Helpful Websites For Dental School Applicants

 I am looking to help future dentists have access to information that I wish I would have known during my preparation to becoming a dentist.  The information I have to share today are websites that are extremely helpful at varying points of your journey.  I would start with the "ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools" first.  It has great information for every step you will take along your journey.  This information is helpful to figuring out where to apply and what to expect.  It will also provide information about what you will need to accomplish before applying.  The most helpful part of this book while applying was a table that outlines the statistics of each school.  It shows how many people applied, how many were accepted, how many are attending from each state, average GPA, average DAT score, and a few other statistics.      

ADEA Official Guide to Dental School:  http://www.adea.org/publications/Pages/OfficialGuide.aspx

Another helpful site is The Student Doctor Network.  This site is helpful during the interview phase.  It gives information about the questions asked, the number of interviewers to expect, etc.  This information is given for every school separately.  Not every applicant is on this site, so the information provided may not provide a full picture of what to expect. 

The Student Doctor Network:  http://www.studentdoctor.net/schools/?view=dental

The last site I will mention at this time is PreDents.com.  This site provides information about who was interviewed at each dental school.  It also provides information about who was rejected and accepted.  This site is helpful because it gives you information about when people are interviewing.  GPA and DAT information are also given for the people who are members of this site.  There are limitations to this site because not everyone who is applying to dental school is a member of this site.  What you see here may not be a fair representation of whether or not you will be accepted to that school.  I also liked this sight on December 1st, because I could see if people were being accepted yet.  The information for the class entering 2012 is not up yet, but will be soon.

PreDents.com:  http://www.predents.com/

I hope these sites will be helpful to you.  I will post more helpful information in the future.

Dental Admission Test (DAT) Preparation

The DAT is a big deal for getting you into dental school, but don't be intimidated.  You can do well on the DAT.  It just takes practice and time to study.  I took the Kaplan online class and found it to be very beneficial.  I'm not here to push one program or another, but to present at least a few options for you to prepare for the test.  Each program has advantages and disadvantages.  I will not discuss each program, but I will simply present several links to different test prep programs and other helpful links.  These programs are presented in no particular order.

Kaplan
http://www.kaptest.com/DAT-NBDE/Home/index.html

Ace
http://www.acegmatprep.com/dat.php

The Princeton Review
http://www.princetonreview.com/DAT.aspx

Crack the DAT 
http://www.crackdat.com/

DATPAT
http://www.datpat.com/

ORGOMAN (DAT Destroyer)
http://www.orgoman.com/datdestroyer.html

I hope these links are helpful to you in finding the right study materials at the right price.  If anyone has used any of these programs or another program that was helpful please comment.  Please also comment if you used a system that was not effective.