day.
The average GPA of another university let's say UCR has a lower average GPA. Does that make someone from UCR less competent than a berkeley student? no. I resent how people talk about GPAs as if they are walking on water. Of course there are those that are brilliant but that doesn't mean if you have a 3.0 GPA you aren't just as brilliant...there are many other factors in why your GPA might be lower coming only from an academic standpoint (there are social factors as well).
I'd take a 3.2 student from Columbia over a Cal State student with a 3.5 if they both had the same DAT score. Think about it from an adcom point of view. A huge difference between the two would be that the Columbia student has competed with a more intelligent class and has learned to succeed amongst them in the past 4 years.
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See above
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wow never saw this before! looks like i have a good chance to get in 😀 makes me feel better
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interesting edit of my post, but i'm not sure if i completely agree with you....
I'm pretty sure, you know...feeding your family and keeping them off the streets would take a slight priority over giving 100% of your attention to academics. Then again thats an extreme case...otherwise I agree with you, if the GPA is a 3.1 there better be some sort of impressive upward trend and the student better have learned how to have managed his/her time to get good grades while still managing to work and all that fun stuff.
But it happens...and often those are your "3.0-3.1" students who really impress the adcoms and gain the acceptance. Not always, but often.
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Alright, here's what I think. First of all, this...:
Student One:
-4.0 GPA, some school/community college
-17/17/18 (AA/TS/PAT) DAT
-Some dish-washing "research" experience
-Practically no EC's
-Letters talking about how this student got an A in the professors class
-Somewhat shy
Student Two:
-3.1 GPA, competitive undergrad program
-24/25/22 DAT
-Multiple Research Publications
-Letters sincerely discussing student's maturity and intellectual ability
-Outgoing
-Personal statement explores impact of some personal obstacle (i.e. working while in school to support family) that impacted academic performance
...is complete baloney. Wonder why, let me demonstrate by tweaking it a tad:
Student One:
-4.0 GPA, some school/community college
-17/17/18 (AA/TS/PAT) DAT
-Multiple Research Publications
-Letters sincerely discussing student's maturity and intellectual ability
-Outgoing
-Personal statement explores impact of some personal obstacle (i.e. working while in school to support family) that impacted academic performance
Student Two:
-3.1 GPA, competitive undergrad program
-24/25/22 DAT
-Some dish-washing "research" experience
-Practically no EC's
-Letters talking about how this student got an A in the professors class
-Somewhat shy
Now who will you take? Suddenly it's not so cut and dry is it. It's not all about the DAT, or all about the GPA, or what school you went to. You can come up with all the different scenarios you want, and if your DAT>GPA, then chances are you'll lean towards the "some schools are easier than others" and if your DAT<GPA, you'll probably lean the opposite way.
Sure, Bachelors from Harvard looks nicer than the same degree from, say, your typical state school. But is it fair to say than one is more difficult than the other? In all honesty, unless you've gotten degrees from both, then you really can't go much beyond speculation. Such a speculation may have place when comparing a 3.4 from Harvard to a 3.6 from StateU.
Take someone like me, who went to his state school, which is world renown for its....meteorology program...Yay... 19/19/17 DAT, 4.0 GPA, 2 external grants, 2 publications, 4 years research experience with 3 competitive summer biomedical research programs, about 15 paper and poster presentations...and that's just the tip of the iceberg...Put your 3.1 with 25/something high/something higher from Cornell and see if he/she can do better. My "bragging" if you want to call that way (meaning you totally missed the point) only shows one thing. Look at the whole picture. There is a reason why the application doesn't only consist of 3 lines: DAT, GPA, University.
Be open minded...
