How do you even begin tackling a huge exam like the Dental Admissions Test? Keep reading to study for the DAT. Sneak peak: sticking to a regimented schedule and taking a couple leaps of faith helped me get results I’m proud of.
[toc]Decide if You’re Ready
First thing’s first, you have to find the best time in your life and academic career to take the DAT. Many pre-dental students study for the exam between their junior and senior years of college. This timeframe is especially suitable for people who want to apply their senior year and begin dental school immediately after college. Other students decide to take a gap year and therefore wait to take the DAT until after they graduate. I went this route (well, I took two and a half years off between graduating and matriculating, but you get the idea).
Because the DAT is offered year round, you can take it whenever suits you best. A lot of students studying for it while also taking classes. I recommend taking a lighter load of credits that semester/quarter if you do this; you’ll need the extra time to focus on preparing for the DAT. Many other students study for it over the summer. The upside to doing this is that you can focus solely on studying for exam day without the distraction of other classes. The downside (and it’s a big one) is that you’ll spend beautiful summer days staring at diagrams and flashcards.
Finally—and this may be a no-brainer—it’s essential that you take the classes that cover the DAT material before you take the test. Yes, this includes taking organic chemistry II, unfortunately. The DAT includes the following sections:
- Survey of Natural Sciences
- Biology
- General Chemistry
- Organic Chemistry
- Perceptual Ability (visual problems)
- Reading Comprehension
- Quantitative Reasoning (math)
You can only miss about five questions in a section before that individual section score dips below average (20), so you have to be familiar with all the material.
For both your wallet and application, ideally you want to take the DAT only once, so, do some serious introspection and determine if you feel ready to take it. It’s so, so important that you feel prepared for the rigors of the DAT, both academically and mentally, before committing to a test date.
Register
Once you feel ready, you have to apply to take the DAT, which is a fancy way of saying you have to register and pay ($$$!) for it. Set up a DENTPIN, (your personal identifier for any dental exams you take from here on out) and then give the American Dental Association your information and money. The fee to register is outrageous (and non-refundable), but I will say it motivated me to get my butt in gear and study hard.
See, when I registered to take the DAT, I was working a full-time sales job. Though I adored my boss and coworkers, I hated each of the 50 daily calls I made to people who didn’t want to talk to me. Every day, I daydreamed about applying to dental school and following through with my goal of becoming a dentist. After eight months of working in my little cubicle, I promised myself I’d finally pull the trigger: I’d register for the DAT, quit my job, and find a position in the dental field to begin my journey toward my dream.
In July of 2017, I paid the ridiculous exam fee and told my boss I’d be leaving. A few days after handing in my two-week’s notice, a dentist hired me to start as her dental assistant once I finished my obligations to my other job. In less than two weeks, I went from being full of uncertainty about my future, to motivated beyond belief.
Even though I had dished out the $415 to register for the exam, at that point, I still didn’t know how or what to begin studying. After registering for the DAT, you may be in this position too.
Assess Your Strengths and Weaknesses
It may be painful to separate with hundreds of dollars to sign up for the DAT, but the most grueling part is preparing for the exam. How do you study for the DAT??
Before buckling down and studying, I recommend first assessing your strengths and weaknesses. When did you last take biology, chemistry, and algebra? Are you naturally visually-inclined or do you have trouble visualizing things? How often do you read dense material? Your answers to these questions serve as a starting place for figuring out how long to study and what sections to focus on.
Because I’m a non-traditional student, it had been almost two years since I had taken relevant classes by the time I began studying for the DAT. I knew I would have to spend more time brushing up on math and science than someone who recently took those classes. On the other hand, I can easily visualize things, so I knew that with decent practice, I’d perform well on the perceptual ability section–this wouldn’t be an area of great focus. Similarly, I’m a strong reader, and so I figured I wouldn’t spend extra time studying for the reading comprehension section.
Assessing your strengths and weaknesses at the start gives insight into how you can maximize your study time. After this reflection, I recommend taking a practice full-length exam before officially beginning studying. This will be the before score that you can compare all subsequent practice exams to so that you can see your growth.
Study for the DAT
Next comes the most grueling part of the process: actually studying. Using quality materials and following a schedule helps study sessions be efficient and effective.
Use Trusty Study Materials
Studying with quality materials allows you to spend every moment on topics that you’ll actually encounter on the test. I recommend the resources I used to study for the DAT: DAT Bootcamp, Chad’s Videos, Cliffs AP Biology, DAT Destroyer, and Math Destroyer.
DAT Bootcamp
If you’re going to spend money on one thing, get DAT Bootcamp, a study system designed by Ari Rezaei. Not only did I reference his ten-week schedule as a basis for my own study schedule, but Bootcamp covered all DAT basics. The testing platform on Bootcamp looks almost identical to the real one, and the difficulty of the practice tests were on par with my actual exam, too. Since you can take one of their practice tests before paying for a membership, definitely use their free exam to find your “baseline” score.
DAT Bootcamp is an invaluable resource. Use it and you’ll feel comfortable with the software and flow of the exam come test day.
Chad’s Videos
Ok, I swear these videos taught me more than my college chemistry professors. For both gen chem and organic chem, Chad’s Videos were by far the most valuable resource because he lays everything out in a clear and concise manner. He teaches tips and tricks to use on exam day and explains concepts so that students actually understand the science behind them.
