I'm a DS1 at UTHSC San Antonio and hopefully I can clear up a few things for y'all. Our laptops are incredible (my med student neighbor borrows it for his work because even though his lectures are not on there, the search capabilities are just that good), we DO get a printed manual for each class and the professors teach from these, allowing them to pool info from several sources into what they find important and most needed for the boards, and each lecture and lab manual is also on the laptop with direct links to the pictures the teachers want you to know. We take notes mainly in the manuals or on downloaded powerpoints. Lecture halls and library have wireless internet, cubicles have hard wire. For those worried about hurting their eyes, go to Best Buy and look at laptops - they are much easier to look at then glaring desktop monitors.
Our individual cubicle work areas are great, both for labwork and studying. I initially liked Baylor for that huge room with the long tables simply because of the dummy heads, but if my whole class had to do all their work in one room and in addition I had no independent place to study, I think I would go insane. Whoever said the thing about one dummy head for 8 students, I have no clue what you are talking about... Also whoever said on another thread that our facilities are old, I again have no clue what you are talking about.
We do have longer semesters than Baylor, which was initially to compensate for having no summer sessions. However that is changing this year... a good question to ask Dr. Thomas or the DS1 who sent you a letter about. I'm not sure how the schedule is changing next year.
Yes, I'm still going... I could give a list of competitive research grants SA won (vs Harvard, Stanford, Yale MED schools) just from presentations I've seen in the few short months I've been here. I don't think I have a single professor who hasn't been published many times - for links read the dental school news link. For example the endo head is considered a top 5 pain researcher in the world, yes, WORLD. If you like research, this is the place to be. Also look into the DDS/PhD program if you are serious about research and teaching.
As for picking a school based on the amount of things to do in the city, the number one thing you'll be doing is studying, so choose based on the school.
As for competitiveness, everyone is very smart and everyone studies a lot, which is going to be the same at all the schools. While you are always going to have the gunners, even the gunners are willing to help each other out. Computers help on this - for example, when someone takes great notes on a lecture or takes a wordy narrative of a reading and condenses it into an outline, usually they email it out to everyone. We even had people take digital photos thru microscopes of all our histology slides, put them into a quiz format on powerpoint, and pass a CD copy of it around the class for us to copy (saving TONS of time spent in the histo lab). No promises but these types of resources will probably be put on the notes supplement CD the freshman class always makes for the incoming class.
Sorry this got so long -- I intially was just going to put that our computers are cool, but I got a lil carried away. Lemme know if you have any questions and when you are coming for interviews or to look at the school again - - I'll give you yet another tour.
PS Chances are you will be happy wherever you go, and you will definitely get a good education and come out a competent dentist at any of the three.
However, San Antonio's still the best (but I may be biased
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