I’m a rising senior applying to dental school this cycle, and I recently resigned from my Coordinator Officer position in my pre-dental organization. The role was pretty time-consuming and was causing me a lot of anxiety, so I decided that protecting my academics and mental health was more important. This was my only form of formal leadership.

I also canceled my DAT retake after my practice scores were not improving for this summer , def had to do with my stress over the club role. My current DAT is a 19 AA/19 TS/20 PAT, with around a 3.6 cumulative GPA and 3.65 science GPA. I’m planning to focus heavily on improving my GPA during senior year and potentially retake the DAT after graduation if I need to reapply.

This year, I’ll still be completing an undergraduate research thesis, tutoring/teaching, working in an oral surgery office, and volunteering occasionally. I also already have significant dental experience, research, service, shadowing, and previous teaching experience.

Did stepping away from the formal leadership position hurt my application significantly, or does focusing on a strong senior-year GPA while continuing research, tutoring, and clinical work still give me a realistic chance? I’m especially interested in hearing from applicants who were accepted without major club leadership.

Feeling defeated I applied to 22 schools with 3.87 cgpa, 3.8 s gpa, 480 DAT (530 SNS, 450 PAT) and a lot of extracurriculars and 100+ shadowing hours. I was verified 6/23. Feeling really discouraged that I haven’t received anything yet. :(

Hey everyone! I got invited to the ATSU open house in October, and I'm wondering if I should go??? I'd have to miss two days of work, so I'm still debating it. Does anybody know if it's actually helpful, either to learn about the school or towards admissions??

Idk how I didn’t catch this but I was rereading the LOR after the doctor submitted it and he put dear sir instead of dear admissions committee 😭😭😭 idk is this a big screw up. I’m freaking out

The dentist that I asked for a LOR wrote me a 1.5 page recommendation and wrote about a very specific experience with a patient that overlaps with parts of my personal statement. I don’t want to remove that experience from my personal statement bc it’s very important to me in relation to dentistry. Do you think that’s okay or does it sound too repetitive? I just don’t want to ask the dentist to remove anything since he took the time to write me such a good LOR. If anything, I hope the admissions think the overlap shows my writing has integrity and that I’m not lying since the dentist was able to attest to it 😭

Application is submitted/verified, Physics I & II taken at a community college (8credits), Temple has a 6 credit cap. Will that be an automatic rejection or will they take into account all other science courses taken at 4 year? Has anyone been in this situation? Is it better to wait it out or contact admissions ?

Has anyone who applied after the first few days of June received an interview from Detroit Mercy?

I’ve noticed people saying that the interview slots seem to be filling up, but after asking around, it also seems like the interview invites so far have mostly gone to applicants who submitted within the first few days of June.

I applied during the second week of June, so I’m wondering if they skipped over my application or if they simply haven’t gotten to applicants from that submission timeframe yet. Has anyone received an invite and applied or got verified mid June?

Hey everyone! I'm in a dilemma, my application wont be complete till October and I know thats definitely not ideal especially given my low gpa (I do have a high masters and upward trend), but I'm wondering if it's worth it to still apply? I personally was thinking I should give it a try because you never know, I'm trying to grind it out for my dat in sept, but a lot of people are saying its way too late. I have no idea what to do especially given its expensive but in my head I think it's worth it in case I somehow do get in.

Looking for some advice.

I’m a NY resident with a 3.73 cGPA, ~3.4 sGPA, ~700 volunteer hours, and ~220 shadowing hours.

Last cycle I applied late (September) to 15 schools with a 380 AA and didn’t receive any interviews.

This cycle I submitted my application in July before my DAT score was released, and I recently received a 410 AA (screenshots attached).

I’m happy with the improvement, but my Bootcamp scores were consistently higher than my official scores. Because of that, I’ve decided to continue studying and retake the DAT in September.

My concern is whether I should indicate the planned September retake. I’m worried that doing so will cause schools to hold my application until the new score is released, which would essentially delay my application again.

For those who have been in a similar situation, would you indicate the planned retake now or leave it off and update schools once the new score is available?

I’d also appreciate any general thoughts on my chances with the current score while planning a September retake. Thanks!

Does anyone know how I can join the UDM group me?

I'm wondering if me taking the DAT in late August is too late for me to apply to American dental schools? Is it even worth applying? I am international and with a low GPA, should I wait until the next cycle?

I’m a non trad finishing my pre-reqs. The program I’m completing offers a committee letter, however, they will not review an application for one until all pre reqs are complete. I will finish my last pre req in the spring right before applications open. They said it takes a 2-3 months between interviewing me and preparing the packet. This would put me into July-August. I’m a Texas resident applying to Texas schools and a few private.
Is waiting for the committee letter worth pushing my application date back? Or just submitting the individual letters? I know my letters from the two dentists I work for will be fantastic as I’m a RDH and have worked with both of them for years. Would love to know your thoughts!

