Case or Penn?

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Penn is a better school if you wanna specialize, case is the better school if you are going for gp. Both are great research schools and off course pricyyyy.
 
Thanks Gaussian, it's very true, both schools are VERY expensive, but I heard both prepare you well, and both are well respected schools. I guess it's because they are very similar, that I'm having trouble deciding.

Everything matters to me:
- strength of program
- school reputation
- costs of attending
- specialization rates
- board pass rates
- city location, etc

Case or Penn? Which would you recommend? Please feel free to comment everyone.
 
I have friends at both schools, both are great, If I had to pick one, I would go with Penn, just because they seem to have higher publication counts.
Penn students SEEM to get more interviews for residency ( I have heard ) ; also in my op go with school with Pass/Nopass , ( is Case using P/Np system, or letter grades?)
 
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Couple questions come to mind:

1) What's the deal with a pass/fail marking system?

2) I heard that board exams are turning pass/fail as well... how would I distinguish myself at Case and Penn then if no marks are used and no board scores are used?

3) Also, can someone comment of the the strengths and weaknesses of both schools? I would really appreciate it
 
Penn is definitely NOT P/NP!! I don't know about case.
 
@ Flipper405: Thanks for confirming this.
How are you liking your current experience at Penn? Was it everything you were expecting it to be?
I loved Penn, but I want to be as informed as possible when making such a huge decision, so I would really appreciate your insight 🙂
 
Hey aclementine -- While Case has traditionally been P/F, the two first-year students I spoke with during my tour said they may shift over to a grading system when the Boards go P/F (Jan. '12, I believe), but they said that was still uncertain.

Also, while the classes themselves are P/F, it's my understanding Case is one of the "P/F" schools that does keep an internal record of where you rank within your class, based on your exam scores (someone correct me if I'm wrong -- I know P/F schools differ on this). Your class rank only comes into play if you are trying to match w/a specialty program, etc. So if you busted your butt to be Top 3%, Case will make sure post-doc programs know this.

Anyway, this system sounds kinda like it could be providing the best of both worlds. But maybe a Case student can corroborate...
 
shloopy said:
Hey aclementine -- While Case has traditionally been P/F, the two first-year students I spoke with during my tour said they may shift over to a grading system when the Boards go P/F (Jan. '12, I believe), but they said that was still uncertain.

Also, while the classes themselves are P/F, it's my understanding Case is one of the "P/F" schools that does keep an internal record of where you rank within your class, based on your exam scores (someone correct me if I'm wrong -- I know P/F schools differ on this). Your class rank only comes into play if you are trying to match w/a specialty program, etc. So if you busted your butt to be Top 3%, Case will make sure post-doc programs know this.

Anyway, this system sounds kinda like it could be providing the best of both worlds. But maybe a Case student can corroborate...
Click to expand...

This is what I heard too. Can someone confirm that will be going to a grading system after boards become P/F?

As a side note: I think the whole premise of changing the board exam to a pass fail is ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd. If you want to become a GP, just take the damn thing and get a passing mark. That's it, no complaining. If you want to specialize, it would be better to have an exact mark on the board exam for comparison purposes. With P/F boards, it severely handicaps people graduating from a P/F school, because you can't be compared to other candidates in residency applications. Am I missing something here? I feel changing the boards to P/F is a really dumb idea.
 
aclementine said:
This is what I heard too. Can someone confirm that will be going to a grading system after boards become P/F?

As a side note: I think the whole premise of changing the board exam to a pass fail is ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd. If you want to become a GP, just take the damn thing and get a passing mark. That's it, no complaining. If you want to specialize, it would be better to have an exact mark on the board exam for comparison purposes. With P/F boards, it severely handicaps people graduating from a P/F school, because you can't be compared to other candidates in residency applications. Am I missing something here? I feel changing the boards to P/F is a really dumb idea.
Click to expand...

from what i understand theres a new specialty exam that will be coming along w/ the P/F boards.
 
aclementine said:
This is what I heard too. Can someone confirm that will be going to a grading system after boards become P/F?

As a side note: I think the whole premise of changing the board exam to a pass fail is ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd. If you want to become a GP, just take the damn thing and get a passing mark. That's it, no complaining. If you want to specialize, it would be better to have an exact mark on the board exam for comparison purposes. With P/F boards, it severely handicaps people graduating from a P/F school, because you can't be compared to other candidates in residency applications. Am I missing something here? I feel changing the boards to P/F is a really dumb idea.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why they're changing the boards to P/F, but I heard it has to do with high board scores not being a good correlation of a person's ability to excel in a specialty program (so they wanted their own separate specialty exam), and not because people were crying about them.

As for case or penn, I'd say you can get everything you wrote under "whats important to me" at either school (minus cost and location is prob a toss up). Good luck.
 
dmd87 said:
from what i understand theres a new specialty exam that will be coming along w/ the P/F boards.
Click to expand...

ohhh, that's what I was missing, lol. That makes more sense then. Will they be implementing this at the same time boards go P/F? Where can I find more information about these changes?
 
Skygrandpager said:
As for case or penn, I'd say you can get everything you wrote under "whats important to me" at either school (minus cost and location is prob a toss up). Good luck.
Click to expand...

Good point. When I looked up the tuition for Case on their website, it says the cost for the class of 2013 was $80,468, and the figures were lower for the class of 2012, 2011, 2010. Is this purposely supposed to confuse us, so we could misinterpret it as 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year tuition? Or am *I* misinterpreting it?

If you look at Penn's website, the cost is $86,724. That's roughly a $7,000 difference each year, which isn't substantial when compared to the $87,000 total each year.

I was leaning towards Case in the beginning because of cheaper tuition, and cheaper living expenses.... But now that I think about the costs, the difference isn't that great, and Penn is an ivy league school. Is Penn much harder to get in than Case? Should I be feeling "lucky" to get into Penn?
 
aclementine said:
Good point. When I looked up the tuition for Case on their website, it says the cost for the class of 2013 was $80,468, and the figures were lower for the class of 2012, 2011, 2010. Is this purposely supposed to confuse us, so we could misinterpret it as 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year tuition? Or am *I* misinterpreting it?

If you look at Penn's website, the cost is $86,724. That's roughly a $7,000 difference each year, which isn't substantial when compared to the $87,000 total each year.

I was leaning towards Case in the beginning because of cheaper tuition, and cheaper living expenses.... But now that I think about the costs, the difference isn't that great, and Penn is an ivy league school. Is Penn much harder to get in than Case? Should I be feeling "lucky" to get into Penn?
Click to expand...

I would guess that Case's tuition is higher in the first year because that is when you buy all your instruments/kits/computer. They don't have a 3/4 year instrument cost (based on your link) and we know for sure you'll be using some. Putting class of 2012/11/10 represents costs for D2/D3/D4, they're the same thing.
It's tough to say which is harder to get into b/c case has a smaller class and more applicants, but Penn is an ivy. I think more importantly, who cares? Honestly, I think people (except mom) don't care.
I think you should feel lucky you got into dental school period. I was speaking to a dentist who graduation from Columbia (not to put down the school, just making a point) and he wishes patients actually looked/asked were he went to d school!
just my opinion. Good luck, both schools seem great.
 
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