Because Chad teaches to an actual class in his recordings, the video’s students ask the questions you wish you could ask. I definitely recommend Chad’s Videos for DAT prep (and even wish I used them for my college chem classes)!
Cliffs AP Biology
Every single word in this book counts, since it’s condensed into just the information you need to know for the DAT. Reading it is dense, but if you know the material and do the practice problems, you’ll be set for the test. I found Cliffs to be useful, especially since I only took the basic biology classes and hadn’t taken them in a long time.
I’ll mention I did watch some of Chad’s Videos for biology, but the main bio resource I used was Cliffs AP.
DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer
The DAT Destroyer and Math Destroyer books provide hundreds of problems to drill what you’ve learned using the first three resources I’ve mentioned. While content review is important, practice is what really prepares you for a stellar score. If you have other resources that have bio/chem/math problems and answers, the Destroyer books may not be absolutely necessary, but they provide an awesome way to practice concepts over and over.
One thing to note is that sometimes with the bio section of the DAT Destroyer, I fell into the habit of selecting (e) all of the above as my answer, just because there was a pattern of that always being the answer, not because I actually knew it was the answer. That was me being a bit lazy and the book being a bit predictable, but Destroyer is a great resource nonetheless.
Avoid Lousy Materials
I bought the Kaplan DAT Prep book right when I began studying, but immediately noticed it wasn’t comprehensive enough. There were so many gaps in material, especially for the biology section. I did like how they had the organic chem mechanisms drawn out in lists, though, and reviewed those pages in the week leading up to my test.
Let me emphasize that I don’t recommend their free full-length test, as it isn’t representative of the real thing. I took this exam two days before my actual DAT and the score caused me to lose confidence in myself. (Perhaps another lesson learned from this experience is: don’t take a practice test so close to your exam.)
Stick to a DAT Study Schedule
I checked out Ari’s DAT Bootcamp ten-week schedule as a guide for where to begin studying. Because I’m a non-traditional student, it had been almost two years since I had taken classes relevant to the DAT material. For that reason, I used a modified version of Ari’s schedule, allotting more time for content review. If you’re fresh out of biology and chemistry classes, you probably don’t need to spend as much time reviewing as I did.
The greatest success in anything stems from consistency. Committing to a DAT study schedule will ensure you cover all material and get ample practice in preparation for the big day.
If you Google DAT study schedule, you’ll find tons of options from a variety of sources. Take some time to browse through these options and customize the one you like best so that it suits you.
Like I mentioned above, I used Ari’s DAT Bootcamp ten-week schedule as a guide for where to begin studying. Because I’m a non-traditional student, it had been almost two years since I had taken classes relevant to the DAT material. For that reason, I used a modified version of Ari’s schedule, allotting more time for content review. If you’re fresh out of biology and chemistry classes, you probably don’t need to spend as much time reviewing as I did.
In the first five weeks, I spent more time on content review then loosely followed Ari’s regimen for practice problems and exams in the last five weeks. I say loosely because I spaced out my full-length tests across the last three weeks and continued doing practice problems the week before my exam. An important note is that I didn’t sacrifice practice for content review. Although I spent more time reviewing material than what Ari suggests, I did this by adding more hours to content review weeks. The key is to not use practice hours for review. Practice is so, so important! I also tended to study for longer chunks of time during the weeks that I devoted to practicing to make sure I tested myself enough.
I wasn’t taking classes at the time and instead was working as a dental assistant, so I studied around my work schedule. Because the office where I work is closed on Mondays and Fridays, I spent six or eight hours per day studying Friday through Monday (closer to ten hours in the last four weeks, like I mentioned above), and an hour or so after work on Thursdays if I wasn’t too exhausted:
In total, I studied for 250-275 hours and that was plenty for me. Any more and I would’ve gone crazy (crazier). Any less and I wouldn’t have gotten the amount of practice I needed. I liked to track my hours each day to have a more accurate sense of how much I studied, so if that doesn’t stress you out, I recommend keeping track as well.
Sticking to a study schedule means you know what you’ve covered and what you still need to learn. You will have no question going into the DAT about what you know. Preparation is key, and a schedule makes prep simple.
Take the DAT
I ended up pushing my exam back a month because I was a bad little noodle and began studying a month after I had intended to start. I was hesitant about moving it because I wanted to get the DAT over with and hoped to avoid the rescheduling fee, but it was a good decision to postpone it to give myself more practice time.
On test day, I woke up early, made myself coffee and hopped on the train to head to the testing center. The environment of the testing center and the fact that I knew it was the real deal made me more focused, less fatigued, and strangely calmer—I was excited to see how I would do after all my hard work! Everything came together that day and I performed better on the real thing than any of the practice tests I had taken over the ten weeks prior. When my scores automatically popped up on my screen at the end, I was relieved and proud.
Some Final Notes
At a certain point, you have to stop stalling and just take the test. I felt anxious the entire time I was preparing and especially so the night before. I doubt anyone goes into the DAT feeling like they’ll get straight 30s because everyone thinks what if?! far too much. As long as you devote time to understanding the content, simulating the testing environment during practice exams, and reviewing all your answers to your exams, you will do well. The DAT is a huge hurdle to jump, but it’s one we can all soar over to get to dental school.