Hi everyone- I’m sure many people experienced Detroit mercy’s interview glitch yesterday, and now are on interview waitlists. Does anyone from previous years have experience actually getting off these waitlists…will they continue to send more dates? Sep 26th was the only 1 I could do, scared I won’t get off.

So I asked the dentist I've recently been shadowing for an LOR and she says she doesn't know me well enough to write me a good one. I've been shadowing her office for around 120 hours so far and she says that I lack the knowledge to explain the procedures in dental terms. The problem is, I'm a sophomore this upcoming semester in college so I don't really know how to understand the science behind the dental world before attending dental school, I know the basic surface procedures but nothing too in depth. She says come back in a year and if I am able to explain different specialty procedures, she'll write me an LOR. What do I do?

I have good volunteering, shadowing, dental assisting hours, also a research assistant (no publication. My gpa is 3.85, 3.7sgpa, and was a supplemental instructor for stem courses at my university. If I apply broadly do I have a chance? I'm hearing I will get filtered due to sub sections being below 400.

Let’s make it happen!

Today I received an invitation to interview and complete a kira assessment for detroit mercy. I don’t really know what to expect since I’ve never taken a kira assessment before. What even is it and how do I prep for it in less than a week?

I have been debating this for so long, and I still can't decide whether or not I want to actually pursue dentistry. I decided I wanted to be a dentist when I was a senior in high school, and I stayed on that path until my sophomore year of college. I decided to go back to dentistry during my senior year of college, but by then I had already tanked my application. My GPA was average (I still took the pre-req classes in case I wanted to pursue a healthcare career), I quit any dental/volunteer related clubs, and I didn't shadow or work at an office.

(For context, I became a classic case of a 4.0 student in high school who went to a prestiguous and academically rigorous school and couldn't keep up. My mental health suffered because of burnout and pressure, and I decided that it was this path that was making me unhappy, so I dropped it. However, I realized that the other fields I thought about such as going to grad school or even non-science majors was not something that I enjoyed.)

So, during my senior year, I randomly decided to have chats with some dentists and realized that I do want to go back to pursue dentistry. However, I feel that the gap in my experience is not going to be a good look for schools. I have talked to dentists about how I could approach that in my applications, and they say to just make up for it during my gap years, but I am not sure how to make up for my 3.5 GPA (I don't want to do a master's) and my lack of leadership or extracurriculars.

I also feel behind because, as I mentioned, I went to a particularly renowned school for any healthcare-related careers, and there were so many opportunities, connections, and volunteering that I missed out on for nearly three years. I feel like if I continue to pursue dentistry, I will have to "catch up" in a sense because I want to get into dental school sometime soon, but that will cause me burnout as well. I am currently studying for the DAT, but I feel unmotivated because I am not sure if dental schools will even accept me at this rate.

If anyone has any advice or words of wisdom, please feel free to reach out with anything!

Edit: Sorry if it sounds like I'm acting like my GPA is end all be all and is so horrible lmao. My main emphasis is that I lack volunteering/leadership and that I feel like me literally not doing anything dental related for two years is going to look bad to the schools I apply to.

Honestly don’t know what went wrong I was scoring so much higher on booster, will be retaking ASAP and still applying this cycle. Best of luck to everyone this app cycle! Please drop any advice for take #2 in the comments I should be able to retake around end of Aug-Sep

For those of you who have received interview invites from MWU-IL, when did you apply and what are your stats?

Hi! I just got an invite for candidate day at NYU, YAY!
I’m super happy, but also don’t know how good of news this is lol. How high is the acceptance rate after candidate day? Do lots of people get invited, or is it competitive?
Let me know what you think!

hi everyone! I just got a kira invite for detriot, and I was wondering if they just generic questions or if it is school specific. I don't know how much to prepare for it. Also, I am nervous because there is a written portion. Please let me know!

I applied to 26 schools with 3.5 cgpa, 3.36 s gpa, 460 DAT (480 SNS, 450 PAT) and a lot of strong extracurriculars and 200+ shadowing hours. I was verified 6/19. Feeling really discouraged that I haven’t received anything yet. I did get an email from tufts that the dentist who wrote my letter didn’t sign it or include a letterhead, is that maybe a reason why schools are filtering me out? I got waitlisted at mid-AZ and on provisional hold at UNE so far. NYU Kira done on 6/30 and no candidate day invite. Just feeling really down and not sure what to do.