What are my chances of getting accepted into dental school?

[justin_206]

Hello, everyone!

My name is Justin and I am a prospective dental student. I'm new to the sdn and I want to receive some advice or words of encouragement from other pre-dent students due to the fact that I am feeling very overwhelmed and discouraged. I really want to become a dentist but I have been struggling with some of my prerequisite courses. I will try to get right to the point but I think it is imperative that I give a little background information regarding my academic record.

After graduating high school, I enrolled into a local community college and graduated with a 2.5 gpa. I then transferred to Washington State University and graduated last year with a 3.0 gpa in Social Sciences. After graduating with a B.A. in Social Sciences, I enrolled back into my old community college to complete my prerequisites for dental school. Below is a list of the prereqs I have taken up until this point.

Winter 2018
Physics 1- 1.6 gpa (repeated)

Spring
Chem 140- 3.1 gpa
Gen Biology 1 - 3.2 gpa

Summer 2018
math 141(pre-calc) 3.0 gpa (I know its not a pre-req but its required for upper level chemistry)

Fall 2018
Physics 114- 2.8 gpa
Gen Chem 1- 2.7 gpa

Winter 2019
Gen chem 2- to be determined but im pretty sure I won't pass
physics 115- Withdraw
Anatomy/phys- Withdraw



With all of this taken into account, I have felt like a complete failure because I know how competitive getting into dental school is. I have shadowed for about 30 hours and I have made connections with the Dean of UW Dental school. Please if anyone can tell me I still have a chance of getting accepted it would really mean a lot to me. Please don't sugarcoat anything because I need the truth about my chances.

Thank you everyone!

-Justin

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[AppalachianDentalBoy]

These numbers seem random and I don't mean to be rude but is this on a 4.0 scale? Are you generally a bad at studying?

 

[justin_206]

yes, this is on a 4.0 scale. I am really struggling to achieve competitive grades.

 

[chives_irvine]

Since we don't have a full dental school app from you, idk if anyone here could give you much realistic help. What you should do is go sit down with a counselor at your school. They will understand your situation better than anyone here. When you do, ask what it will take for you to get into dental school. Make a plan with them. Then stick to it.

Note
I recognize that not all schools have decent counselors that could give really good advice and make a decent plan. If that is the case for you, contact a current dental student that recently graduated from your school and ask if they can help you. If there isn't one of those, contact dental students at schools you would want to attend and ask for help. ASDA can be a great resource for this

 

[Kawasaki21]

I’m not in dental school so take my advice with a grain of salt but you really need to change your habits. If you’re study habits continue like this, chances are you won’t get into dental school, and even if you do, your chance of success in dental school is very low as the course load in dental school is very rigorous. The first semester of dental school alone is typically 22+ credit hours.

I don’t mean this to be rude, I’m more of trying to give constructive criticism. Everyone has a chance to get into dental school, but it takes hard work and dedication. You should contemplate if this is what you want to do, and if that answer is yes, then fully commit and do whatever it takes to get where you need to be. Study 5 hours a day if you have to. The other main issue is your dental school prerequisites you’ve taken so far have low scores (such as gen chem and physics) if you want any hope of getting into dental schools you will really need to step it up going into the other prerequisites (o chem, physics 2, etc)

 

[dPseh]

The answer is no. Not at this time.

If you want to go to dental school, it’ll take a lot of personal reinvention, retaking classes, $$$, time.

You’re sitting at a sub-3.0 GPA and sGPA. It’s not impossible to get past that, but most people that are accepted with a low GPA have done a post-bacc where they excelled in the program to prove that they can handle the academic rigor of dental school.

The majority of the time, comm college courses are easier than large university courses. If you’re already struggling right now to barely pass comm college science courses, you more than likely would fail university level classes. Most dental schools also prefer to see pre-reqs taken at a 4 year institution.
Dental school is about 3-4x the course load of what you’re doing now, just keep that in mind.

Unless it’s a personal connection with the Dean, I don’t think he can help you get accepted. (It’d be unethical either way.)
And isn’t the UW Dean currently an interim dean anyway? How much power does he have over admissions?

So unless you really plan on doing some self reflection and finding out why you’re not performing at least 3.0+ in these science classes, you’ll be out of luck.

One caveat: underrepresented minor. If you fall into that category, you might have a chance somewhere.

 

[lemoncurry]

^^^ second that.

I'm not going to say it is impossible, but you REALLY need to want to do dentistry if you're going to put in the time and money and effort it is going to take to get your grades and such to a position where you are competitive.

An alternative route, which, if I had to do it all over again, I might have taken instead, is to do trade school. We need skilled trades. Mike Rowe is the man when it comes to that stuff. I tell you what, I may be called "Doctor" but I have a major inferiority complex when it comes to the skilled trades.

Maybe you can turn this around. It's not impossible. Maybe college really isn't your thing, though, and that's okay.

 

[shulk]

You will not get into dental school with those numbers. Your application fees will be deposited into the bank and your application into the trash. You are not a complete failure though and it is possible to come back from this but you have to start over. Retake all of the dental school prereq courses and get As in them. If you can't do that, then it is truly over. Don't even think about shadowing anyone, volunteering, or making connections or any of that, not even dental school. The only thing you should think about is your coursework and doing everything you can to ace it. Trying to juggle too much at once and everything will end up ruined on the floor.

 

[serendipity30]

I've seen people got accepted with sub 3.0gpa and DAT AA17...

So... yeah anything is possible.

 

[Yesnoyes]

Consider an academic renewal and start over, it will be much easier for you to get into a school on a fresh slate. Good luck