1. Pre-Dental Experience
2. DAT
1. Pre-Dental Experience
The overview you are about to read is very general. It will give you some things to keep in mind and a good way to go about preparing yourself to be a good applicant for dental school.
With that said, every person is different. This is what I did and it worked for me. Different dental schools require various requirements (some schools require more advanced calculus, human physiology, etc.) and different undergraduate programs may not offer all the same classes. With that said, here is a semester-by-semester look at the 4 undergraduate years prior to dental school...
All throughout college:
- Stay in touch with your Pre-Dental Advisor if your school has one. If not, try to get in contact with a dental school in your area and see if they have an advisor that you can visit once per semester or year to stay on track.
- Keep your grades up! While a good DAT can often offset a poor GPA, you never want to take that risk. Always do your best to make A's.
- Get involved! While grades and DAT are important, dental school is more than numbers. By getting involved in leadership positions and volunteering, you'll show the dental school that you are a well rounded (cliche, I know) individual who does more than just study.
- Shadow dentists! Some dental schools require a certain amount of shadowing hours (OU requires 100, for example). If you don't know what shadowing is, it is basically going in and more or less following a dentist around for a while and seeing what they do. Dentists know that this is common and most are more than happy to have you come into their office for a while.
- Make sure you are taking the prerequisite courses that you need! Don't get caught behind schedule. Don't go into the DAT without taking Organic Chemistry and be aware that some classes (like Biochemistry, which is required at OU, has a total of 4 prerequisite courses before you can take it [math, GChem1, GChem2, OChem1]).
- If you are behind, don't forget about the summer! It may be hard to sacrifice a summer to take some extra classes, but it can save you from applying a year later.
Freshman year:
Fall
- See if your school has a pre-dental club or society. The best way to stay on track is to be around people who are doing the same things that you are!
Spring
- Start looking at different volunteer work that you might be interested in.
- Find some dentists around your area and start shadowing! You won't know if you want to be a dentist if you never follow them around and see what they do!
- See what you can get involved in on your college campus. Leadership is not only good for building a strong application, it is a great way to get experience dealing with other people that will be vital for the rest of your life.
Sophomore year:
Fall
- See if a dental school nearby offers any sort of free tours or courses you can go to. Getting your name out there and seeing what dental schools look like is a great way to get comfortable with the process.
- Stay on top of your shadowing, volunteering and leadership. Dental schools like to see that you do these things over a long period of time, not just in a big clump when you 'really need it'.
Spring
- Make sure you are taking the classes you need to take the DAT a year from now at the latest. Getting behind on classes can kill your chances.
Junior year:
Fall
- Review dental schools that you are considering and make sure you are on track with your prerequisite courses that you need to apply to those places.
- If your school has a pre-dental advisor, meet with him/her and determine that you are on the right track.
Spring
- Create an AADSAS account (portal.aadsasweb.org) and start sending in your DAT scores (if you have taken it), your transcripts, etc.
- If you have not, see which schools require letters of recommendations and make sure to get these sent to AADSAS as soon as possible.
- Take the DAT. Some take the DAT as early as January of their Junior year while others wait until the summer between Junior and Senior year. Only you can know if you are prepared to take the test.
Senior year:
Summer before
- Finalize and submit your AADSAS application.
Fall
- Fill out any required supplemental applications for the dental schools that request them.
- Go to your interviews!
- Research each school before you go in order to see what their interview process is like. Some schools (like USC) have no formal 1 on 1 interviews. Others, like Oklahoma, have several individual 1 on 1 interviews which weight heavily on your acceptance.
Spring
- Complete your degree! If you have not been accepted, then you may be sitting out and applying the next year. The best way to make your application stronger is to complete your undergraduate work and obtain at least a Bachelor's Degree.
- If you have been accepted, make sure and pay your deposit and get ready for dental school!
2. DAT
NOTE: I took the DAT before there was a calculator on the QR section, so the following information may not be applicable for this section.
For those of you who don't know, the DAT is the Dental Aptitude Test and it is given on a computer. Your total score is presented to you immediately upon completion of the final section.
For those of you who don't know, the DAT is the Dental Aptitude Test and it is given on a computer. Your total score is presented to you immediately upon completion of the final section.
"Isn't that sort of like an MCAT for dental students?" Well sure, if you want to call it that. It's quite different than the MCAT but it's essentially the dental school entrance test.
Here is my DAT story...
I took a practice Kaplan test (on paper) in October 2008 and made a 15. I decided to go ahead and study over that coming Christmas break and take the DAT in late January right before school was back in session. And I did just that...
So I studied from about December 18 - January 19, and took the test the morning of January 20th. Originally, I had my test scheduled for January 15th or so but I got pretty unsure of myself leading up to that date and rescheduled to the 20th. Great decision. I actually got a fever and came down with a 48 hr cold bug on the 16th which was just so hilarious. But I managed to control my constant hot, cold, hot, cold, headache, etc. and study through it.
The morning of the DAT, my car wouldn't start. January 20th was the 2nd day of school (a Tuesday... I didn't have class on Mondays) and my plan was to drive to the DAT, take it, and drive on to Norman to make it to my first class at 3pm. Since my car didn't start, my dad drove me to the test. Needless to say, I was a bit flustered and upset, but I managed to calm down and focus. When the test was over my dad had gone out, gotten a new battery and had a friend of his drive my car over to the testing center so it was waiting outside when I finished. What a guy.
During the actual DAT, I got a 15 minute (may have been 30 minute but I believe it was 15...) break to eat and drink some stuff. I had some crackers and gatorade and went to the bathroom. Even if you don't have to go to the bathroom on your break, just do it anyway! You'll be glad you did.
