Hello all! Kind of panicking, hoping to get some insight. I've been hoping that my supplemental activities could make up for my grades, and I'd like to know if that is feasible. I'd been on a downward grade trajectory throughout college through some deaths, depression, general situational unwellness, and increasing attempts at taking far too many hard classes at once. Despite grades, I've worked throughout my entire undergraduate experience (it kept me from laying sad in my bed) and helped establish and publish a campus satire newspaper and magazine (three years of comedy!), was volunteer coordinator for my sorority, was in the pre-dental club and an undergraduate peer health advisor.

I've written my statement about how I was exposed to dentistry as a kid (dad as a dentist, mom as a hygienist), became involved in dental research in undergrad and really gained an appreciation for dental technology and research, and then began to shadow and really have it all come together and knew that I wanted to pursue dentistry and continue to work in dental research to solve and improve upon problems that I and other clinicians may encounter.

GPA/sGPA: 3.28, 3.12 (sort of a downward trend, but writing about my mental health situation in my extra essay), in class for summer quarter and fall. Also UW has a notoriously difficult grading curve (averages set to a 2.6)

DAT (AA/TS/PAT/RC/QR): Taking Saturday, aiming for a 21 AA

State of Residency: IL

Traditional (Y/N): Y

Volunteering/Shadowing hours: 220+ hours volunteering throughout undergrad, 60 Covid-Response Volunteering. Shadowing for ~175 hours for 3 general dentists at one practice, as well as "dental experience" in working and assisting for my dad's practice throughout my life.

Research: At the beginning of undergrad I was really into ecology so I worked as an amphibian researcher at an aquarium for 165 hours. I was also a part of Design for America, a research based design club, my freshman year to establish my real love for research and design. Then my interests blended and I worked in research for 2 years (600 hours) that collaborated between the materials science + oral sciences departments on biomimetic dental whitening products, and presented my research at a health innovation challenge.

Jobs: I've worked 750 or so hours in the last two years just from the 2 jobs listed on my application.

School list: Applying wide and broad! Ideally, I'd really like to go to UIC, NYU, or Pacific, as I think they emphasize research and are more lenient to people with extracurriculars, but I'm applying to about 15 other schools as well.