How is the friendliness of the admissions office?
5 out of 10
How is the responsiveness of the admissions office?
No responses
How did you prepare for the interview?
read sdn (especially tried to focus on the positive feedbacks to perhaps suade my already negative views)
What impressed you positively?
the food at lunch was yummy.
pre-clinic/clinic were pretty nice but i've seen better.
What impressed you negatively?
wow, where do i start?
1. this school is expensive, but at least the admissions/financial aid rep was blunt and honest about the cost. additionally, i don't understand why the tuition is so high considering you teach yourself for the first 2 years... especially with the economic crisis, i can think of tons of dental schools that i'd rather attend and not face as much debt.
2. pbl. i wonder how effective this "learning" technique is especially since the majority of dental schools have failed to adopt pbl. i also heard that this school got SUED in recent years because the students couldn't pass their boards and that is why the school is trying the hybrid lecture. also, if you get a slacker in your group... sucks to be you! i don't hate pbl, and i think it could work well to the students' advantage in limited amounts but this school has way too much of it, which seems to not work well with professional students.
3. which brings me to how shady the admissions reps or whoever spoke to us continually bypassed questions concerning usc's board exam pass rate. they told us, "we don't have that information for the part IIs, but the part Is have really high passing rates." well, i heard that their part II average was like a 74, which is a FAIL.
4. i didn't meet one faculty member. 5. which also brings into account the "interview" itself was a mock pbl. that was fun, BUT what boggles me are the people who were assessing us... they were incredibly young and looked like students. so i wondered if they could even properly gauge us.
6. LACK OF PATIENTS. one girl said that she's competing with classmates to get patients. another said that "there is no harm for students to stand on the street advertising discounted dentistry"
7. kinda nitpicky, but um they don't require textbooks at ALL. so you can graduate school not buying anything. although i am against buying textbooks that are unnecessary, this school has online subscriptions, but my question is, well what if you are practicing dentistry and get stuck and need to refer to something in a book? i've shadowed a few dentists and they ALL have bookshelves with stuff from years in ds. maybe that's just for show, but i mean at least they have them.
What did you wish you had known ahead of time?
watch out what folder you get when they pass them out. each one has a different essay question ranging from like... describe a current event, why dentistry, to where do you see yourself in 10 years, etc.
bring a pen or writing utensil for the essay. some people in our group didn't.
also i'm pretty sure they group people by their stats... i noticed that one group had all (or well the only) students who went to top undergrad universities.
for the pbl you do a case study on why some girl gets sick in africa. it's really, really easy.
finally, i wish i just apply to this school or go to the interview. i was familiar with the idea of pbl before the interview but ended up being so disgusted with the school's heavy reliance with it. i don't think i'll get accepted, but i do hope that somebody who really wants this type of learning will.
What are your general comments?
No responses
What are your suggestions for the admissions office?
No responses