When my test was over, I was given about 10 'survey' questions... 'how was the noise at your testing center?', 'how was the staff?', etc. Once those were complete, my score popped up. It was terribly nerve racking but I was more than happy with my scores.
They were as follows:
Academic Average - 22
Total Science - 22
Perceptual Ability - 21
Biology - 21
General Chemistry - 21
Organic Chemistry - 23
Reading Comprehension - 24
Quantitative Reasoning - 19
So that is my brief overview of my start to finish. I studied outside of school for about 4 weeks and then took the test.
Here is a breakdown of each section and how best to study (from my experience):
I would recommend the Kaplan Blue Book and Barrons DAT book (I think they may have a new version of these since I took the test a year ago). With the Barrons DAT book, just use it for the perceptual section as well as the math and reading. It has a few typos in the sciences which really threw me off and the review for the sciences isn't helpful at all. Also, I recommend TopScore from Scholarware. It has 3 full length practice tests that are very helpful to get a feel for how much you are learning.
Biology - Make sure you know the Kaplan Blue Book forwards and backwards. It is a very very good resource for this section. Use a textbook to clear up anything that is confusing and consider getting an AP Biology book (Barrons or Cliffs) if you have a weak bio background. Some people don't like the Kaplan Blue Book because they don't feel it is in-depth enough, but this was practically my only resource for the Bio section (and I only had an introductory bio class under my belt when I did the DAT).
GChem - This is pretty basic stuff. The Kaplan book is good here too. I used some old tests from my GChem undergrad class and they were pretty useful. A lot of times, the practice questions in the Kaplan book will ask for answers to problems where as the real DAT will often just ask you to set it up and not actually solve for an answer.
OChem - This section is the easiest science one I think. All the questions are pretty basic. Make sure you know SN1, E1, etc... as well as ortho, para, meta, etc... The reactions are all basic ones and there are very few (if any, maybe 1 or 2) mechanistic type questions.
Math (QR) - This was my worst section and it goes by fast. You only have 45 min to answer 40 questions I think and they aren't HARD but there are just too many to take your time on. I would get an ACT math book and just practice practice practice until you get really fast at it. There is a small bit of trigonometry in this section but I literally didn't study it at all and just took the hit because I was going to have to learn a lot of trig in a small amount of time for a handful of questions which didn't seem practical to me. [I have heard that they will begin including and on-screen calculator some time in March of 2010. If this is true, don't take it for granted because it probably won't help as much as you think. You may want to look into this and practice the math section with it as it will be weird to use if it is an onscreen calculator]
Reading (RC) - I would do practice tests until you find a technique that works for you. I ended up using the 'search and destroy' method. Basically you don't read the passage but go straight to the questions. You look for key words in the question and go hunt it down in the reading. This was my best section.
Perceptual (PAT) - Practice here too. Don't get discouraged if some of the sections seem weird at first. Just know exactly what they are looking for in each of the 6 sections. Don't rush but be aware of time. It's all about working through it and just paying attention to details.
Biology - Make sure you know the Kaplan Blue Book forwards and backwards. It is a very very good resource for this section. Use a textbook to clear up anything that is confusing and consider getting an AP Biology book (Barrons or Cliffs) if you have a weak bio background. Some people don't like the Kaplan Blue Book because they don't feel it is in-depth enough, but this was practically my only resource for the Bio section (and I only had an introductory bio class under my belt when I did the DAT).
GChem - This is pretty basic stuff. The Kaplan book is good here too. I used some old tests from my GChem undergrad class and they were pretty useful. A lot of times, the practice questions in the Kaplan book will ask for answers to problems where as the real DAT will often just ask you to set it up and not actually solve for an answer.
OChem - This section is the easiest science one I think. All the questions are pretty basic. Make sure you know SN1, E1, etc... as well as ortho, para, meta, etc... The reactions are all basic ones and there are very few (if any, maybe 1 or 2) mechanistic type questions.
Math (QR) - This was my worst section and it goes by fast. You only have 45 min to answer 40 questions I think and they aren't HARD but there are just too many to take your time on. I would get an ACT math book and just practice practice practice until you get really fast at it. There is a small bit of trigonometry in this section but I literally didn't study it at all and just took the hit because I was going to have to learn a lot of trig in a small amount of time for a handful of questions which didn't seem practical to me. [I have heard that they will begin including and on-screen calculator some time in March of 2010. If this is true, don't take it for granted because it probably won't help as much as you think. You may want to look into this and practice the math section with it as it will be weird to use if it is an onscreen calculator]
Reading (RC) - I would do practice tests until you find a technique that works for you. I ended up using the 'search and destroy' method. Basically you don't read the passage but go straight to the questions. You look for key words in the question and go hunt it down in the reading. This was my best section.
Perceptual (PAT) - Practice here too. Don't get discouraged if some of the sections seem weird at first. Just know exactly what they are looking for in each of the 6 sections. Don't rush but be aware of time. It's all about working through it and just paying attention to details.
Here are some helpful DAT resources:
American Dental Association DAT webpage: http://www.ada.org/dat.aspx
Kaplan dental website: kaptest.com/dental (click DAT tab at the top)
Company that sells 'TopScore': www.scholarware.com
Testing services that administers the DAT: www.prometric.com
Kaplan dental website: kaptest.com/dental (click DAT tab at the top)
Company that sells 'TopScore': www.scholarware.com
Testing services that administers the DAT: www.prometric.com
updated 2/23/13
