What should I do?

[tsitneD]

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I graduated in May 08 with BS in Biology and Biochemistry with 3.39 cGPA and 3.36 sGPA AADSAS calculated. Taken DAT twice and rejected from many schools. these are the scores


AA TS PAT BIO ORG CHEM QR RC
1st 17 18 22 16 19 19 13😳 16
2nd 17 19 21 18 18 21 16 13😳

I have done summer enrichment program and also good amount of EC's but i dont know what do about the DAT. I know I really want to do dentistry and I am told many times by my friends to have good back up plans but I dont want to let go of dentistry as a choice. I see there are some great scorers for DAT on SDN and wondering if anyone can give some advice. Currently working full time at chemical lab which i believe is waste of time and will definitely look bad for taking a year off from studies. any advice???

 

[cybermech]

That's not a bad GPA. What you CAN do is work in a dental lab or work as a dental assistant.

But anyways, you're almost there, you just need to get all your scores above an 18. That RC score looks really bad at the moment because they say that PAT and RC score at the two biggest indicators of how you will do in dental school, and thus are usually given more weight than other individual scores.

Study for the RC section like there's no tomorrow... but don't neglect the other sections and drop in those.

 

[preOMFS]

How much time did you dedicate to studying and for how long? Do you have any dental experience?

 

[tsitneD]

I shadowed GD not many hours and beside that no dental experience. I thought you have to be certified for Dental assistant. In summer program did some drilling in restorative anatomy dental class and assisted dental students.

I spent more than a month the second time i took DAT. I have hard time preparing for RC because there are not that many good resources out there. Practice test were too easy i was making 20s...it was a bid drop for me on the real DAT and that piano passage was too tough. For QR any good books out there for DAT?

I have alreay started giving some time again to DAT so i ll be done and apply early this year. Also, applied to post bacc at baylor.

 

[preOMFS]

I'm not a CDA and I work as an oral surgery assistant (previously worked for a General dentist for 2 months). Sometimes you can submit your resume to various dental offices looking to hire a dental assistant, especially those that say "will train the right person". Also, you could volunteer at a place and they may put you on the payroll after you've showed some commitment.

 

[tsitneD]

PreOMFS, you have some awesome DAT scores I can only dream of those.
i will send my resume to many dentists lets see i might get lucky somewhere.

By the way how did you practice for RC?

 

[bjhath]

By the way how did you practice for RC?

Read, read, and read some more. Scientific American and The New York Times are good sources for articles that are on the level of the DAT. Work on both comprehension (most important) and speed (secondarily important).

Find a testing strategy that works well for you. It's tough to search and destroy on the real DAT, because the difficulty is greater than you find in sample exams. What worked for me was to quickly read/skim the article first. As I read, I jotted down the paragraph number along with a one sentence summary/keywords for each. Then I moved on to the questions, answered the ones I knew, and went back to the article for those I didn't. Keep your eye on the time and if it gets short, move on to search and destroy, but only if you know you won't have time to read the last article.

Good Luck!

 

[tsitneD]

thanks everyone,

i will definitely look into those two sources and give it my best. I think the strategy you are talking about is the one kaplan has too. I thought it might be very time consuming but now i have to built the speed for it.

Any good QR sources? because so far kaplan has not worked for me. Do you think on the third time there DAT expectations might be too high because that worries me.