What should I do during my gap year?

[northcarolina20]

Hello everyone,

I am not planning to apply this year as my overall GPA: 3.403, Sci GPA: 3.24, and DAT score is AA: 20/ PAT: 18/QR: 17/GC: 22/ OC: 18/BIO: 22/ RC: 19, which are not competitive. I would be appreciated for any advices of how can I can maximize my chance of getting accepted at dental school for next cycle beside from retaking DAT, applying early and increasing hrs of shadowing as I am planning to do all of these. During my gap year, I will be a lab technician that is responsible for developing protocol and testing my professor's hypothesis, as well as contributing ideas to her research (plant pathology research). Therefore, I will have experiences in research but not related to dentistry. Do you think this is helpful?

thank you for your reading and grateful for any advice

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[MasterDental]

Edited. Misread question.


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[teethlover93]

Whether the year of research will be helpful or not depends on what your application already looks like. If you already have quite a bit of research experience, more research probably won't help you all that much. I have known several people who work as a dental assistant in a general or specialty office during their gap year, and it has really helped their application. It gives them plenty to talk about when they go for interviews, and it also adds shadowing hours (I find you learn much more assisting than shadowing).