Student One:
-4.0 GPA, some school/community college
-17/17/18 (AA/TS/PAT) DAT
-Some dish-washing "research" experience
-Practically no EC's
-Letters talking about how this student got an A in the professors class
-Somewhat shy
Student Two:
-3.1 GPA, competitive undergrad program
-24/25/22 DAT
-Multiple Research Publications
-Letters sincerely discussing student's maturity and intellectual ability
-Outgoing
-Personal statement explores impact of some personal obstacle (i.e. working while in school to support family) that impacted academic performance
...is complete baloney. Wonder why, let me demonstrate by tweaking it a tad:
Student One:
-4.0 GPA, some school/community college
-17/17/18 (AA/TS/PAT) DAT
-Multiple Research Publications
-Letters sincerely discussing student's maturity and intellectual ability
-Outgoing
-Personal statement explores impact of some personal obstacle (i.e. working while in school to support family) that impacted academic performance
Student Two:
-3.1 GPA, competitive undergrad program
-24/25/22 DAT
-Some dish-washing "research" experience
-Practically no EC's
-Letters talking about how this student got an A in the professors class
-Somewhat shy
Now who will you take? Suddenly it's not so cut and dry is it. It's not all about the DAT, or all about the GPA, or what school you went to. You can come up with all the different scenarios you want, and if your DAT>GPA, then chances are you'll lean towards the "some schools are easier than others" and if your DAT<GPA, you'll probably lean the opposite way.
Sure, Bachelors from Harvard looks nicer than the same degree from, say, your typical state school. But is it fair to say than one is more difficult than the other? In all honesty, unless you've gotten degrees from both, then you really can't go much beyond speculation. Such a speculation may have place when comparing a 3.4 from Harvard to a 3.6 from StateU.
Take someone like me, who went to his state school, which is world renown for its....meteorology program...Yay... 19/19/17 DAT, 4.0 GPA, 2 external grants, 2 publications, 4 years research experience with 3 competitive summer biomedical research programs, about 15 paper and poster presentations...and that's just the tip of the iceberg...Put your 3.1 with 25/something high/something higher from Cornell and see if he/she can do better. My "bragging" if you want to call that way (meaning you totally missed the point) only shows one thing. Look at the whole picture. There is a reason why the application doesn't only consist of 3 lines: DAT, GPA, University.
Be open minded...
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you clearly missed my point, but thats fine...my point was that there are some 4.0 students that, believe it or not, don't necessarily have what it takes to be a good dentist and that there are some students with a lower GPA that DO have what it takes to make a great dentist.
if i'm not mistaken this is the same "big picture" you were talking about.
in the end we said the same thing, and you got your chance to brag about how fantastic you are, so yay indeed...we all win
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I agree that none of us really know what the qualifications are to get into d-school are but your case is quite unique. Not all predents are meteorology majors. Most predents are going to be your typical bio majors. With that said, I disagree with your above post. It does matter what school you go to. Lower division sciences require you not only compete with other science majors but engineers, chem majors, etc. If your school, such as Cornell in your example has a higher academic class average, then of course it's going to be harder to get the 4.0. You put anyone from a StateU at an ivy league and even though I think ivy leagues are catered to a lot more (unlike public schools) you can't deny that getting that 4.0 would be a lot more difficult. Like you said, be open minded but don't be so oblivious that StateU will be the same as another schools in rigor. I regret going to my school 3 years later because I KNOW I would have gotten a better GPA if I went to another school. It's a fact that I can't change but it's quite annoying when people say how StateU (for example) are the same as any other school...total bs in my opinion.
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agreed. hence the universal equalizer...the DAT. kind of makes you wonder how students with a 4.0 GPA manage to score anything less than a 20 on the exam (~90 percentile), considering their mastery of the material as exemplified by their GPA
🙄
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lol...im bio major...i was making a point that my schools is nothing special when it comes to bio or chem...
...would be kinda cool to be a meteo predent though...- Joined
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This is a funny thread... it started with someone asking how a school can have a 3.2 GPA avg, and now we are discussing the value of one school over the next. haha!
Just FYI everyone: If I get my undergrad in music from a crappy online program and my DDS from Meharry, and you get your undergrad in Biochem from Harvard, but you DON'T get your DDS.... guess what? I am the Doctor and you are just another person that has an undergrad degree from Harvard. If you happen to be that person that has both the Ivy undergrad and Ivy DDS... great! The difference... I don't have the extra 15 years of loan payments to pay back.
