I am currently finishing my 2nd year in a 6 year pharmD program at the university of the sciences. It is a 2 year undergrad + 4 year grad program. My GPA 1st year was horrendous and I take full responsibility for it. I managed to pull it up to a cum of 2.8 after first semester of my 2nd year. My science is a little over a 2.6. I don't think I'll be able to make it into the next part of the program (because you need a 3.0 cum) nor do I really want to. I looked into dentistry and actually find it appealing. I'm considering taking the DAT this summer and transferring to a state university this fall to finish my undergrad. By the end of this spring semester, I'll have taken 66 credits including english I & II, calc, gen chem I & II, gen bio I & II, orgo I & II, physics, anatomy, and microbiology. Is it possible to pull my GPA high enough if I transfer into a biology program to finish my undergrad? Also, if I do well on the DAT will it help my chances of going into dental school? Or would it be smarter to just tough it out here and do my best to get into the next part of the pharmacy program? Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.
Unsure situation with GPA/DAT
- Thread starter eagles215
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Dental schools really care about your academic trend. Lots of people every year did even worse their first two years of college than you've done, and they are accepted to dental school because they kicked butt the rest of the way. Dental schools look at a couple different types of gpa's. First, there is a cumulative gpa which is what you are used to. They then look at science gpa including all science or math course. Then they look at BCP (Biology, Chemistry, and Physics) gpa. The BCP gpa is very important and is looked at intensely by dental schools.
Did you do really well in your organic chem and other science classes so far? If not, then you should probably put off taking your DAT for now. Lots of people will say take the DAT right after o-chem but if you got a C in o-chem like I did, then taking it right now won't necessarily help.
Getting accepted to dental school is harder than getting into pharmacy school, in my personal opinion and experience, and some people say it is even more difficult than getting into medical school since there are so few dental schools. You'll definitely have to work hard to get your gpa up, get over 100 dental shadowing hours or more (several schools average 300+ shadowing hours), and get tons of volunteer hours (some schools average over 300 volunteer hours as well). It's definitely possible to get accepted though if you really want it.
Did you do really well in your organic chem and other science classes so far? If not, then you should probably put off taking your DAT for now. Lots of people will say take the DAT right after o-chem but if you got a C in o-chem like I did, then taking it right now won't necessarily help.
Getting accepted to dental school is harder than getting into pharmacy school, in my personal opinion and experience, and some people say it is even more difficult than getting into medical school since there are so few dental schools. You'll definitely have to work hard to get your gpa up, get over 100 dental shadowing hours or more (several schools average 300+ shadowing hours), and get tons of volunteer hours (some schools average over 300 volunteer hours as well). It's definitely possible to get accepted though if you really want it.
