Vent: I can't help but feel punished for going to an early college

[Rvting]

Just received an email from one of the colleges I applied to, and said I was denied an interview. I have 3/4 of my colleges left to hear from but the that sent the letter was the graduate school of the undergrad school I'm at right now, the school that I assumed I would have an advantage at. Sorry if this doesn't really fit here.

I went to an early college when I was about 15-16 years old to the age of 19, which means that I was taking community college classes along side my highschool classes. I ended up graduating with 2 associates degrees (one in science and one in arts). I wish that I never made the choice of going there. What no one told me at the time is that my early college credits are still going to be viewed when I apply to dental school. Obviously, I wasn't able to do swimmingly with these college classes between the them, the normal highschool classes, and the typical highschool anxiety issues. Now its haunting me all the way to my senior year of undergrad. Not only were my grades mediocre, I had to take much more difficult classes to get my associates degree, something that was heavily advertised and shoved down my throat when I first entered my early college. I had to take classes like accounting and calculus for example. I also had to deal with systemic issues when entering undergraduate; I wasn't given the time to pick out the classes I needed in my freshman year because the school didn't allow me as I was lumped into the freshman crowd, meaning I missed out on all of the higher STEM classes and had to fill my entire schedule with humanities , thus I couldn't evenly balance my classes in my later years. Hell, I had to take physio, physio lab, and biostats in a summer semester just to make sure I wouldn't be loaded on 4-5 hard STEM classes in my senior semesters.

I know these sound like excuses so I'll admit, I didn't do well in some of my classes like organic chemistry classes or genetics. Its just that its always that schools push students to challenge themselves, but there is no benefit of the doubt or any degree of acknowledgment when those students don't do so well. I just wish someone can throw me a bone. It feels like I climbed up a tree, I fell down, broke my legs, and now I can't stand up for myself anymore.

Again, I get that I may be making excuses for myself, I just needed to talk to someone about this and put it down somewhere.

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[deleted1109581]

Hi. So you are 19 and a senior in college? You also applied to dental schools this cycle?

 

[Rvting]

Hi. So you are 19 and a senior in college? You also applied to dental schools this cycle?

Im 22, yes, I applied this cycle

 

[deleted1109581]

Ahh... I see. So you graduated with two associates degrees at age 19. And you're finishing your undergrad now. You think your grades during the early college years are hurting your overall GPA and chances of acceptance to dental school?

 

[Rvting]

Ahh... I see. So you graduated with two associates degrees at age 19. And you're finishing your undergrad now. You think your grades during the early college years are hurting your overall GPA and chances of acceptance to dental school?

yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear. I am somewhat emotional at the moment

 

[deleted1109581]

Hey it's all good. Dental schools will understand that you had to take college-level courses when you were 15-16. They may find it impressive that you were able to handle the course load (without failing). Even if your overall GPA is lower than you want it to be, if you have an upward trend in your GPA, dental schools may take a note of it and be more understanding. What is your GPA range (overall, science) and DAT score range? How many schools and what month did you apply? How many interviews did you have so far?

 

[Rvting]

Hey it's all good. Dental schools will understand that you had to take college-level courses when you were 15-16. They may find it impressive that you were able to handle the course load (without failing). Even if your overall GPA is lower than you want it to be, if you have an upward trend in your GPA, dental schools may take a note of it and be more understanding. What is your GPA range (overall, science) and DAT score range? How many schools and what month did you apply? How many interviews did you have so far?

Overall dental application says Im a ~3.0. Undergrad is 3.3 and community is 2.88.
Science is 2.7. Not too sure what my specific schools are but I received 3 classes in C range (org chem 1+2+ biostat), 5 in B range, 6 in A range.
2 C range, 2 B range, 2 A range at community (also, 1 dropped).

General weakness is chemistry and organic chem, but both were 19 on DAT.


and DAT was a 19 AA, 19 for Science, and 19 perc.

50 hours of shadowing between 2-3ish dentists, about 8 for hands-on dental volunteer work.

Applied to 4 schools, and I believe I applied the first month applications were open.

 

[deleted1109581]

Thanks for sharing!
I would wait and see how this cycle plays out. You still have some time. Don't give up yet!

