your thoughts...

[denthopeful86]

hello everyone,

I have a questions about which school to attend to finish my prerequisites. I will be ending an active duty contract soon and have the option of going to live with my wife's parents for free and finish school at the university there, or to pay for rent and to go to a university with a dental school. i was wondering if this really matters. will going to the university with and dental school help acceptance into said dental school? If it helps i will have Chem 1+2 and Bio 1+2 done so the classes i will be taking are ochem 1+2/cell bio/genetics maybe micro

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[ryansgs]

No, it doesn't matter which of the two Universities you take your prereqs at.

 

[dchoi]

Nope

 

[KittySquared]

Check out rate my professor .com and see whether one school has better professors for those foundational sci classes.

 

[UCSFx2017]

I think it'll help the dental school better evaluate your application in comparison to other applications from other schools. They should be more familiar with the professors, courses, and opportunities available at their home institution. They ought to know what are fluff courses and what are difficult courses. If the other school has a Pre-Health committee, the advantage is probably diminished because the committee can be the better judge of determining the competitiveness of their applicant based on their knowledge of fluff and difficult courses. The dental school probably has a lot of history of past applicants and matriculates from their home institution so that they can better gauge how well you are likely to perform at their dental school. I don't think it'll give you a leg up over another applicant who may have a better application than you. But if they were deciding between two equally competitive applicants from different schools, they would probably prefer the one from the school that they have a better history with, which is probably their home institution.

I would save the money and do well in the more affordable undergrad so long as both undergrads are equally reputable. When I look at the different schools that make up the Class of 2017's undergrad for my state dental school, few to none came from schools that were significantly less well-regarded undergrads. It could also just mean that fewer applicants applied to dental school from these schools. However, even if you go to the lesser well-regarded school, you can really stand out with GPA, DAT, significant research, and impressive community activities.

 

[Toothshucker]

Check out rate my professor .com and see whether one school has better professors for those foundational sci classes.

I think that's a mistake. I found that the good professors were usually rated well. But the poorly rated professors could have been good, average, or bad. Plus, you have to look at sample size. Some professors have 1-3 reviews/ratings. And a lot of professors are grouped in the wrong departments or not enough departments. And some aren't even on there to be rated.

 

[UCSFx2017]

I think that's a mistake. I found that the good professors were usually rated well. But the poorly rated professors could have been good, average, or bad. Plus, you have to look at sample size. Some professors have 1-3 reviews/ratings. And a lot of professors are grouped in the wrong departments or not enough departments. And some aren't even on there to be rated.

lol I remember when I was in high school and I made an Excel sheet that recorded and averaged the ratings from the professors in the Biology and Chemistry Departments in two different schools. The more affordable school ended up having the better score either way.

I don't think ratings matter once you realize that you can just study on your own without the assistance of lectures.

 

[Hawkteeth]

By going to the school with a dental school you could make your name heard by visiting with admissions and the dean regularly. You might be able to get a job in the dental building and they may have a pre dental club as well for the undergrads. Also I know some schools will give automatic interviews to their undergrads.

 

[KittySquared]

I think that's a mistake. I found that the good professors were usually rated well. But the poorly rated professors could have been good, average, or bad. Plus, you have to look at sample size. Some professors have 1-3 reviews/ratings. And a lot of professors are grouped in the wrong departments or not enough departments. And some aren't even on there to be rated.

It's probably anecdotal, but I actually wish I had done this earlier. I went to a school with a reputation for having a terrible bio department. I could have attended a neighboring university and had a better bio department. How did I find out? The former uni, where I went, often tested materials that weren't covered in lectures or books for many of my classes and the class averages were consistently under a 70%. The chem department has professors who boasts about the final averages being in the 40% ball park and needed to be curved. It's laughable. The neighboring uni was where I ended up teaching for a while during grad school - I found the same bio 1, 2 and such classes with curricula that were organized in a much more logical manner and the tests actually correlated with materials covered in lessons. They used a lot of the same textbooks. Materials were both hard, but the latter uni was a much better school in preparing students for their respective science careers and had higher success rates as a whole than the former. Anyways, I digress.