Qian's Top 3 Reasons for Using DAT Bootcamp

Background + Timeline (500 AA/510 SNS):

Hi future dentists! I’m Qian, a non-traditional applicant with a background in Nutrition & Dietetics. After undergrad, I completed a year-long dietetic internship, became a registered dietitian, and worked in inpatient clinical care before beginning a post-bac program this past year.

I went with the 6-month Bootcamp package in December 2024. Between December and May 2025, I was only able to fit in brief Orgo content review whenever possible, as I was balancing a full course load and shadowing. From May to mid-June, this was my study schedule:

8am – 12pm: Bootcamp

12pm – 2pm: eat and rest

2pm – 4pm: get a workout in

4pm – 8pm: Bootcamp

8pm – relax and sleep

I averaged ~8 hours/day, 6-7 days/week of studying for 1.5 months.

Section Breakdown:

Biology (470):

Strategy:

• 3-Day study process:
  
  • Day 1 – do the content review and corresponding bio bites; Day 2 – review the corresponding materials on the high-yield notes; Day 3 – do the question banks for spaced repetition
• Make sure you have ALL the content down from the high-yield notes
• Use the mnemonics to help you remember difficult lists (FLAT PEG, etc.)

Post-DAT:

• Felt like Bootcamp practice test questions were mostly medium-hard level whereas the actual exam had a mix of easy, medium, and hard level questions, so even though the super easy ones kind of caught me off guard, Bootcamp prepared me very well in terms of question difficulty and overall content

General Chemistry (580):

Strategy:

• Dr. Mike’s videos were super helpful, especially the time-saving shortcuts (avoiding full ICE table, etc.)
• Do ALL the practice questions, redo them if you have to 
• The best way to “memorize” the multitude of equations is to use them in questions over and over again

Post-DAT:

• Bootcamp’s practice tests were quite representative compared to the actual exam, so make sure to complete all the practice exams for this section
• Write your steps down so you don’t get lost/confused

Organic Chemistry (480):

Strategy:

• Again, Dr. Mike’s videos were amazing for this section; his theatrics were very entertaining and in turn helped make the concepts stick in my brain better
• Do the reaction bites over and over again until you can get them all correct (make sure to space them out because you’re going to remember what the correct answer is without knowing why it’s correct and we want to avoid that)

Post-DAT:

• This section also felt very similar to the Bootcamp practice tests
• Don’t be afraid to draw things out to have a better visualization of the problem

PAT (520):

Strategy:

• I found some of the tips on bootcamp to be super helpful (cube tallying, etc.), though nothing beats more practice for this section in my experience
• Use the generators if you run out of questions for some of the sections; the trainer game felt like an underrated tool as well
• Consistency is key for this section, make sure you’re doing several questions of each section every few days all the way up to your exam to make sure your brain stays in “PAT mode”

Post-DAT:

• Bootcamp’s questions for this section felt significantly harder than the actual exam, so it definitely prepares you well for the real thing
• It’s a time-crunch, so try to get through angle ranking ASAP, and use more time on other sections that you can reliably figure out and can legitimately strategize for

Reading Comprehension (490):

Strategy:

• Definitely go through Bootcamp’s RC strategies; figure out which one(s) works the best for you
• My personal approach: read the first and last paragraph, then read the first sentence of each paragraph, and search and destroy
• Similar to PAT, I would say consistency is also key here; make sure you do a passage or two every few days leading up to your exam to make sure your brain stays in “RC mode”

Post-DAT:

• The actual exam felt fairly similar to the practice ones on Bootcamp
• I made the mistake of not doing any RC practice for quite a few days prior to my DAT, and I felt a bit out of practice during the real thing – make sure you don’t make the same mistake

Quantitative Reasoning (490):

Strategy:

• Bootcamp’s QR Academy was extremely helpful in making sure I learned all the necessary concept/formulas required for this section
• The formula cheat sheet was also very convenient to have a collection of all the key knowledge points
• Similar to the Gen Chem section, there’s a lot of formulas you need to know, and the best way to make sure you remember them is to do a ton of practice problems that require these formulas

Post-DAT:

• Bootcamp’s practice exams were representative of the actual exam
• Bit of a time crunch here, especially if you get a bunch of wordy problems, so definitely remember to mark and then return to ones that take a long time or that you’re unsure of

Random Tips:

• For at least a few full-length practice tests, try to mimic the testing environment as much as possible to get yourself familiar with the unfamiliarity of it all (take it at a public library, only take the one scheduled break, no phones, etc.)
• Don’t eat anything that you wouldn’t normally consume the day before and the day of your actual exam to avoid upsetting your GI system
• If you’re stuck on a particular questions/concept, breath, leave it be for an hour or even a day. When you come back to it, you’ll have a fresh perspective and oftentimes it resolves itself easily
• Make sure to build in an activity that fully takes your mind off studying—mine was working out. It’s SO important to give yourself true mental and physical breaks. Stepping away from the material not only helps prevent burnout but also gives your brain the recovery time it needs to process and retain information more effectively.

Final Thoughts on the Bootcamp:

• I can honestly say that Bootcamp is top-notch given that it helped me attain a 91^st percentile score in organic chemistry when I had minimal background knowledge in the subject
• Top 3 things about Bootcamp:

1. The sheer amount of practice problems available
2. The depth of the explanations after every single problem
3. The schedule tool to help me stay on track and adjust as needed based on my availability