I have an older brother attending IUSd right now. He said that if he were to go back in time, he would have chose another dental school. My brother is an out-of-state student at IUSD.
He has to pay non-resident tuition for all four years. He specified to me that other state-run dental schools he's applied to, like UConn and UMKC, allow their dental students to apply for resident status to get cheaper tuition. Unfortunately, the Indiana mentality, is that once you're an "outsider" you're always considered an outsider.
I have been to Indianapolis to visit my brother, and also for my recent interview, and boy is this place so backward in their mentality to do things. Indianapolis is a small midwest-type of city. A small downtown, but a HUGE sprawled out suburban area that makes up maybe 80% of Indy. There is no great public transportation system here. No light rails, no subways, no city-metro trains like DC, or the Bart in San Francisco.
My brother also dislikes the PBL curriculum because it's all about the most aggressive person or people in your group who gets the most attention from the PBL coordinator. If you're shy or tend to be more on the quieter side, then you will get plowed over. At least that's what my brother has told me when he was a first and second-year student.
The people, at least in his class, tend to be cold, quiet, keep-to-myself, type of people. People hardly study in groups, and the only notes they share is the verbatim notes that are printed up paid for by the student semester fees. I wouldn't want to study or be around these kind of people. I have toured and interviewed at several other dental schools (won't mention names of the schools), where the students seemed to be much happier there, than compared to the gloomy-looking faces of the IUSD students.
My brother also specified that IUSD is VERY stringent on ethics and anal on the school rules. This stringent tree-hugging mentality was probably adopted by IUSD after the cheating scandal that happened in 2007. If you see someone doing something wrong, the administration highly encourages students to "tattle-tell" on other classmates. It's not just cheating on exams. It's minor things that you can get written up for, such as being in the dental lab while the dental hygiene students are working there. or getting written up to student conduct committee if you don't pursue the right avenues to contest a test question(s). To me, this sounds ridiculous.
I have also interviewed at IUSD just recently, and the school is not as diverse as say NYU, Pacific or Loma Linda. I found it quite shocking that the white students in my interview group didn't even want to say hi to me or look at me. The tour guide of the dental school, who's a white guy, also didn't care to look at me during the tour. I thought that was rude. It's the mentality that typical midwestern, esp Indiana, caucasians tend to have over non-white people. At least that's what my older brother told me he observes while attending IUSD.
Lastly, I don't mind PBL. But I think this is a type of curriculum that works for certain people, and doesn't work for others. If you're not a motivated person, then PBL will be a big burden for you. My brother also told me about triple jump exams at this dental school (also at USC's dental program too) that tends to irk the students. It all depends on who you have for your examiner. If you have a dental school instructor who examines you, and he or she has a bad reputation of failing students, then you better be super impressive to pass the triple jump exam with that particular instructor.
The good side, according to my brother, is that the office of dental education at IUSD will re-consider their curriculum in 2010 or somewhere along that time. They will decide whether to stick with the PBL curriculum, or to get back to the pre-1997 traditional lecture based curriculum. Similar to USC, my brother said he heard rumors from his dental school colleagues that the board exam scores are slightly dropping due to the PBL curriculum. Don't know, that's just what I've heard.
The other HUGE plus of IUSD, if you plan on attending this dental school in the future, is that they are planning on building a brand new dental school. My brother said that the dean of the dental school has had an architect firm come to the dental school to see how things will be designed. That's according to a memorandum email sent by the dean to all the students, staff and faculties of the school. The project of building a new dental school won't start until maybe around 2011 or 2012.
Overall, I am leaning more towards other dental schools, since the new dental school won't be available until 2015 (lol). But if IUSD is the only dental school that fully admits me in the long run, I wouldn't mind being a student at IUSD. Plus my brother is a current student who can guide me through the difficult courses at IUSD.
There are so many loops you have to jump through, I really dont know a single person who came out of any dental school and said, Wow, that was a breeze! What it really comes down to is producing competent, dedicated dentists who will not give up. Also, Indianapolis is not so bad
I am from Los Angeles. It was a little difficult but Indy is what you make of it. PBL is not so bad. I entered the school really excited about the program. I liked some parts and hated others. But trust me it will get better and you will all get through it!!!!
