Guest ckimf Posted April 25, 2006 Report Share Posted April 25, 2006 Hi guys I need some help...seriously.. I am 24yrs old and only two semesters away from graduation.I never thought about becoming a dentist...but working as CDA gave some insight about this career and decided to become one.. but the problem is .. my GPA is very low.Currently my cCPA is 2.7 (please dont laugh at me) I really screwed up my first and second years. Now I am studying my ass off to make up those mistakes but I feel like I am running out of time. For my third and fourth year courses, I managed to get 3.4 and defenately will try to imporve more using last two semesters. Since my GPA is not competitive enough for Canadian schools, I am considering about getting into American schools... my question is...I took some computer science courses (100 level) in my first year and I got D and F. Is it worth to retake? wont they look at negatively if I repreat 100 levels in my fourth year? Also, I never had time to volunteer because I had to work to pay for my own tuition, rent and etc..It was too hard to me to make some extra time to volunteer.. But I worked as CDA for about a year. Do you think this will help? And what should I do about volunteering? Ah..I wish I can go back and undo my mistakes.. I am in very difficult situation and confused about my future. Any suggestion ( GPA and volunteer..anything) will be great... thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RockTheDAT Posted April 25, 2006 Report Share Posted April 25, 2006 Hi ckimf, Not to worry. There are Canadian Dental Schools (I think Dalhousie is one of them) that only looks at your last two years of full time academic studies. Other Canadian Dental Schools will drop your worst year once you have finished your degree (regardless of whether you fail a course or not). U of Manitoba also has an interesting admission scheme so take a look at that as well. It might be worth going through the list of 10 dental schools in Canada and look at their specific requirements before ruling them out. Although cGPA is a bit harder to bring up, you can upgrade your pre-requisite course GPAs with knowing what the specific shools look for. Some schools do not allow you to take higher level courses to replace pre-req courses; while others do. Look at the schools that do, and take courses at a higher level to replace the ones you had bad marks in. Some schools will allow you to repeat a course and average them out as well. Looking at admission stats in the past few years from UBC, they seem to prefer older (more mature?) students who have finished at least 4 or more years of post-secondary education. You might fit quite nicely in this targeted audience. Remember that cGPA is only one determinant of your ticket to dental schools. The others include pre-req GPA, the DAT exam, interview, and letters of reference (at some schools). Some applicants might be weak in one area, but if they rock the other areas, they will have a good chance. I would do more research and narrow down to about 3 Canadian Dental schools you want to target and set out a plan of attack from there. Also, having worked as a CDA will defintely help. If you have further questions, feel free to contact me: email: Dat-Trainer@hotmail.com website: www.rockthedat.com Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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