Meet Dillon Dewundara, a happy DAT Bootcamp customer who recently conquered the DAT. I’ve asked Dillon to share his DAT experience with us as the featured student of April.

What is one piece of advice you would give to another student preparing to take the DAT?

My piece of advice: How you do on this exam will depend on if you WANT to do well or not… it’s as simple as that.

If you want to get a perfect score, here’s how:

1. Make a goal score.

• My goal score was a 30 in each section. I wrote this down and looked at it from time to time during the day and mentally pictured me actually getting this score. Did I know that sometimes the maximum score in a section was a 28 or 29? Yes. Did I care? No.

Now comes the hard part: Do you actually want to dedicate time and energy towards this score? If you do, then do the following:

2. Make achieving this score a priority above ALL else, including sleeping, eating, and drinking.

• You’ll start to realize that any previous stresses/problems you had before will start to become less significant and fade away as you think more towards and about your goal.

• If you’re in the library late and you’re hungry or thirsty, crank out about 20 more minutes worth of work: Push your limits. The extra dedication will serve as fuel for your next day’s motivation.

• If you want to achieve your goal, you must challenge yourself and take yourself to newer levels. Use your imagination to develop and apply new images of yourself.

If you think what I’m saying is ‘crazy’, then you should probably read into how Kobe Bryant is still one of the NBA’s strongest athletes.

How did you use DAT Bootcamp to prepare for the DAT?

I used DAT Bootcamp to practice both content and pace. I would aim to finish the practice test in record time and get each one correct. When I reviewed the test, I would take notes on answer choices that I did not even know about for questions I even got right. I kept a notebook with all my notes about the sections and reviewed them the week before my test. A good amount of my preparation was with DAT Bootcamp, and I attribute my performance in each section to DAT Bootcamp. My most important tip for using DAT Bootcamp is to approach each section with the idea of completing it as fast as possible. Also, the best PAT preparation on the market is DAT Bootcamp.

What would you do differently to prepare for the DAT?

Looking back, I would have maintained a better sleep schedule (wake up at 8 am instead of 1 pm), but all in all, there’s not much I would go back and change because my only goal at the time was to get a 30 in each section. Whenever a question came up, like ‘should I go out with my friends tonight?’ or ‘should I take the day off today?’, I countered with ‘Will that help me get a 30 in each section?’. You will begin to knock out many obstacles and mental stresses with this method.

You may think that it may be hard to develop a work ethic or become motivated, but listen to this: I was voted the Worst Case of Senioritis in High School, and my college GPA suffered greatly from a lazy Freshman year and a disastrous Sophomore slump… I literally made this work ethic out of nowhere. It’s really not that hard, and with my method, you will actually enjoy the process because results will come.

DAT Bootcamp is the best resource on the market. I wish you guys the best of luck.

My score breakdown: 25 AA, 26 TS, 27 OC, 26 GC, 25 BIO, 24 QR, 24 RC, 23 PAT

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