If you don't receive an acceptance this cycle,
(1) I would try to raise the science GPA (3.0+, post-bacc?),
(2) apply to more schools (10-12 schools),
(3) continue to have exposure in the dental field,
(4) and possibly retake the DAT (19 AA is a decent score in my opinion).

There are people with more experience and wisdom here.
They will give you good advice and words of encouragement.

 

[Rvting]

Thanks for sharing!
I would wait and see how this cycle plays out. You still have some time. Don't give up yet!

If you don't receive an acceptance this cycle,
(1) I would try to raise the science GPA (3.0+, post-bacc?),
(2) apply to more schools (10-12 schools),
(3) continue to have exposure in the dental field,
(4) and possibly retake the DAT (19 AA is a decent score in my opinion).

There are people with more experience and wisdom here.
They will give you good advice and words of encouragement.

thank you, plenty of schools are still accepting applicants. Should I try to apply to more? I cant do too many because they're expensive.

 

[deleted1109581]

It would be too late to apply now. If you apply again next cycle, I would apply to more schools! Yes, they're expensive. I also applied to 10+ schools, but it may be worth the investment!

 

[PerioDont]

What happened was the past. Lets move to the present.

Respectfully and realistically, I don't think any part of your app is very strong rn. 50 shadowing and 8 volunteer hours is quite low as well.

For you to get into dental school, you need to both bump your GPA and DAT and increase your hours.

Applying early was a great idea.

 

[Rvting]

What happened was the past. Lets move to the present.

Respectfully and realistically, I don't think any part of your app is very strong rn. 50 shadowing and 8 volunteer hours is quite low as well.

For you to get into dental school, you need to both bump your GPA and DAT and increase your hours.

Applying early was a great idea.

My overall GPA would be just 3.3 without my early college stuff, which isn't the most competitive I understand, but its better than having a 3.0 on my application. I agree I need to work on my scores.

My hours are a tricky thing however due to covid, most dentists in my city aren't accepting shadows or anything of the like due to the pandemic. To get my hours I had to go 2 townships over to meet with a parent's old highschool friend who is now a dentist. On Dental School Explorer, a lot of the school's sent up notices on giving exemptions on hours.

Thank you for your criticisms.

What classes should I focus on? Solely my STEM classes? what about my community classes that are dragging my grade down a bit? I do know that all old grades, regardless of redos, are included in my application's grading.

 

[PerioDont]

You will need to do a post bacc either formal or informal as you need to raise your GPA.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I must have missed your WAMC template. What is your state residency and demographics? What about leadership and have skills? Clinical hours is definitely lower than desired but I have no clue about community service from what has been described.

My committee has reviewed and admitted dual enrollment students before. I think your handling of your classes as shown by your GPA is the issue, and your explanation doesn't give me insight of how you adjusted.

 

[Rvting]

I must have missed your WAMC template. What is your state residency and demographics? What about leadership and have skills? Clinical hours is definitely lower than desired but I have no clue about community service from what has been described.

My committee has reviewed and admitted dual enrollment students before. I think your handling of your classes as shown by your GPA is the issue, and your explanation doesn't give me insight of how you adjusted.

My demographic is a middle class, mixed race minority of a divorced family. 1 parent is an immigrant. First of my family to really go to college.

In terms of leadership, the best I have is a leadership class. Again, the biggest issue with getting community hours of any kind (shadowing e.g) is covid. I have been in college for 3 years now, this is my final year. (Just so the timeline makes sense: 16-19 in early college, 19-22 undergraduate, and yes highschool had an extra year)

About half of my undregrad was under lockdown with no vaccine. I had about a semester and a half of normal experience before the lockdown, and by the time things started opening up it was kinda too late. I could easily throw on ~45 community service hrs from back in my highschool NHS program but I was told multiple times that including highschool information was ill-advised, otherwise I could also stack another ~40 hrs of more dental shadowing (part of my high school's requirement to graduate was that I needed to shadow for X amount of hrs).

When it comes to my GPA, other than being low, what is the issue? By adjusted do you mean my transition from highschool to undregrad? I'll admit, It not a good gpa just that I wish I knew better when I was younger. I didn't know the impact doing dual enrollment would've had and the risks of it.

 

[rishi3]

With a 3.0 GPA, I would say you need at least a 22 DAT to show schools you are no longer that kid in high school. If you do not think that is possible, then you may need a post bacc to raise your gpa