Hi everyone, my path has been a bit less traditional than many predents, and I was just wondering what you thought my chances are/ what I should do to improve them? I apologize ahead of time if my introduction is too long. I'm a psychology major and just switched to predental this past year, though I've just finished my senior year. Ill be taking an extra year of classes to fulfill the rest of the prereqs. I've attempted science classes before but I had no direction/motivation at the time and my grades showed that. Ive been pulling my grades up ever since however. So far I have a 3.5 overall gpa, 3.85 in major gpa, and I believe my science gpa is about a 3.0 (bad I know:/ I think my bcp gpa will actually be much higher). I got an A & a C in biology, and a B+ and A- in physics. I'm taking general chem this summer, and will be taking organic chemistry this next year with some upper level biology classes. I have been volunteering with one service organization for most of my time in college, as well as the predental club. I'm trying to get at least a chair position in one of the clubs. I've been shadowing a dentist and will be shadowing another this summer, aiming for at least 100 hours. I'm considering joining students helping honduras and volunteer abroad but not sure if I can yet. I know my stats are less than stellar, what would you recommend I do this next year to improve my chances? I really want this!
What are my chances?
- Thread starter BlueSun12
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 1,571
- Reaction score
- 33
You just have to make sure you get A's in gen chem 1, 2, and organic 1, 2. It's going to be really tough to ace those 4 classes, as these prereqs are weed out classes. I suggest you taking a lighter semester load and do the bare minimum to ensure A's. Then after, you can load up on extracurriculars all you want.
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2010
- Messages
- 1,571
- Reaction score
- 33
I wouldn't, if I were you. If you want, you can do a lot of shadowing in August and request your letters and have them sent to your school's lettering service which I'm sure they have at a career services kind of place. Or you can try interfolio. Collect recommendation letters are you go. And focus your fall and spring on the classes. Your science GPA clearly is your weakest right now. If you can 4.0 fall and spring semester, you can do as much activities as you can May and June 2014 while you apply and be a pretty strong applicant. There's nothing wrong with being a member and not a chair.
It's certainly doable. I think by far the most important thing at this point is your DAT. I had average science grades from years ago but a very high DAT.From that point it was easy to say you are strong in the sciences but were just not the best student in the past. I had two offers.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2007
- Messages
- 1,128
- Reaction score
- 120
Is "predental" a major at your school? I say stay away from the soft sciences. Surprisingly, I've met some academics who look down on Psychology/Sociology majors because of their lack of both rigor and legitimacy in establishing any significant correlation (R-squared value < 0.5 is considered good enough) or causation. The noises in Psychology/Sociology are complex enough to reduce the methods of study to overly simplistic surveys. If your major is not in one of the more legitimate sciences, your major GPA will have no studied predictability for dental school performance when the time comes for the admissions committee to evaluate you. Only sciGPA and RC score have been shown to have reasonable correlation with dental school performance.
Boost your sciGPA and ace the DATs and then I'm sure no school will question your abilities. You can worry about ECs later or concurrently if you can handle upper-level science courses. Conceptually, dental school courses don't get much harder than upper-level Biology/Chemistry courses from undergrad. The difference in difficulty between dental school and undergrad is the sheer quantity of information and the lack of free time to study due to 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. classes/preclinics.
Boost your sciGPA and ace the DATs and then I'm sure no school will question your abilities. You can worry about ECs later or concurrently if you can handle upper-level science courses. Conceptually, dental school courses don't get much harder than upper-level Biology/Chemistry courses from undergrad. The difference in difficulty between dental school and undergrad is the sheer quantity of information and the lack of free time to study due to 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. classes/preclinics.
Alright I'll focus on my academics and put everything else on hold until I get good enough grades (i.e. A). I'll be studying for the DAT from May-June next year & take the DAT right after so I won't have much time for extracurriculars then unfortunately, but that would've been a good plan otherwise. I'm also worried that there won't be anything that sets me apart from other applicants, except that maybe I can speak pretty fluently in two other languages, if that even counts
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2007
- Messages
- 1,128
- Reaction score
- 120
Ideally, you should have plenty of time in undergrad to do well in a full course load of science classes while volunteering, researching, shadowing, etc. One the most important lessons from undergrad for me was learning how to budget my time.
Also, thanks everyone for helping out so far, I really appreciate your advice. UCSF, no "predental" isn't a major though I did make it sound like it sorry. I should've said I switched my focus, as I'm still a psychology major, I'm just trying to take mostly upper level biology and chemistry classes now.
