out of curiosity to those have been down the road of dental school or at least almost there: I've noticed that getting into dent school is more than just grades (dat's, extra currics, etc are involved), thus people with relatively "low" gpa's can and do get into dent school every year as long as they have the other goods. I'm wondering, have you witnessed fellow classmates (or yourselves) who had those low gpa's in their undergrads, end up kickin butt in dental school (high boards + high end class rank, etc). I guess I'm wondering if the ghosts of the undergrad years tend to follow you into dental school? or if undergrad gpa is a suitable predictor or your learning capabilities in dent school?
An adcom I think would use the undergrad GPA as a general indicator as to how a candidate might perform in dental school. But not THE major indicator, obviously, as there are other considerations such as DAT performance and the GPA trend as Gavin likes to point out. Still, it is fairly obvious that an adcom would reject somebody with a 2.0 GPA over someone with a 3.5 GPA.. Basically a gross discriminator methinks which is useful for the initial "rough cut" screening..
I've noticed from my classmates (as a D1) that we're all gonna help each other out. Nobody cares which undergrad or GPA you had in college. Once you get into dental school, we're all in the same boat. It's all about helping each other out and forming study groups.
Pi guy has the right attitude - all this talk about gpa is soooooo stupid. Not one interview I went on when I was looking for a job asked me about my dental school grades. Actually, one guy did and I basically blew him off (and I graduated 14 /77 in my class so I was not ashamed of my gpa). The guy I work for now was much more concerned about my dedication and commitment to community and to dentistry. I was not asked about my grades or board scores - It was enough that I had graduated and got a license. Dental school is hard enough, and I'll tell you its not without my good friends I made that I could have done it.
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