It is doubtful that anyone really cares where you went to school for undergrad or your D.D.S. once they sit in your chair. The person in your chair cares if you are going to help them feel better, make them at ease and help them look better.
So back to the point of the thread, the reason some schools have 3.2 GPAs is because there are a lot of great people with low GPAs who will be wonderful dentist and get accepted, and a lot of crappy people with 4.0 that shouldn't be allowed near a patient and are denied. The schools know this and they interview hundreds of people to find the best canidates for their school. Sometimes those canidates hurt the school's GPA, but in the end... a 3.2 school and a 3.7 school both make D.D.S. or D.M.D. so they are the same.
Just FYI everyone: If I get my undergrad in music from a crappy online program and my DDS from Meharry, and you get your undergrad in Biochem from Harvard, but you DON'T get your DDS.... guess what? I am the Doctor and you are just another person that has an undergrad degree from Harvard. If you happen to be that person that has both the Ivy undergrad and Ivy DDS... great! The difference... I don't have the extra 15 years of loan payments to pay back.
It is doubtful that anyone really cares where you went to school for undergrad or your D.D.S. once they sit in your chair. The person in your chair cares if you are going to help them feel better, make them at ease and help them look better.
So back to the point of the thread, the reason some schools have 3.2 GPAs is because there are a lot of great people with low GPAs who will be wonderful dentist and get accepted, and a lot of crappy people with 4.0 that shouldn't be allowed near a patient and are denied. The schools know this and they interview hundreds of people to find the best canidates for their school. Sometimes those canidates hurt the school's GPA, but in the end... a 3.2 school and a 3.7 school both make D.D.S. or D.M.D. so they are the same.
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Theres a reason that an application is made up of more than the undergrad and grad school you went to, your DAT , and your GPA...everyone's situation is unique and it'd be nice to say that you spent four years concentrating only on school with nothing else going on in your life, but reality is that life doesnt always end up that way. Would you really not admit someone with an average GPA but stellar DAT scores because, say, a parent died and they had to take care of their siblings?(obvious extreme case, but im trying to make a point).
And yes,its very weird that some people with 4.0+ GPA's end up doing so-so on the DAT. Dont give me the I'm-a-bad-test-taker BS, you just took four fvking years of tests and apparently did consistently amazing.
And yes,its very weird that some people with 4.0+ GPA's end up doing so-so on the DAT. Dont give me the I'm-a-bad-test-taker BS, you just took four fvking years of tests and apparently did consistently amazing.
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I agree. A person went to state school can be as intelligent as a person in Hardvard or any elite school. BUT it is 100% UNREASONABLE if you compare the level of difficulty of state schools to elite schools
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hm...I'm not trying to argue, and the ivy would make sense to be more difficult...but...has anyone done both to know this for fact? Sure, it's harder to get into ivy...but does this mean that the classes will be difficult as well, or does this mean that you'll be taught by better professors, have better labs, more opportunity to take advanced classes, not be taught by your proff's grad student half the time? If so, I don't think that equates to being harder. And so, I'm curious as to what does make a class harder - more material? But any, say, organic chem curriculum has to be ACS accredited.
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Laundry: The classes you take are the same as any other student at any university...same material learned and every professor is qualified. It's the competition that's different. It's your colleagues that make it tougher.
so how about we all just agree that the reason why some students with under 4.0 GPAs get accepted into dental schools is because an applicants GPA isn't the only aspect that gets you in but there are a multiple facets to an applicant that are taken under consideration. I think adcom has a tough responsibility to be the judge of who would be the most qualified student and at times their decisions are probably unfair to many that deserve to get in. psh, why can't they just build another 50+ dental schools and let us all in 😉 haha just kidding...just trying to shed some light on this conversation...I do wish you all the best of luck in the application process everyone! 🙂
so how about we all just agree that the reason why some students with under 4.0 GPAs get accepted into dental schools is because an applicants GPA isn't the only aspect that gets you in but there are a multiple facets to an applicant that are taken under consideration. I think adcom has a tough responsibility to be the judge of who would be the most qualified student and at times their decisions are probably unfair to many that deserve to get in. psh, why can't they just build another 50+ dental schools and let us all in 😉 haha just kidding...just trying to shed some light on this conversation...I do wish you all the best of luck in the application process everyone! 🙂
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bottom line: dental schools have their own system of rating undergrad schools. they know the degree of difficulty of science courses among different schools. For one, that's why they don't like when students take pre-req's at community colleges.
best,
dan
best,
dan
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Nice document.. give me great hope with my 3.0/3.5 gpa/sci..
