Can't say much about UConn, but I loved everything about Case Western when I went to interview. The other allure I had is that it is close to Cleveland Clinic, and I have family who work for the Cleveland Clinic. The research opportunities were vast and.
There's definitely some benefit to graduating in 6 years as opposed to 8. When she is done, she will be a 24 year old dentist, and additional training of ortho would put her at 27, and that's a fantastic age as a graduate. And if she was to go the OMFS route, she could be a 30 year old oral surgeon or 28 year old oral surgeon. The route to specialization can be very lengthy, the more years she has to practice as a specialist, the more it makes up for that fact. Plus, she may also want to start a family, so the less time she spends in training, the better
I personally thought undergrad was just OK. But it was tempting to make a lot of mistakes fresh out of the nest. I probably would have made up my mind earlier about dentistry had I not gone to such a large liberal arts university haha. I'd love to have finished undergrad in 2 or 3 years instead of 4.
Another thing about UConn and Case Western
- UConn dental does a pass/fail system, which means the classes are much less cut throat and you can thrive more on learning for the sake of learning, instead of keeping up with your rank. i.e. being top 10% of your class, etc, in order to specialize.
- Case Western eliminated several blocks of couses on embryology etc which traditional dental school curricula have because dental boards realistically don't test much on those obscure developmental questions. This makes 1st year dental school easier to get through than if they had to learn so much excessive material that will appear in only 3 or 4 questions on the dental boards. However, Case does traditional ranking, I believe.
Ultimately, it's a tough decision. I'm not entirely sure about living costs, but Cleveland is quite affordable. Not sure about UConn area, however.
