If you think you want to specialize, 100% come to UConn. It's relatively cheap and has an extremely high specialization rate. This year, 8 are going for peds, 5 OMFS, 7-8 ortho, 1 perio, 1-2 prosth.. out of a class of low 40 something. They give you 10 weeks after 1st year to do research if you want, there's an insane amount of clubs to get involved in and gain leadership experience, small classes so you get to know the faculty really well, ect. But It's a little trickier if you come in knowing you want to do general. If you were choosing between UConn and a 100K private school, I'd still say come here even if you want to do general. Just know that you will pretty much have to do a GPR.. I think maybe one student per year the last couple years has gone straight into practice (out of a class of about 40). If someone was choosing between their in-state school and UConn and wants to do general.. That's a tough call. I think some of my classmates came in saying they were going to do general and are now thinking of specializing just because it is so specialty driven and our number of procedures may not be as high as other schools. As a third yr, we saw our first patients at the start of this year which consisted of cleanings/recalls. You then find that those pts need treatment so thats where we start getting operative, possible complete dentures, RPDs, ect... But now there is a curriculum change and 2nd yrs will be getting up into clinic at the end of the yr to start seeing patients like we did at the start of 3rd yr. We do not need to find our own patients but we need to schedule them which can be a pain in the butt. This seems to be a sort of middle ground because I have heard of schools like BU where they need to find AND schedule their own patients, and other schools where I have friends that just show up and have a patient assigned to them for the day. For all of you choosing schools, I would definitely find out from programs how you get your patients (whether you need to find them, schedule them, ect.). Going thru the medical school curriculum here made NBDE 1 very easy to pass. Classmates of mine pretty much took 1-2 weeks max to study and I have not heard of anyone failing... and if you're into oral surgery, the curriculum sets you up to do very well on the CBSE. During the first 2 yrs, we only have our dental classes 1-3 afternoons per week, so we actually had a lot more free time the first 2 years than we do as 3rd/4th years since we're now here 8-5 mon-fri