Ivy's are harder then states!! John Doe who is determined enough to do great at StateU would have the same determination at Ivy...
The competition would have push him harder and he would perform at par..
Life circumstances play a great role in being selected.. and the most important aspect of a GPA is the upward trend...
CASE: Freshman year 4.0 ---senior year 2.75... overall 3.0 IVY
CASE 2: freshman year 2.75--senior year 4.0.. overall 3.0 KRAPPYSTATE
Both: DAT 20 for both.. shadow, papers ect..all similar
CASE 2 would be selected
Ivy's are harder then states!! John Doe who is determined enough to do great at StateU would have the same determination at Ivy...
The competition would have push him harder and he would perform at par..
Life circumstances play a great role in being selected.. and the most important aspect of a GPA is the upward trend...
CASE: Freshman year 4.0 ---senior year 2.75... overall 3.0 IVY
CASE 2: freshman year 2.75--senior year 4.0.. overall 3.0 KRAPPYSTATE
Both: DAT 20 for both.. shadow, papers ect..all similar
CASE 2 would be selected
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Maybe I don't get it... Last time I checked everyone gets the same info... everyone sits in the same lectures and does the same labs... So if you do well or bad it is up to YOU.... the competition you talk about only comes from yourself and not the people around you. The teacher doesn't skip ahead in lesson plans or make up new labs on the spot just because a few people understand it better or did better on the test.
I went to a private school to start, later a community college and then a state university in order to get my degree and prereqs for d-school. The state university was the hardest of the three. At the private school and community college I had relatively small lecture halls and there was a ton of support if you had questions. At the state-u there was 50 people in my lab and over 200+ in my lecture... and if you had a problem HA!... it was every person for theirselves. So I will argue that some of the big state-u are a lot harder than most Ivy schools, where there is a limited class size, and great support structures in place for the students paying max $$$.
Also, I know that four years ago Harvard used the same chemistry book that I used while I was at my community college. My prof's daughter was at Harvard at the time and I saw the Harvard syllabus. So what is the difference? I covered the same 50 chapters that the Ivy school covered. Im pretty confident I could have taken the Harvard general chem. test at the time and done just as well.
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I totally disagree. okay, forget ivy leagues then I was just using it as an example. I go to UC Berkeley, the #1 public school in the nation which is also probably the #1 school in the nation where you get screwed over with attention from the professors because our class sizes are so large which means a larger class size of overachievers. We might go over the same material as you but we get tested harder. why do you say this? Because if we all took the same test and if you have a ton of overachievers in the class and 65% of them know their material, than how are you going to distribute 25% A's 40% B's if everyone is getting -3 or -4 on the test? Does this happen? heck yea it does. I've had professors put some crazy stuff on midterms that are open ended...not from notes or the reading because it's the only way to weed students out that ALL know their material. I had a class where the difference between an each letter grade was 2 points...-1 =A- , -2 = B+, etc. It's unfair but that's what happens. and that's what I meant by having overachieving colleagues that raise the curve...come on you should know that already.
I've never been to Harvard so I can't vouch for it but I can definitely say you'd think berkeley is a lot harder than a stateU. I don't care if you use the same textbook as me or go to the professors office hours every day (that would put you at....average), I think anyone who goes to berkeley would understand what competition really is...you guys really need to drop how stateU is harder than top tier schools...there's a reason why they aren't at the top of the rankings for public schools.
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Like I said, maybe I don't get it... I never have had the experience where a professor was out to make a percentage of the class unsuccessful. I just havent. Guess I am lucky that way. Based on my experiences, I felt the state-u was harder for me, because I didnt have the support I had at other schools. Just an opinion; could be wrong.
