Decided to give my honest input.
Bottom line is I think they're both good schools. I think you will do fine at either schools, so in the end, it's really more of which school you think is a better fit for you. To each his own.
Before December 3rd came around, I had 4 top picks that I felt I would be happy if I got accepted at, and UDM and UNLV were among those top picks. Every school is a little bit different so you still have to always weigh out the pros and cons.
I would first like to share my thoughts on your main drawback for UNLV, being that it's still pretty new. For me, I never really saw this as a big con because I feel fortunate that UNLV has already had 10 years to work out the kinks. It's not as new as a school that is waiting to get accredited, so I feel secured in that sense. UNLV also seems to have high passing board rates so no worries there. A school can only become more established over time.
In the dental world, I think because UDM has been more established over time, more dental-related people would know of its name. However, as a patient, I think UNLV sounds better than UDM solely by name. Why? 1) it's a public school 2) when I tell people about UNLV, my friends know of the school even though they know nothing about dentistry. I don't think I can say the same for UDM, even though I think it's a good school and in the dental world, it is more established. Ask your non-dental friends and see what they say?
Another thing to keep in mind is that even though UDM is more established, they are increasing the class size so the curriculum is undergoing changes and administrative scheduling. That was the impression that I got from my D1 friend who goes to UDM.
If you look at my previous posts, you can find reasons why I like UNLV.
One thing that I think both schools have in common is that they seem like they have really nice and awesome people at the school. Friendly environment and very approachable faculty.
A couple more pros and cons that I would like to point out:
UDM:
Pros:
1) A DDS degree.. I prefer a DDS degree over a DMD but I heard it's all relative where you live. Technically, it doesn't really matter. No degree is superior than the other, it's just more of your preference.
2) More complex cases as a result of the large patient pool. Detroit is among top 5 poverty-stricken cities in the nation so people have very complicated problems
3) More established school, I liked their campus
Cons:
1) Detroittt... safety issues.
2) Cold state/snow
UNLV:
Pros:
1) You get to see patients starting first year through dental assisting. I think UDM has good sim lab experience, but they don't see patients until 3rd/4th years.
2) They've done well on their boards and seem to have quite a bit of students going off to specialties
3) Las Vegas is a better city to live in. Detroit is not very safe, not as much to do, and I think the food would be better in Las Vegas. My UDM friend says the food in Detroit is just all right compared to Californian food.
4) Smaller class size
5) Cheaper tuition and living expenses 🙂
6) Solid class color scrubs for unity 🙂 At UDM, you can wear any solid color scrubs. This just depends on preference, but sometimes I don't want to think about which scrubs I'm going to wear for the day. I do that enough for work as it is.
Cons:
1) No cadavers and no library
2) I wish they had a block exam schedule.. but UDM doesn't have that either. My UDM friend says they have a LOTTTTT of quizzes and their exam schedules are very packed. Not sure how UNLV exam schedules are like, but I feel UDM would be more stressful for some reason.
