r/dat

Current junior at UPenn CAS with 3.89 GPA

I used Bootcamp to study for the DAT from June through August and took the exam on August 29th. Thankfully, I achieved an amazing score and the resources on Bootcamp were very useful. Their practice exams were also quite true to the actual exam, albeit a bit harder which I think is a good thing.

The biology, chemistry, and ochem notes from bootcamp were most useful to me as they were indeed high yield. I would go chapter by chapter and use the question banks for each chapter in bootcamp to review and repeat the process until I completely understood and memorized the material in each chapter to the best of my ability. For quantitative reasoning, most of it was simple algebra which I felt comfortable with but the statistics and probabilities questions I watched the videos for and practiced with the questions on bootcamp. For reading comprehension, I utilized a mix of strategies of search and destroy/read then answer depending on how long the passage was and time management was the biggest part. PAT normally gave me the most trouble but through prolonged repetition through the PAT question generators on bootcamp my scores kept improving. I also devised a thought process for each subsection of the PAT that proved effective on the exam.

Ask me any question you have on how to study, how to approach the sections on the exam, and anything else you are curious about in preparation for the DAT!

Intro 📕- Just Got my scores back like many others today and wanted to speak on my experience because I truly feel that hearing what other ppl did and experienced in this DAT journey is important. 

Process 🧨- I studied from June 16th-September 25th but had many off days for vacation and days where I just wanted to give up so didn’t study but would say overall 300-400 study hours. I used Booster and followed the schedule to a T up till phase 3 where I judt focused on testing and my personal struggles. I also used Anki and will speak more about it later on. This was probably the worst 3 months of my life because I am a very stressful person and just couldn't be happy with the amount of studying I was doing which in hindsight was a blessing and a curse.

What helped me 💡-  something that I highly recommend is not changing your routine when it comes to diet and excersize, studying isn’t an excuse to not focus on these and I did in the beginning and can confidently say it only leads to more self destruction. One thing I would change about your schedule is to try and lighten your workload in other areas like work and school if possible (ik it’s not for many). Final small tip I would give is DO IT ALL IN SUMMER that one month of studying I had during fall semester was actually hell. Clubs become hectic especially if your on eboard and friends come back in town and want to hang out 24/7 so I will confidently tell you all to do all studying and test date in summer.

How was the actual test ⁉️ - The rumors are true the TS section is mainly focused on basics with some out of ordinary questions so get your basics down!!! QR is not easy so make sure you are taking it seriously cause it is a super easy way to boost AA. If you have ADHD please get the extra time for reading I didn’t and it caused me to get the poor score you see 🫩. PAT felt very easy compared to practice test but make sure you have your cube counting, patern folding, and hole punch masterd cause they are easy points.

MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE TO GET GOOD BIO SCORE 🧬- I will tell you this once and only once and I hat to beat a dead horse but USE FUCKING ANKI I kid you not that is the only reason I did as good as I did. AIM for 300 cards a day and be honest with yourself on the time needed to learn cards. My strat was to go on walks and do it all while I was walking. Also use the cheat sheets for bio to sharpen yourself.

FIN ❌- I believe in all of you studying fr don’t give up but also don’t go to easy on yourself think about your future and know that this test can save you money in time in the future all you need to do is use your time wisely now.

QUSETION: If anyone alr went through HPSP Process DM me plz.

Scores:

QR: 440

RC: 500

BIO: 500

GC: 500

OC: 530

TS: 510

PAT: 510

AA: 490

Background:

Currently a senior with a 3.70 GPA

Materials Used

I only used DAT Booster for my studying. I studied for 14 weeks (June-September) and followed the study schedule that Booster made for most of my studying while also adjusting some of the topics closer to my test date based on what I needed to work more on or felt good about. I also took practice exams more frequently than the study guide suggested and started taking a couple early on to create a baseline. I studied for around 4-5 hours per day. I watched every single video on Booster for every subject which I did find to be helpful for explanations but there is so much information that I ended up forgetting the stuff I learned which is where the notes/readings were helpful. The practice questions associated with each topic were also very helpful for practicing and retaining the information I had just learned. I didn’t discover the Anki decks until about 2 weeks before my exam and at that point it felt too late to start using them so I didn’t really use Anki flashcards. For biology, I primarily just used the bio bits and ended up repeating these about 3 times over the course of my studying. I also utilized the marked question feature and the biology game feature. For gen chem, I primarily just worked through the question banks and practiced problems/tests. For ochem, I used the organic chemistry reaction sheet and would rewrite these reactions in order to memorize them as well as the question banks and practice tests. For PAT, I watched the videos to get a general strategy and then just did all the practice problems. I would do about 45 minutes of PAT every day, specifically focusing on the more difficult parts like keyholes, TFE, and pattern folding. The generators for angle ranking, hole punching, and cube counting were very helpful. For reading, I would give myself 7 minutes to read and highlight the passage and then spend 13 minutes answering the questions. I tried most of the methods and this one worked the best for me. For QR, I primarily focused on the question banks and practice tests and would review the questions I got wrong. I was scoring the highest on this section for most of my time studying so I didn’t spend a lot of time on this in the 2 weeks leading up to my test. 

On test day

Bio: It was very broad in the questions they asked but they were pretty straightforward and didn’t feel like they were trying to trick me. For the most part, I had seen every topic before, nothing was very unfamiliar. 

GC: I didn’t have very many calculating questions and if I did have to calculate something, the numbers were a lot easier than on Booster. It was very conceptual and focused on fine details. 

OC: I had several arrow pushing mechanisms as well as predict the products, for the most part it was very conceptual and pretty straightforward. Aromaticity, acid/base, carbocation/radical stability, periodic trends all showed up. 

PAT: I thought that the hole punching was a lot easier on the actual exam than on booster, everything else was very representative. 

RC: This section seemed more difficult on the actual exam. The passages were shorter but very few of the questions were straightforward and easy to find the passage. Many of them required you to go beyond just the passage in order to answer the question. Timing was the biggest thing for me in this section. 

QR: Most of my questions were word problems and I had many questions that asked about the sufficiency of the statements. There were also several probability, mean/median and applied mathematics questions. Some questions I got on my actual exam were identical to Booster questions.

Overall, I thought Booster was very representative of the actual exam and I am very happy with my choice to choose this program. I had reached out to customer service to extend my membership 5 days and they were super helpful and responsive. I didn’t have any problems using the software and was impressed by the amount of resources they had available. 

Is this competitive enough for the top schools? My rc is low.

I'm thinking unc, ucsf, umich, ucla, etc.