Your Guide to the DAT (Dental Admissions Test)

By Allie Mitchell on February 19, 2017

During your time in college, your end goal is constantly on your mind: what will happen after your first four years of undergrad?

The inevitable future can be a scary thing and can stress out even the most put together student. During your junior or senior year of college you will start to look into potential next steps in your future and most of the time the next step includes taking an entrance exam of some sort.

Not all entrance exams are the same, though. It all depends on what you want to do with your life. Examples of such tests are the GMAT, which is usually used for business schools, the LSAT for law school, the MCAT for medical school, and of course the infamous GRE, which is used for normal graduate school admissions.

There is another entrance exam that not many people speak about and that is the DAT, which is the dental school admissions test.

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Depending of course on how many dental schools are in your area (in my area, there aren’t that many whatsoever, so I’d only heard of this test from a few people), you may not have heard of this test at all. This test shows your skills that could earn you a spot in a dental program, but just like for any test, you need to work hard and study equally as hard to do well on this test.

Make sure that you go into your test with your head held high and confidence to boot; you can’t go wrong with pure confidence. Here are some knowledge and tips about the DAT that may help you out and even put your mind at ease.

Measures

The DAT measures academic ability, scientific understanding, and perceptual ability. What is perceptual ability, you may ask? It just means that they will test you on your spatial visualization skills and your ability to interpret two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional representations. Just take your time and don’t rush through due to panic.

Sections

The DAT is broken up into sections: natural sciences, perceptual ability, reading comprehension, and quantitative reasoning. This test is more serious than any other test you may take, so remember to pace yourself throughout all sections.

Timing

Most students decide to take the DAT around their third year of college, as this way they have plenty of time to take it again if they don’t like the score they receive the first time. Also, taking the DAT during your third year means you have more than likely completed all the required sciences that are needed to be able to do well on the exam.

Studying

Studying for the DAT can be done in many different ways because not all students learn the same way. Getting a general idea of the test is a good way to start figuring out how to study best. Remember that sometimes knowing small detail orientated facts isn’t as vital as knowing general overviews of subjects.

Practice tests are your best friends! Take as many as you can and make sure that you understand why the answer is the answer when you get things wrong.

Rules

The simple rules are that you can only take the test once every 90 days, so hopefully, you can make your first time around taking the test count. Also, unfortunately, you can only take the test three times and that’s it. If you would like to take it again you must get permission from the ADA, which is the big overseer of the dental education world.

Signing Up

Signing up to be able to take the DAT is literally the first step, besides choosing to go to dental school. You must visit the ADA website and fill out an application stating that you want to take the test. Note: the fee for this application is non-refundable.

You have to create a PIN for the website and then receive an eligibility letter from the ADA, and then once that is received you can choose your test date. You should schedule your test for 60-90 days in advance from when you would like to take the test, just to cover all your bases and give you adequate time to get some major studying in.

Cost

Lastly, the cost of the test is $430 each time you take it. Steep price, but worth it.

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