Lets see... I'll try to answer the best I can as a First year...
1 - Pitt lets you take boards at the end of the Summer of the 1st year, and you just need to finish them before the beginning of year 3. There's no special time off per se, but they give you enough time off to study (3 weeks) during your summer break. About 85% of the class takes it then, everyone else mostly takes it over Christmas break or the beginning of the next Summer I think.
2 - The class load is pretty heavy as a first year, and it goes down from there. We're taking Cariology, General Histology, Oral Histology/Embryology/Development, Dental Anatomy, Dental Anatomy Lab (waxing), two Biochem/molecular bio classes, Microbio, and this big 5 unit "Intro to Dentistry" Class which consists of Statistics, Professionalism, Ethics, Evidence Based Dentistry, and Dental Informatics, for a total of 25 Units. They're modifying it from what we have, and I think that's a good thing, it's been a pretty rough semester because they moved some classes from the summer into the first semester because the summer last year was really hard for them, so hopefully they'll be moving some classes from this first semester somewhere else so it'll even out.
3 - I did research in undergrad, but as of yet, I haven't got involved at Pitt. Mostly because of the heavy load this first semester, but they understand that 1st years are pretty busy. There's a number of research groups that are always happy to have new people come and assist, and they say that any time you can put in is good, even if it's not very much. Most groups have meetings every other week, and they encourage people to go. Yes, the Genetics work is with Dr. Viera, I actually interviewed with him last year, and he's a pretty cool guy. He's into craniofacial genetics, especially of cleft palate. I'm hoping to get into research next semester maybe (since the load is a tad lighter), or possibly next year. Not totally sure what you mean by the last part of that question, can you clarify?
3 - There's a few textbooks they recommend you buy, a few of them you should get, others you don't need, you can ask your Big which to buy. Text book costs are all included into the loan allowance/fees.
4 - Most people have their own apartments, so you can really live however you want to I suppose. I'm an out of stater and I have my apartment to myself. Rent is pretty cheap in Pittsburgh. Some people live in a house with a few other people, etc, it's really all up to you. Some people just buy houses, the market is pretty cheap, like there were some nice 3 BR/2Bath houses going for 85-100k earlier this year. Pittsburgh isn't a very hard city to get used to, and it's a really nice place to be.
I hope that answered you questions, anything else?
