Upenn

vankras

I'm a 1st year at Penn right now. You should pm PennDiddy. he's one of my classmates from CA, and he was in a similar situation to yours last year.

You might actually be able to reach him easier via the webforums at www.upenndentists.com

good luck with your decision.

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vankras,

I just read your post. I was in same dilemma as you in choosing between UOP or PENN.

Again, I cannot emphasize enough that Penn Dental is a GREAT CLINICAL SCHOOL. The Penn Dental main clinic serves a HUGE under-served area in West Philadelphia that would otherwise have no access to affordable dental care. This means lots of patients and lots of time in clinic for us. Matter of fact, we have more clinical requirements for graduation than UOP but because Penn is an Ivy-League school, it's automatically stigmatized as catering only to those interested in research or specializing.
UOP is a great school but it's in the Pacific Heights area of San Fran so harder to get patients. Moreover, Penn Dental has tons of money so the costs for the procedures are relatively more affordable, this also translates into more patients.

Everyone in the dental world knows that graduating from an Ivy-League school doesn't mean squat in the real world. It's not like medicine or law where the Ivy-League distinction carries weight, in dentistry, hand-skills and people-skills dominate.

Penn Dental is not just a single building alone. There is Penn Med, Wharton, Penn Law, Penn Vet, and Penn undergrad all within the same community yet Penn Dental being 125 years old is easily self-sufficient. The school has their own Leon Levy Library for the dental school, alone. I haven't encountered a single other school that has their own dental library that houses only material for the dentist.

PENN offers Primary Care Units (PCU) as an alternative to working in the huge main clinic. These are assignments that D3's receive that give the student a full eye view of all aspects of the general clinic that are located at various locations throughout the Philadelphia area. It gives the student a feel for the private clinic.

PENN is the only school with its own journal: PENN Dental Journal. Which is the oldest of its kind.

Unlike other schools, I've noticed that PENN judiciously plans out the curriculum so it doesn't overlap with boards and rather than starting out 10 classes at one time, PENN starts with five classes and in the middle begins the other five, while the first five end earlier and then the next five end. So only the few middle weeks you will have all ten classes together to avoid a cerebral cortex meltdown and also can have a healthy social life.

More importantly, Penn Dental will not fail you out. There are no "weeder" courses here and the people that are struggling are given free tutoring. I've never heard of anyone getting kicked out of Penn Dental. The only people that don't become dentists after being admitted to this school leave out of their own free will. You are almost guaranteed to become a dentist once you start here because you are treated like family.

Dual degrees. PENN has options to get you M.S. Ed in the same time to get your DMD or your MPH. It's good to have options there and the school will pay for it.

PENN is not an numbers school in my opinion, but a personality school. I got an interview at PENN before I took my DAT, not
because my DAT scores didn't seem to matter, but because they
really try to make every effort to get to know you as much as possible. This shows in the quality of people Penn admits, very well-rounded individuals with interesing backgrounds. The student body here is an education in itself.

I am going the GP route and I knew this before coming to Penn. I can honestly tell you that this program has far exceeded my expectations, both in the clinical and didactic sense. UOP is obvioulsly a great school but in my opinion, the only advantage that it has over Penn is that you'll be out of school sooner.

Either way, you're a winner. I would choose based on the environment you feel most comfortable in. Go with your gut feeling, if you have to, make another trip to Philly to be sure b4 committing to either one. There are many more reasons I chose Penn over UOP but I need to stop before this post overlaps into the next page. Hope this helps and good luck on this important decision.
PM me if you have any more concerns or questions.
Best,
Erick

KMF,

I'm originally from Los Angeles and the nightlife in Philly is DA BOMB(more fun)! Although the women in California are hotter, Philly is not too far behind, especially being in a city where 6 major college campuses are packed into a 20 mile radius.

I loved Upenn when i went to the interview. Its one of my top choices. Everyone talks about the price but look at nyu which is more expensive and you cant even begin to compare the two.

vankras,

check out this website.

http://www.upenndentists.com/

There are Penn students who were in the same shoes like you last year. I believe they can help you out.

Dentalist

www.upenndentists.com was actually developed by several SDN members in the class of 2007. you may recognize some of the names.

feel free to stop by and look around. let us know what you think.

I am currently a first year attending U. Penn SDM and a Navy HPSP participant. I was in your exact same boat a year ago. I got accepted to every school to which I applied and I chose Penn. That said, there is no question in my mind if not Penn, my second choice of any in the country would be UOP.

I loved UOP and visited UOP three times last year before putting down my deposit at Penn.