Also, I am sorry to hear that Berkeley is such a ball-buster school and does that to its students. Sounds like a horrible way to go to school. Kind of takes the fun out of going to college and learning about yourself. So based on your description, I would have probably just moved to another school (a state school) because I am happy with being just average, still being able to get my A+, keeping my 3.6 science GPA, and actually enjoying my college experience. Sounds like a pretty stressful and miserable way to go to school, considering you know there are people with lesser stress levels and lesser knowledge myself included who will get into dental school. Many of these people becoming just as successful a dentist as yourself, without all the craziness of Nazi professors and stuffy programs trying to weed out students for no other reason than because it makes the school look good on paper.
I am sure you will get accepted to d-school because it sounds like you work hard to do your best. I look forward to seeing where you go and reading how you do. I wish you the best.
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I hate Nazi professors and weed. However, I did enjoy this post. I hope shawn_wac and whoaaitzkyle both get into the same school and are best of friends until they realize that they are SDN rivals and then let the insanity began. Also, I thought the ivy league schools were giving out too many high scores because parents were complaining.
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shawn, you're right though...a school with high standards really puts a dampener on the college experience. I enjoy myself but there is a cost for my fun. I guess having that "better" quality education doesn't make a difference in the long run...funny how we all get the idea, "go to the best undergrad school" brainwashed into our heads when we are young. I just wanted to respond back and also wish you the best of luck too 👍
Resonance, I don't get why you're such an instigator. Anyways, berkeley isn't considered an ivy league school...actually it's quite the opposite. We have too many students so they try to weed us out unlike ivy leagues.
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I have a similar experience as well. I go to UC Davis and was repeatedely told by numerous TA/professors from Ochem and G chem on the very 1st day of class that the class was designed to weed people out of the major. Although I doubt that the level of competition in Davis is as bad as Berkeley, it was still very stressful nontheless.
Like others have mentioned, class size are generally large (300+), and some professors are often reluctant to answer questions. I have had Ochem professors who used a preset curve where A=75%, B=65% and C=55% yet purposelly making her tests so ridiculously hard that the class mean is generally in the 40s.
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whoaaitzkyle
I apologize I was not trying to instigate anything. I just kind of found the argument humorous. The statistics of individuals attending Berkley are very impressive and that does impact where you fall on the curve. Unfortunately, 300 person Bio, GChem, and OChem classes are the norm for major public universities, as is the weeding out process and professors that don't have the time to deal with students.
I do realize Cal is not an Ivy League School. Good lookin' out anyways.
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Actually, the only schools that have gpas in the range you mention are Loma Linda, Howard, NOVA, Boston, NY, Temple and Meharry. For most of us, 6 is not a lot of schools. As for the 3.7 and 20+ DAT applicants-they just aren't there. Perusing the dat frequency tables should clarify this for you. Less than 10% of the applicants score a 21 and above. And if you include a score of 20, that represents a total of roughly 16%. With ~12K applicants that translates into about 1920 applicants with dat scores above 20. Keep in mind that the first year dental school class is ~4600. Similar figures are expected for GPAs. Thanks to wigglytooth, we have some real numbers to work with. The information suggests that there are ~3100 applicants with sci gpa of 3.5 and above and ~3700 with total gpa at 3.5 and above. Raising the bar to 3.7 is going to dramatically decrease the number of applicants with those numbers.
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I think the original question is well founded when you consider dental schools in Canada. Across the country, average entering GPA's in Canadian dental schools are 3.7 -3.8 with average DAT scores of 20-24. It is EXTREMELY competitive and very few people make it into Canadian dental schools. When you look at schools in the US, there are only about 3 or 4 schools with stats like that. What's the deal with that?
At first I thought it was because there are very few dental schools in Canada and each school has very few seats, but per capita, it works out to about the same amount of dental students as the US:
~300-400 canadian dent students produced per year; Canadian pop: ~30 million...
~4000-5000 US dent students produced per year; US pop: ~300 million)
At first I thought it was because there are very few dental schools in Canada and each school has very few seats, but per capita, it works out to about the same amount of dental students as the US:
~300-400 canadian dent students produced per year; Canadian pop: ~30 million...
