I am also a DS3 and like my classmate Colorado 2011, I can assure you that many students at this school are not happy.
To be fair, let's talk about the good stuff. The facilities are very nice. We have nice labs, a nice clinic, and a nice campus. There are plenty of good places to eat close by and downtown Denver with restaurants, bars, and sports teams (Rockies, Broncos, Nuggets, Avalanche) is very close. While many of the places around campus are dumps, there is a really nice neighborhood within 5 minutes of the school (if you can afford to live there) and there are some new, really nice apartments on campus. We have some great faculty members who are good at what they do (meaning dentistry and teaching).
There are things that are bad but also, to be fair, these things are probably bad to some degree at every school. We have some instructors that are rude and disrespectful to students and patients and/or dont seem good at what they do (dentistry or teaching). We have classes that are pointless. We have classes that we should probably be learning something from them but the teaching is so horrible that we get nothing out of it (or in the case of Occlusion, the teacher doesnt even bother teaching, he tells the students to teach each other and never gives one lecture the whole semester). There is subjective grading that seems totally unfair. Some grades seem arbitrary. Some tests are impossible to do well on even if you study your butt off because of the way they are written so the people that dont study and guess well do better than the students who actually know the material and guessed wrong. Some policies seem unfair and some requirements seem impossible to fulfill. Yep, I bet this bad stuff happens at most schools.
Now, the ugly, and the reason people feel compelled to let current and future applicants know what is going on before they commit themselves to four years at this school.
*We have less clinic time than the students before us and yet our requirements are the same and we pay more money
*We get graded on how much we produce for the school. Yes, the higher your production, the better your grade. Ethical? Not really.
*The idea that DS3 partnerships are going to end because we complained is 100% false. We will have partners until we graduate. Not to say this is all bad. It is nice to have somebody to chart for you and suction for you but it means less clinic time for everybody. And if you and your partner dont get along, too bad (you dont get to pick your partners).
*There are not enough patients for the number of students that we already have at the school and they keep increasing the class sizes.
*We get emails EVERY DAY from DS4s begging for procedures because they havent finished their requirements. They beg, they barter patients, or they just flat out steal them from our class. Im not complaining because I'm sure well be the ones begging and stealing next year.
*There are DS4s who finished their DS3 year without doing one single crown prep. Thats kind of an important procedure.
*There are people my class who have been working in the clinic for 9 entire months and have never prepped one single tooth. What have they been doing? Comprehensive exams and prophys!
*Since they eliminated the dental hygiene program guess what dental students are? Glorified hygienists. Patients still need to get their teeth cleaned and there are no hygiene students to do it. Hygiene patients can easily fill up your clinic schedule making it difficult to schedule restorative procedures that you will actually need to know how to do.
*You have to take competency exams on procedures that you have never actually done before. There are windows during which you have to take competency exams for certain procedures. If you have never done that procedure before, too bad. You still have to take the exam to show you are competent. If you cant find a patient that needs that procedure during that window or if you happen to fail the exam (because you might not be competent at something you have never done before), then you cant take it again and you cant take it the next semester to make it up. No, you actually end up behind in your clinic requirements all the way up until the last semester before you graduate. That is the first opportunity that you will be given to make it up. Reasonable? No.
*If your patient cancels on short notice or if you cant get a patient to fill an open appointment that you have, you are penalized in terms of RVUs (relative value units). Some things you have no control over, like patients getting sick, or being flakes, or your lab case not coming back on schedule, or not having enough faculty to cover chairs. Too bad. Your RVUs/clinic session will be a big fat 0 and they calculate that into your grade.
There are so many other things. One thing that caffeinehigh failed to mention in all of his inside scoop information is that with the increase in clinic chairs there will also be an increase in the dental student class size. There will be 40 ISPs and approximately 85 dental students. Right now there are not enough patients (forget chairs, it doesnt matter how many chairs you have if you dont have the patient population to fill them) for 50 dental students and 25 ISPs. Hmm, 75 students increasing to 125. Im glad Ill be gone by then.
Caffeinehigh also fails to mention that there are plenty of people in his own class that are unhappy with the academic portion of the program, they just arent blogging about it on SDN. Caffeinehigh says that he thinks this is one of the premier dental schools in the country. Really? What is he comparing that to? All of the other dental schools that he has attended? The ISP students are also not happy. Check out the International threads and the post by UFOgh entitled Colorado SODM new changes. Beware! The last post was 10-2-09.
To be fair to Colorado2011, this is a forum in which to express opinions honestly and candidly, without fear of repercussion or reprimand. He/she is entitled to their opinion. We chose this school based on the best information we had at the time but many students in the DS3 class have expressed that they wish they had chosen another program and that they certainly wont be contributing any money to the alumni association once they are gone (particularly out of state students who pay extremely high fees). Also, one of the main reasons people are so unhappy and feel like they cant stand it is because they HAVE contacted people at the school directly and feel like things just keep getting worse or remain unaddressed. People talk to faculty individually, in groups, on committees, and through our elected class representatives and yet we remain frustrated. This isnt about badmouthing the school, this is about telling applicants what a lot of students feel that they arent being told by the students who give them tours and eat lunch with them (since the students who give tours were asked to volunteer to give a positive review of the school not necessarily an honest one).
All that said, I just think people see the nice new facility and get mislead into thinking this is an awesome program. It isnt awesome, by any means, but the end result from this school or any other school is the same degree (even though we feel like were getting an education in dental hygiene and dental assisting more than dentistry).
. Like people are already saying, the applications at Colorado can take forever...and ever. Last year I waited until feb to hear anything. I turned in my app this year the second day it was open, June 3rd I think. Good luck to everyone who has applied!!!
). Well from one out-of-stater to another, best of luck! I've really enjoyed my time at CU so far and do not regret my choice to pay a little extra to come here!
