Is it really THAT much work to complete it in 1 year? Did the students that decided to complete the program in a year end up keeping high grades? How difficult are the classes? I was accepted into the program and would like to do it in a year and apply this upcoming cycle to dental school.
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Congrats on the acceptance! Sorry for the late reply. Midterms and a week and a half at home distracted me last month.
Yes, it is that much work to complete in a year. That is, if you want to do relatively well and not fall into a money-eating system where you're spat out into a place you started in before the program. A good portion of the students I know that are completing the program by the end of this semester (for 1 year) have very good GPAs. At the least a 3.5 for the ones that I know. Since you're starting the program this fall and applying to dental school this cycle, there are three possibilities of what can happen for you:
*Remember these are all HYPOTHETICAL. Any one person controls their own fate. This is just the trend I've seen*
A: You get in, and the program you're interested in informs you that you don't have to complete the masters to matriculate in. So you decide sayonara gsbs program. Woohoo dental school! No one I know here has chosen this route...highly tempting though.
B: You get in, and since this program allows for 6 of the credits that you earn in dental school to count for towards masters degree, you'll only have to complete 24 credits between both semesters. Most student take 13-15 credits the first semester. A friend of mine took 13 first semester and even though he would have had 17 credits left, he was able to get into dental school so he's only taking 11 credits now.
C: You don't get in and you're still hell bent on finishing the program in a year. Most likely, you've probably taken 13 credits for the fall with the hope that you'd get in. This means that you'll either have to bare 17 credits for the spring, or take less and stick around for an additional semester so that your GPA won't go down the toilet.
Difficulty of the classes is subjective. You'll hardly find any "easy" classes to take here. Rumors do fly out though of a class or two that are, but then again they are just RUMORS. One's prior background of the subject, ability to comprehend new material, efficiency at studying, and time management really determine the difficulty of any one class. In general, I haven't found any of my classes to be unfairly difficult. It's a higher level of learning above undergrad with a higher expectation from the professors. However, the exams are fair for the most part. Personally, I end up over-studying the majority of the time since it is a lot of information to go through and can be tricky determining what's important to know and what's not.
If you've got the adequate focus to do well here as well as a heart-of-a-lion determination within you, then you can definitely do this in a year, do well, and be on your way towards dental school. Just remember, this program is only a portion of what's representative on your application. Will killing it in grad classes help you look better? Heck yeah. But it's ultimately up to how you present yourself in every capacity to the admissions board, both on paper and in person.
