u/Ok_Cartographer4740

I have a lot of shadowing hours (500+) and lots of
volunteer work, community service, and research. A little about me is I went to community college for 2 years and transferred with a 3.78 GPA. Ive never been good at math and received a C in Calc 2 while at community college. When I transferred to a 4 year uni (UCLA) I got 2 Cs in physics and 1 C in ecology during my first 2 quarters. It was a rough transition as I was also dealing with personal issues. I’ve maintained an upward trend since then but getting those two C’s in physics and it being a 5 unit class really brought my gpa down. I graduated from UCLA with a 3.45 gpa but my grades after fall and winter quarter were very good :/

Did not go good. People were right, bio was so LOW YIELD WTF

Edit: Just to respond to everyone about bio, the questions I got were within the bc high yield notes and booster cheat sheets but the qs asked about very niche things that I easily glossed over since I mainly payed attention to the types of qs presented on booster and boot camp’s practice tests. I must’ve only received 4 questions that I definitively recall being off booster but majority of the other questions were presented in an entirely new way. I did not receive any questions about circulatory, respiratory or endocrine, embryology. I did get a few about the muscular system and specific qs about bones

Pls dm me jf you wanna specific qs but i don’t remember a whole lot bc i was so upset

I think u honestly just need to be able to apply what you learned to these qs rather than memorizing the practice tests or going strictly off that. DONT DO THAT. IT WONT HELP. My advice for anyone taking the tests is go thru the cheat sheets or high yield notes and make sure u understand the concept and how to apply it. I just remember feeling very upset and betrayed bc bio was one of my strongest sections but on the actual it took me so long to complete and completely messed up my test taking strategy and flow by the time i got to gc

My PAT and RC scores aren’t where I want them to be. I also haven’t had the chance to take as many QR tests, highest I’ve ever gotten was a 430 but I struggle here.

Bio is 470-500
GC is 400, 410, 430, 450
OCHEM 400, 430, 450, 470. (I took another practice test yesterday and got a 380 idk if it’d cuz I’m burnt out but I deffo didn’t give it my all)
PAT 400, 430, 370
QR 330, 400, 400, 430
RC was stagnant at 370 but I got it up 390. Highest I’ve ever gotten was a 450

I feel like some of scores aren’t representative bc I took them during peak exhaustion and I’ve also been just super burnt out. I still feel like I have a lot to review for GC since the calculations trip me up. Haven’t gotten the chance to review the bio cheat sheets but I got a 500 on yesterdays practice test w not much review.

Exam is tmrw :// I can’t push this back

I’ve been hearing how low yield these sections have been for April-May test takers and was wondering if any recent test taker would recommend paying attention to exams 11-15 since they are considered harder.

I take my exam on Monday

Just a rant: I’m so scared. I think my anxiety is getting worse after seeing the recent discourse about the sciences being weird and almost harder. I’m using booster and bootcamp to study and I’m so burnt out. Ive been doing fine on the practice tests but I know that if I get hit with a weird or hard section, im done for. It still feels like I don’t know anything and I’ve been studying for 3 months. GC is still killing me bc of mental math. Nothing feels enough 😔

What do you guys recommend doing for this upcoming cycle. Use interfolio or directly use application site? I want to make it as easy for my profs since I know this cycle includes a new mandatory questionnaire form

Im very behind on LORs because my DAT in 9 days. I asked my professors 10 days ago and they both said yes but I still need to provide them with all of my info. Im worried bc I know that their semester is about to end soon so I want to make sure I can give them exactly what they need ASAP. What info should I provide them with exactly?

I know people have said that they gave their profs a copy of their personal statements but I haven’t had the chance to sit down and write mine and won’t even be able to until after my DAT is over. So far I’ve been working on finishing my resume and I wrote a few key points about myself as a student in their class and as an individual. Do my profs also need to comment on my passion for dentistry or are these letters specifically intended to attribute to your performance in the class and your character in general?

I’m trying to get my second letter of recommendation and the only other prof I can think of that I have a good relationship with was the same class that I received a B in. To be more specific, this was in an intro Bio class too. I was super close to getting an A but was only .6 points off :/

My gpa is like a 3.5-3.6