questions about UoP and harvard

Depends on your stats

UoP's clinical training is highly regarded at least locally (and I am sure most people in the dental profession recognize this as well).

Research experience is not a prerequisite of Harvard dental admission. You have some chances getting in there without any research experience, but I would say having some is definitely a plus. It also depends on your extracurricular and dental involvement.

UoP places most of its student who decide they want to specialize into residencies. The low percentage of students from each class going on to residencies is due to the fact that many at UoP do not want to specialize, not that they can't because of the three year program.

There are many good threads on this, try searching.

UOP has a great clinical program and many people will argue that the extra year is invaluable to your career. I've also heard that its a very rigorous program but prepares you extraordinarily well to practice right away out of school. But be prepared to enter a program like this motivated and ready to work hard! Its still a lot of information to learn!

Now, you've said that you haven't done research but are interested in Harvard - its correct that Harvard is pretty research oriented in that they do teach about research in their curriculum and they require a mandatory thesis project the summer after your first year (when many other students are relaxing). So keep in this mind - starting and finishing a project in 2 months will be challenging, no matter how much research experience you have, but may be more difficult if you've never had exposure to it.
Make sure you know what you're looking for - are these schools good fits for you? Schools will know if you're just applying for the sake of applying and not genuinely interested in the school

Avoid all "accelerated" dental school programs like the plague. There is a reason why every other dental school that tried a 3-year program reverted back to a four-year curriculum. It takes time for one to absorb the mountains of clinical, laboratory, and didactic skills necessary to become a Dentist. Pacific's approach is to graduate Dentists who are safe Beginners. If you become a Military Dentist and work with graduates of other schools, you will quickly learn that they did MANY more clinical procedures than the Pacific graduates.

Dental education is an expensive investment -- don't cheat yourself out of the full experience!

DanHerkimer said:

Avoid all "accelerated" dental school programs like the plague. There is a reason why every other dental school that tried a 3-year program reverted back to a four-year curriculum. It takes time for one to absorb the mountains of clinical, laboratory, and didactic skills necessary to become a Dentist. Pacific's approach is to graduate Dentists who are safe Beginners. If you become a Military Dentist and work with graduates of other schools, you will quickly learn that they did MANY more clinical procedures than the Pacific graduates.

Dental education is an expensive investment -- don't cheat yourself out of the full experience!

Click to expand...

Oh Armorshell, where art thou? I'd love to see his response to this.

I'd avoid UoP, because classes don't end until 9PM.

DanHerkimer said:

Avoid all "accelerated" dental school programs like the plague. There is a reason why every other dental school that tried a 3-year program reverted back to a four-year curriculum. It takes time for one to absorb the mountains of clinical, laboratory, and didactic skills necessary to become a Dentist. Pacific's approach is to graduate Dentists who are safe Beginners. If you become a Military Dentist and work with graduates of other schools, you will quickly learn that they did MANY more clinical procedures than the Pacific graduates.

Dental education is an expensive investment -- don't cheat yourself out of the full experience!

Click to expand...

Pacific has a nationwide reputation for being a top clinical school, puts there students through more hours in the clinic, more procedures on average, and a higher difficulty level of procedures (because we don't have advanced specialty programs gobbling up things like full mouth reconstructions, perio surgery and molar endo).

We finish the majority of our pre-clinical and didactic curriculum, and begin full scope clinical work (not just prophies and class 1s) on the first day of our 2nd year. We have night clinic sessions available twice a week. We take 50% of the breaks of the average dental school, we start early and end late. Our 2 years of clinical experience (Years 2 and 3) definitely meets, and likely exceeds, 2 years of clinical experience (Years 3 and 4) at most US dental schools.

I have no idea what your experience with Pacific graduates is, but I'm guessing you're expanding your experience with 1-2 people to an entire school, which is simply ridiculous. You've clearly shown you know nothing about Pacific's approach to dental education, and have reduced their decades of careful curriculum planning down to 3<4.

DanHerkimer said:

Avoid all "accelerated" dental school programs like the plague. There is a reason why every other dental school that tried a 3-year program reverted back to a four-year curriculum. It takes time for one to absorb the mountains of clinical, laboratory, and didactic skills necessary to become a Dentist. Pacific's approach is to graduate Dentists who are safe Beginners. If you become a Military Dentist and work with graduates of other schools, you will quickly learn that they did MANY more clinical procedures than the Pacific graduates.

Dental education is an expensive investment -- don't cheat yourself out of the full experience!

Click to expand...

Honestly, I feel like i am cheating myself out of another year's salary by going to a 4-year school.

To the OP: The difficulty and number of cases you can do at Pacific are a boon for applying to specialties like perio, prosth, and especially endo. It's accepted that graduates of most schools have to do a post-grad year of residency before being suitable for endo residency, which doesn't normally apply to UoP graduates because of the great experience here.

Ortho numbers from UoP are consistantly strong, and I'm posting this from an OMFS externship at one of the most respected OMFS programs in the country, after having finished 1 year of dental school.

The US government recognizes our program as 4 years of education compacted into 3 calendar years, and gives our students 4 years worth of stafford loans. Our program has consistantly recieved high marks from accreditation committees, on on the last visit they gave commendations, our little program recieved more than UCSF, despite having only 3 affiliated post-graduate programs to their 11.