Better than every other school to which I applied, the teachers at both care, the students and faculty are happy (in general) and you will have a great experience. There are only a few advantages I saw in Penn over UOP. They push you. Both schools you will do nothing but study at least 6 days a week. However, I believe it is more tolerable at Penn because they do such a great job scheduling the tests. We have a test every week, and they are spread out perfectly so that you have exactly, and just barely, enough time to study for each test; therefore, we are always slightly stressed but never overwhelmed. You can focus on studying for one test/subject at a time but still have class for several subjects. The schedule is rolling so that even though it is finals week I am no more stressed than I have been the last two or three weeks. I couldn't imagine a better set up, and when I can, the teachers are very receptive to adapting it for the following year. The curriculum is reviewed every year with a major review every three. I know that at UOP it is set up in a more traditional manner.

Both schools specifically select interesting people that will be liked and succeed in clinic. Not just brains the students have personality and diversity. The GPA statistics are higher at Penn for GPA (our class GPA is above a 3.75 and Science 3.7) but I think UOP might have a higher PAT and maybe DAT over all.

Trust me, you don't want to be at a school that is in with the meds. we move to fast for them and you don't want to focus on anything but what is relevant towards helping your patients.


Both have great history (obviously Penn has more considering its founder was the dentist for the royal families and helped Napoleon III’s wife escape during the French revolution). However they have Dr. Dugoni. I’m not gonna lie, the man is impressive. Toss up.

Both cities are fun. Philly is cool and it is only a 2 hours bus from NY or half of the east coast (great for third and fourth year weekend getaways). San Fran is great too, and both cities are expensive but great places to be as a young professional. Toss up.

We have no trouble getting patients or graduating on time. If you are considering specializing there is no doubt that the school prepares you, and the name helps. As you know ortho is about as competitive as it gets, and 7/8 students matched in residencies this year. I know that our patient pool is significantly larger at Penn, but I don’t hear of it being too big of a problem at UOP. However, if you don’t have a family member to help teach you after UOP’s 3 year program you will probably end up doing an AEGD or GPR anyways. Trust me when I say the amount that we have to learn would be insane in three years. It is hard enough in four. That said, you get out of any program what you put into it.

Our Dent Sim 3D virtual drilling is amazing, accelerates the learning curve of the hand skills and is the high light of my week, but the general restorative dentistry lab is better at UOP. Toss up.


Now take that all with a grain a salt because I made my decision. Make yours based on where you will be happy. If you are going to pay $300,000 for your education you might as well enjoy it. Go where you felt comfortable, it doesn't matter that much how the weather is because you are going to be indoors studying or sleeping for the vast majority (at least 20 hours) of the day. Don’t pick just on trying to get into a residency because you may change your mind and decide not to specialize.

Other than that, enjoy your interviews, good luck and make sure you stop and talk to several students at each school. Admissions people are paid to get you to go there. Find out from the people who were in your shoes last year. See what they think but remember that they (like myself) are bias.

I am also a west coast kid and understand the appeal of staying close to home, but believe me, if you are looking at specializing, you aren’t going to have time for your friends or family for the first two years, so being further away can actually be a good thing. I hope this helps somewhat… Good luck.

Ancient thread lolz

LOL, didn't even notice that. Owned by the thread necromancer.

HI! i just got accepted to tufts and penn 2012. i have no clue where to go....is penn really that bad? how competitive are the students? I am interested in general dentistry, but who knows if i'll end up wanting to specialize...let me know what u think...and anyone else!! thanks~!

vankras said:

I like this thread because I started it about 4 years ago when i was applying to dental school. I just got an email today saying it was replied to. I am now about to graduate, but might not be, because penn is so screwed up. The requirements are very high (which is good), but it is very disorganized (which makes things a lot harder than they have to be). If i had to do it again I would look at it like this:

1) penn gets me where i need to go
2) if i didn't have to, i would never come here.

don't let people sugar coat it. in response to that 1st year penn student's thread, who in reality, does not know about the real deal here, i had a few thoughts about what i have seen in the past 3 and half years.

I believe it is more tolerable at Penn because they do such a great job scheduling the tests. --- Not any better than any where else. Not really a factor


We have a test every week, and they are spread out perfectly so that you have exactly, and just barely, enough time to study for each test; therefore, we are always slightly stressed but never overwhelmed. --- hahaha

I couldn't imagine a better set up, and when I can, the teachers are very receptive to adapting it for the following year. The curriculum is reviewed every year with a major review every three. I know that at UOP it is set up in a more traditional manner.

---I was on the curriculum committee at this school. In reality, the students don't change anything that the faculty does not want changed.

We have no trouble getting patients or graduating on time.
I think your intentions are good. But this is not true at all. If your definition of no trouble is a tremendous amount of trouble, then i take it back, it is totally true.

If you are considering specializing there is no doubt that the school prepares you, and the name helps.

And finally, here we have it. the reason to come to penn. and yes, this is why you would come here. options. more people get into specialty programs here. and if that is what you want out of a d-school, that is why this school is good.

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