NYU Dental School Gets Sued by Former Student Part 2

MANHATTAN — A former student at NYU's College of Dentistry was denied her diploma because she fell short of the $20,000 in dental procedures she says she was required to perform while attending the school, according to a lawsuit.

The ex-student, Katie Kickertz, said the university told her on her graduation day in May 2009 that she missed the target dollar amount of completed dental work by about $2,000, according to court documents.

Manhattan's appellate court ruled in Kickertz' favor Thursday, overturning a lower court finding in favor of NYU.

The court determined that NYU must grant Kickertz her bachelors and dental school degrees, as it would be unfair to leave Kickertz with "no degree of any kind after seven years of educational toil and the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars," according to the ruling.

Kickertz told the New York Post that when she was told of the $2,000 shortfall, faculty advisers urged her to make up the difference. After she made a credit card payment, school officials canceled the payment, calling it an ethical breach.

NYU, which is planning to challenge the decision issued Thursday, argues that Kickertz was expelled. . . .

Read the rest of the article HERE at DNAinfo New York

NYU Dental School Gets Sued by Former Student Part 1

"They’re extracting more than teeth at NYU’s dental school."

A former honors student says she was forced to meet a $38,000 quota in clinical work for the school — and then had to buy a whole other education after it pulled her two degrees on graduation day over a $2,000 shortfall.

“I was devastated . . . It was horrible,’’ said Katie Kikertz, now 28 and a licensed dentist in Illinois.

She recently won a suit to have her BA and dental degrees from NYU honored.

The Manhattan appellate court decision said the school’s treatment of her “shocks the conscience.”

“Katie was tortured and tormented by NYU for 2 1/2 years,’’  . . . . .

Read the Full Article HERE at the New York Post.

What Factors are Considered in Dental School Admissions?

This is most definitely a question that has been in the mind of a pre-dental student at one point in time.
The following items are all factors that are considered when you submit your application through AADSAS, and things you should work on building and improving if possible:

1. GPA - Your Science GPA and Overall GPA are just two of many ways that AADSAS will calculate your GPA. Check out their page on GPA calculations HERE.
2. DAT Scores - A standardized criteria used to judge applicants to dental schools. Scoring well on this can validate a strong GPA or invalidate a weak GPA (to a certain extent). 
3. Extra Curricular Activities - Community Service, Clubs, Sports, Hobbies, Academic Awards, Research, etc. Activities that develop your manual dexterity and hand eye coordination are especially useful since dentistry requires this.
4. Shadowing - Try to shadow a general dentist and at least a couple specialists. You want to get your feet wet in the field that you will potentially be in for a large part of your life. It's also great seeing the variety of ways different dentists do to accomplish the
5. Letters of Recommendation - Serves as an objective portrayal of who you are. This year, AADSAS limits applicants to 4 individual letters of recommendation or 1 committee letter + 1 individual letter.
6. Personal Statement - Explain why want to be a dentist. 
7. The Interview - Your chance to show dental schools who you are and why you are interested in dentistry and their school.

Getting into dental school is a very competitive process. Make sure to maximize your chances by working on the aforementioned factors! It is never too early to begin preparing!

The Key Steps in the Dental Application Process

Below is a "Fill-in" chart you can use to help you stay organized during the whole dental application process.

Just right click the image, save the image, print it out.

This convenient table is an excerpt from Dr. Joseph Kim's "The Pre-Dental Guide". 


Dr. Kim has "consistently scored in the 99th percentile on all of his major high school and undergraduate standardized tests, including the DAT. He is a National Merit Finalist and Scholar.
He also helped prep students as an instructor for tests like the PSAT, SAT, ACT, and DAT, helping many students receive numerous academic awards for scholarship."
Also, because he was involved in working with dental school admissions, he understands the ins and outs of the whole process.


I found this book very useful as an early pre-dent. It offers some nice "tricks" to the DAT and has a lot of good information that you won't find anywhere else. It will save you valuable time.

I highly recommend this book especially for those of you who are new/not as familiar with the whole application process for dental school.

There are a few typos, and the book is a little outdated, but for $5-10 you can't go wrong! If you have a Kindle or an iPad, it is only $3.47!

ADEA Dental School Fair!

For those of you who have not gotten this email, the ADEA is hosting a free event on June 26th and 27th! See the below email for more info.

"Dear ADEA AADSAS Applicant,

As you continue the application process on ADEA AADSAS, consider registering for 
the 2012 ADEA Dental School Virtual Fair. This free event will be hosted online 
on June 26th and 27th and it's designed to give you direct access to dental 
school information and staff.

Learn more about the schools you are applying to, chat with admissions staff, 
and participate in presentations about "Tips to Applying through ADEA AADSAS" to 
"Career Options in Dentistry". This two day event features eight speakers, 32 
dental schools, and four dental education associations to provide you with the 
most accurate information to assist you with your application process.

Visit www.GoDental.org for more information and to register for the event. If 
you have questions, please email adea_dep@adea.org.

Thank you,

ADEA AADSAS Staff"

Welcome to Ace DAT! Here are some DAT study tips and statistics.

So, are you interested in learning more about dentistry? Are you looking to get into dental school? Are you wondering how to do well on the DAT? Well, if any of these questions have popped in your head at some time, you've come to the right place!

Getting into dental school is proving to become more and more difficult as time passes on. In 1988, the average AA (Academic Average) score for students that took the DAT was 15.53 with a total of 2,631 students taking the DAT. In 2009 (the most recent date that the ADA analyzed DAT scores), the average AA was 17.59 with almost 14,000 people taking the DAT (13,995 to be exact)!


The Average Perceptual Ability Test score in 1988 was 16.21. In 2009, the average was 18.17!

Here is a more detailed look at the average scores of 2009 DAT test takers. 

Average Scores of 2009 Test Takers

Source: ADA (click the picture to go to the document this information was extracted from)

 As you can tell, getting into dental school is becoming more and more competitive!

Save yourself the stress and start studying for the DAT early! Whether you are a senior in high school or sophomore in college, it is never too early to start thinking about and studying for this standardized test!

GPA, Extra Curricular Activities, Letters of Recommendation, and DAT scores are all very important factors dental school admissions committees consider! Some have a minimum number cut off, ie. if your GPA or DAT score is under a certain "cut off" point, they don't even consider your application!




I'm Jon and I just successfully took the DAT on March 10, 2012.
I am indebted to the great members of Student Doctor Network for all of great, useful information they provided me with to help me maximize my DAT scores. Being done with the DAT now, it brings me great joy to give back the knowledge I have gained.  I love the feeling that I get when someone I help messages me how grateful they are. It is always nice to know you made a positive difference in someone's life!

I figured I would start this blog so that I can compile my knowledge (and the knowledge of the brilliant minds of SDN and others) in one convenient location for other pre-dents to use.

I know a lot of people could benefit from the organization of some of the helpful threads on there and I intend to do just that.

The goal of this blog is to:

• Further assist pre-dents by organizing some of the useful threads on SDN
• List top review materials for the DAT
• Serve as a central location for information resources pertaining to dentistry and getting into dental school
• Display why dentistry is such an awesome field to get involved in!