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| Undergrad
Prep Learn the steps of becoming a successful optometry school applicant! |
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| Undergrad Prep: - A Typical Timeline - Undergrad Focus 1) Academics and OAT 2) LORs 3) Shadowing 4) Extracurriculars - Applications - Interviewing |
What
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Focus On During Undergrad In the order of importance, these aspects are what needs to be focused on during college: 1. Academics (GPA) and OAT (tied for first) Your GPA and OAT score are typically the first items that are reviewed on your application. You may have done hundreds of hours of volunteer work and shadowed several optometrists, but with weak numbers, your chance of acceptance decreases significantly. Your Academics: The Association of Schools and College of Optometry (ASCO) website at www.opted.org has all the latest information on each school's entering class GPA average - be sure to check out that site to gauge where you are in relation to what kinds of stats schools have been accepting! So what can you do to get an awesome GPA? Here are some helpful tips that I have learned on my own and from fellow students:
Although your GPA is critical, your major does not matter as long as you have completed all of the prerequisite classes. Most optometry students were Biology or similar majors, but I personally was an Anthropology major! Typical Prerequisites Note that the prerequisites for each school varies - here is a general idea of the classes you need to take: English: 1 year General Chemistry: 1 year w/labs Organic Chemistry: 1 year w/labs General Biology: 1 year w/labs Calculus: 1 year Physics: 1 year w/labs Many schools also require or recommend: Microbiology, Psychology, Statistics, Physiology, Anatomy, and Biochemistry. For a list of prerequisites required for each school, you can visit the ASCO website But for a more reliable source, I would visit the school’s website. Go to here for links to all of the 17 optometry schools. The OAT First, you may be wondering about what the OAT (a.k.a. the Optometry Admission Test) is all about. It’s a required exam for admission into all optometry schools in the U.S. Also, it was recently computerized so make sure you're comfortable with taking exams on a computer. The score ranges from 200 to 400, with a median of 300 (40th -52nd percentile). Separate subscores are reported for each test section. The Academic Average (AA, or overall score) and Total Science (TS) are also reported. Make sure you go to www.opted.org for all the latest OAT averages and check out what kinds of scores are expected for the schools you're applying to. That same site is also where you register for the OAT. This is how the test goes:
An Interesting Tidbit Did you know that the ADA (or the American Dental Association) actually administers the OAT? The OAT and DAT (Dental Admission Test) are very similar, except that the DAT has a Perceptual Ability Test instead of a Physics section. This is why Kaplan mixes up the OAT and DAT test prep students. So yes, you can study with your pre-dental friends too! Studying for the OAT: The two main ways that most people study for the OAT are:
The Bottom Line is… If you’re a dedicated student, you’re bound to do better than your buddy who paid over $1000 or so for a test prep course. So you have to gauge your discipline and figure out what’s best for you. ----------BACK TO TOP---------- 2. Letters of Recommendation Although you can brag all you want about yourself in your application, the admissions committee needs to hear about what others think about you as well. LORs should be requested even as early as the end of your Sophomore year. How many LORs do I need? And who should write one? Although each school have different requirements, you need at least three letters of recommendation (LORs). You should get one from, at minimum:
Letter handling/committee letter service Some schools offer a letter handling and/or a committee letter service. A letter handling service consolidates all of your LORs confidentially in one file; they will hold it for you until you request them to send it to your schools of choice. A committee letter service provides an LOR based on an application you submit to them, an interview, and/or the letters of recommendation that you submit to them. Contact your school’s advising office and ask if they offer these services; there may be a nominal fee involved, but its value is worth it because you will save much time and effort later! LOR Kit When asking for an LOR, you need to make it as easy as possible to get it done because there is almost always somebody who will lag! Here is a checklist of what you need to do:
Sometimes, the person who you ask for an LOR will allow you to write your own! However, DO NOT ask them to if they don’t offer to do so!!! That is very unprofessional and you may lose a potential LOR that way. ONE LAST IMPORTANT TIP: Getting LORs takes a LOT of time and planning, so don’t expect to get one within i.e. two weeks. Again, give about a month or two to have the writer make a letter for you, and start requesting as early as you can (beginning of Junior year). ----------BACK TO TOP---------- 3. Shadowing Optometry schools also want to make sure that optometry is what you really want to do. So to help verify this, the schools usually require or highly recommend some shadowing experience. You’re going to invest lots of money in your optometric education, so it’s not a bad idea to preview what you’re getting yourself into. How Do I Start? Looking for an optometrist to shadow isn’t really all that hard. All I did was go through the online yellow pages and looked up the first 20 optometrists that showed up, ranked from nearest to farthest in distance. Then I printed that page and called each office, writing notes on the side (i.e. “call office back tomorrow” or “left a message with optician, will hear back later.”). After going through the list, I was able to get at least four optometrists willing to let me come in. I basically just told each optometrist that I’m currently an undergrad interested in going to optometry school and I’ll be willing to work there for free – I’m just trying to get some experience. Diversify Your Shadowing Once you are able to work in the office, you may probably get attached. But try not to! Working at different offices would look better than an applicant who just worked in one office, and it will also expose you to other aspects of the field. But most importantly, you will be able to get more than one LOR that way. I personally worked at a private practice for a quarter, then later I was able to get some exposure at a Costco optometrist office (and got a decent pay for it too!). ----------BACK TO TOP---------- 4. Extracurriculars (ECs) Optometry schools are looking for individuals with strong academic backgrounds, but an applicant with strong ECs will make he/she stand out beyond the average bookworm. Three important ECs are volunteering, leadership, and research. Volunteering Optometrists are expected to have empathy for their patients, so optometry schools tend to look for some kind of volunteering experience in their applicants. From soup kitchens to thrift stores, there are always organizations to volunteer for. You can find opportunities on your own, but the best way to volunteer is by joining an organization. It seems that just about every campus organization does some kind of community service, from ethnic clubs to fraternities. Don’t be shy and join something – on top of the fun volunteering activities, I’ve made some lifelong friends because I joined an organization. Leadership Leadership is also crucial for an optometrist to be successful because it requires confidence in yourself - this confidence you learn will earn the confidence of your patients in you. So again, I urge you to get involved with an organization because it's hard to prove yourself to be a leader without one! One piece of advice that I tell everyone about leadership is to take advantage of your greatest asset in an organization: your people! They will be willing to do whatever activity as long as it’s fun and interesting. For example, I organized a pre-health outreach to freshmen; my fraternity and our sister sorority ran a presentation about getting into medicine, dentistry, optometry, and other health fields. This experience was definitely a very strong example of leadership in my application. Research Optometrists are not purely clinicians; they are scientists as well, so involvement in research gives you an edge. Research opportunities pop up everywhere as an undergrad, from professor announcements to job postings on your university website . The great thing about research is that you’re often paid to do it! And of course, you can ask the Principal Investigator (the P.I., or the professor that oversees the project) for a LOR if you do a good job! Some Important Advice Regarding ECs: Make sure that, as much fun as ECs can be, don’t forget that your academics should always come first! Don’t overwhelm yourself with to too many activities; just try to pick a few that interest you the most and do the best you can in them. |
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