~4000-5000 US dent students produced per year; US pop: ~300 million)
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There are many reasons to why Canadian schools have incredibly high academic standards.
1) Selection criteria: Huge emphasis on GPA (50-75% of an applicant's score)
2) Some schools don't even care much for the DAT, maybe 15%-20% of an applicant's overall score
3) The remainder is an interview. So by now, you can see there's barely an emphasis on the interview. Plus the interviews are "structured" where they ask you weird situational crap and you have to answer them. Oh yes, you are scored on your interview too.
So basically, if you're a genius with a high DAT score, you technically can get into a Canadian dental school even if you're socially inept. The tendency is for people who have an incredibly high GPA and an average interview, they will get the spot over someone with a relatively high GPA and an awesome interview.
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I was talking to a Spine fellow (Orthopaedic Surgery) the other day and we were talking about med school/dental school admissions. He told me that he graduated from an Ivy with a sub-3.0 GPA, did the Harvard Extension School thing and got his GPA up in the low 3.0 range, and eventually got into med school and one of the most competitive residencies in medicine. He told me that med schools and dental schools these days look at more than just numbers. There are a lot of health professionals that are socially inept and cannot communicate CRAP to patients...they're usually the 4.0, perfect standardized scores that were only involved in academics and NOTHING else.
No one has to have perfect scores to get in. Just have passion for what you're doing and pursue your interests both inside and outside the world of academia. Be well-rounded...
No one has to have perfect scores to get in. Just have passion for what you're doing and pursue your interests both inside and outside the world of academia. Be well-rounded...
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Relevant information on Canadian Dental School is scant, at best. In the 2006 ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools, only 6 out of the 10 schools reported statistics. The number of first year enrollees is 359 (with one school not reporting). Since the number of applicants is not listed it is difficult to judge how difficult it is to enter Canadian schools, but probably not much different than those in the U.S..
As for the the high DAT and GPA:
Even with the limited number of entries for the Canadian school, the mean DAT score AA stand at 20.55 and are higher than those in the U.S. at 19.3. The PA scores are at 18.6 for Canada and 18.43 for the U.S.. These comparisons are, however, completely irrelevant since the U.S. and Canadian DATs are not comparable. The Canadian DAT does not have a section in either organic chemistry or in quantitative reasoning. Typically, the organic section has a lower mean in the sciences while for the QR section, the mean is usually 1 point below the AA. Moreover, the RC section is only given for the English version of the DAT.
The Canadian GPA are considerably higher than those of the U.S.. Those scores may indeed be real. However, unless there is a typographical error in the ADEA guide, one does wonder how the University of Manitoba was able to get a mean GPA of 4.01.
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It's not the number of applicants (there are fewer applicants per school in Canada). Its the academic quality of the applicants (you need at least a 3.7 to get an interview) as everyone who applies is academically successful. To reiterate, if you have under 3.5 GPA, you have no chance in hell of getting into a Canadian school. And no, its not a typo, it really is a 4.01. If getting into a dental school in Canada was the same as the US, there wouldn't be those Canadians who apply here because competition in Canada is too stiff.
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Agree. It certainly is not difficult to imagine that Canada has ~400 applicants with GPA of 3.8 who want to pursue dentistry, and Manitoba with a population of ~1.5 millions, surely has 24 university graduates with an A+ average.
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Getting into a canadian dental school is not harder than getting into a US school.
Canadian dental schools such as Dalhousie continually reach for the bottom feeders of local universities.
In fact, the joke is that everyone should apply to Dal as a plan B. Just in case they can't get into any school in the US.
Canadian dental schools such as Dalhousie continually reach for the bottom feeders of local universities.
In fact, the joke is that everyone should apply to Dal as a plan B. Just in case they can't get into any school in the US.
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That's for americans... try applying to Dal as a Canadian (because Canadians don't get screwed with tuition like internationals do). I got into only one Canadian school, and it took more than one try... yet I got into 5 schools in the US on my first attempt. I dunno, maybe it is harder getting into an US school.
