why arent there rankings for dentistry schools?

They were ranked once. The dental schools thought US News did a horrible job at ranking them and didnt want them to treat them like they did with the medical schools, or something to that effect. So they boycotted the US News rankings....hence no offical ranking system.

the next best thing will be the ASDA guide to dental schools or Barron's guide to dental schools; both have a breakdown of each college's admissions criteria. Good stuff.

Originally posted by hansbbans
Are the ivy league schools like penn, harvard, and colubmia necessarily the best?

Click to expand...

no

Hansbbans!!
Congrats on your choice - now you have the best part ahead of you,
I am glad there are no rankings for dental schools, which means I had to come up with my own ranking within the group of schools that I applied to.
If you have the possiblility, visit the dental schools in your area or if you visit in other states make time to take a look at schools wherever you are. Since you have some time, it does not hurt to see the schools yourself. Try to learn as much as you can about their program - classes/hours, teaching methodology, NBDE averages, clinical time and requirements. If you can, figure out what would work best for you - cost, location, if you want to specialize etc. As you see there are many many factors that play a role in ranking your own dental schools - that's why they are right, there is no way to rank them because what works for you will not work for me and vice versa. It is very important that you prioritize and aim to whatever is most important to you, but remember that dental school is a heavy load, so pick a place you would like to live in and would be positive about. You don't want to be miserable from the start - it does not help.
You will find various oppinions in this forum and it is a great resource indeed. However, don't base your decision on what others think or experience, you need to decide for yourself - you will see that there are extreme good/bad oppinions on the same school, it just depends on the person. The ivy league schools could work great for you or could not, again it depends solely on you and your expectations/priorities.
I don't know if this helps, but you can pm me if you have more questions.
Good Luck !!!

Originally posted by hansbbans
Are the ivy league schools like penn, harvard, and colubmia necessarily the best?

Click to expand...

Yes, they are the best. How could anyone doubt or even think to question the prestige of the ivy league?

Seriously, though, no one dental school is considered the "best" in the dental community. Pantera summed up the dental school selection process well - it is a very personal choice. For example, I am a NY state resident and if I had the choice of any NY state dental school, I would choose SUNY Buffalo or Stonybrook over Columbia. Why? #1) Cost. #2) More clinical experiences at SUNY Buffalo.

But there are NY residents who would pick Columbia over Buffalo or Stonybrook because #1) it's in NYC. #2) I can't think of a #2.

So start your dental school research. One thing pre-dents tend to forget is debt load. If money is not a problem for you, go wherever you want. However, if you are financing your entire education on loans, you may want to look closely at the potential loans you will have in four years. Again, I'll use my example. I would have loved to have gone to dental school in NYC, but saved a huge amount of money by attending Buffalo. Now I have decided to specialize and I may end up having to take out more loans to do that, but I am prepared to pay the maximum amount of tuition necessary to achieve my specialty goals. It doesn't bother me because I didn't go way overboard with my loans in college and dental school. But this only applies if you are faced with the decision of two schools and one is cheaper than the other.

I think it's really personal...one school might be right for one person but not for another...
Just take Columbia for example...it's PERFECT for me and TJ Lee but it's not for NYBlows.... it's really depends on what you're looking for...you shouldn't go to a school because of a name... I knew I wasn't interested in certain schools (harvard included...and it's an ivy league...). You just have to find the right place...