Thoughts on Chances for Next Cycle!

[DentalDreams11]

Hi all, this is my first time on SDN. Just wanted to say thank you in advance to everyone who takes time to help out the community. With that being said, I wanted to know what my chances were for the next cycle to get into California schools. Granted, I'm a CA resident and will apply broadly, and not make the mistake of being too narrow. But, I wanted to emphasize that I'd prefer to stay in California. Anywho, this is what I'm working with.

GPA: 3.7, sGPA: 3.75
DAT: 23 AA/24 TS/19 PAT
BIO: 25 GC: 22 OC: 25 RC: 21 QR: 21


I'm a little worried that my PAT score is below 20, but I hope that everything else makes up for it. I have 200+ volunteering and shadowing hours and have 1 year research experience. I'd love to know which schools I'd be fit for. I'm fairly new to everything, so any advice will be great advice. Thank you!

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[artist2022]

Very nice stats! I'd say don't worry too much about PAT- you are right in that the rest of the scores help. Apply to all of the CA schools, for sure, but it really depends on if you think you want to specialize or not. If you do want to specialize, then apply to schools like Harvard, Columbia, Penn, etc, but if you just want to be a general dentist, then apply to schools like MWU AZ, ASDOH, Case Western, LECOM, etc. I wanted to stay in cali too and these are some of the schools I applied to, but it does kind of really depend on what your future goals are. Some schools are better for specializing, others are really good clinically.
Side note- start getting LORs written so that on June 1st, you can submit everything! Hopefully this helps!

 

[DentalDreams11]

Thank you, this helps a ton! You think I'd be in the running to get into a school like UCLA? That's been a dream of mine for a while now.

 

[DentalDreams11]

<3