I was asked to compare the schools I interviewed at. I currently am a 1st year dental student at Midwestern-Arizona, but I interviewed at Midwestern, AT Still (Arizona), University of Washington, and Nova. I will give my perceptions of each school from my visits there, although I know more about Midwestern and UW than the others.
AT Still: AT Still seems like a great school if you want to go into a community health center (health care for low income or native American patients), but that's about it. They really have a strong emphasis on service, but they seemed to me to be lacking in other areas. They do not have near the technology that other schools like Midwestern have (CADcams, lasers, etc.). They send you out on a lot of rotations during your third and fourth year, which means you get to travel and get patients, which is cool, but also means you have to travel a lot. Not real stable if you have a family like I do. Lots of Midwestern students in professions other than dentistry have to travel for rotations, and I do not envy them. This might not be such a problem if you are single, but realize you may end up in locations that are either poor or podunk, which might be a really cool experience. AT Still has its place, but I wouldn't suggest it if you just want to go into private practice. Apartments in this side of Phoenix are a little cheaper ($100-200) than around Midwestern. AT Still has a very small campus, albeit nice. The faculty seemed good and caring, but I know many Midwestern professors left AT Still to come to Midwestern, even though for many it means a much longer commute to work. That might say something about their thoughts about the school. I thought they took boards after the first year, which is good. They have a modular system where you just do one subject for a few weeks, which is cool. They also bring in guest lecturers who are accomplished dentists, which I like. They had a nice classroom setup where you had table of students collaborating, so less lecture style learning. They did everything on iPads. If you want to go to AT Still, get some serious service experience under your belt.
Nova: Best area for a dental school. Davies (the suburb of Fort Lauderdale where Nova is), is beautiful. A little traffic and toll roads, but still great. The school had an okay campus. The grounds were beautiful as well as most of the buildings, but their clinic was mediocre. It looked a little old, but not ancient. Extremely friendly staff in my experience. I felt like they did everything they could to convince me to come to their school. The big things I didn't like were their sim clinic (it was okay, but not great like Midwestern), and their clinic. When I interviewed they told me you have to provide your own patients for the clinic. To me that is a red flag. Many students are able to do this just fine (especially if you have friends from church and the like), but I could see it causing problems, or at least giving a lot of extra work and stress. If I remember right you also took your boards after the second year instead of the first, which was a con for me. I wouldn't have been disappointed if I went to Nova, but they did have some cons.
University of Washington: I am from the Seattle area, so I am very familiar with the area. I did not go here for my undergrad. While interviewing everyone told me how prestigious UW was, but I really don't think that means anything. I think the prestige mostly comes from the public hearing a lot about UW and their having a lot of funding for research, not from their dental education being so much more quality than other schools. Don't get me wrong, you can get a good education there, but I seriously do not think it is better than other schools. UW has a beautiful campus, except the medical and dental schools. These are entirely contained within a large building just off the main campus. This building is a hospital as well as school, and it is old. The building is has been built in parts, so the look will change as you travel throughout the building. It is a maze of a building, with elevators not making it all the way to the top and such oddities. The dental school seems to be in one section on all of the floors, meaning you take a lot of stairs. Their lecture halls were decent. Their clinic and sim clinic did not look as old or bad as the rest of the building made me expect. They seemed to have better technology than AT Still or Nova, but still not as good as Midwestern. They just changed how the first year works so that now there is no summer break between the first and second year. They were not clear with me whether or not this meant you would be paying for an extra quarter, which was seriously worrisome to me. They bluntly told us that the school struggles for cash, so it wouldn't surprise me. The faculty did not seem to care about the students near as much as any of the other schools I interviewed at. They have very good research. They have a small class size, which could be nice. I actually was initially going to go to UW (I was accepted there, at Midwestern, and at Nova), but going back to Seattle and seeing some things there made me change my mind. I accepted them and then rejected them. Their administration was not at all impressive to me. Inefficient sums it up. One other thing to note is that although UW is a good price if you are a resident, the cost of living is very high there. I don't think you can find a 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle for less than $1500, and those are not nice apartments. If there is anything cheaper, my guess is it is not in a good area. Also, although I grew up in Washington my whole childhood, I went to school out of state. They told me I would be a resident until I accepted them, at which point they told me I was not considered a Washington resident. They said I could give them some forms to make them count me as a resident, but there was no guarantee that it would work. That really had me worried. Their 3rd year is spent doing clerkships (practicing specific aspects of dentistry instead of just seeing your patients) and the 4th year you see patients. UW can certainly be good if you want to stay in Washington, but it was not my favorite.
Midwestern: Midwestern to me was the most quality school. They have a beautiful campus, very caring faculty, and the best technology. The sim clinic has two brands of CADcams (cerec and one other brand I can't remember). We get trained with lasers and get more training in orthodontics and oral surgery than most schools. One thing that helps with that is that Midwestern does not have residents, so the students get to see all of the patients. You take boards after the first year, which is nice. The first year is mostly basic sciences, which are arranged in modules. This means that for 1-3 weeks you focus on one topic, like the muscular system. During that module you talk about the biochemistry, microbiology, and everything else. I like that arrangement. You also have dental classes the first year and you spend all of Monday in the sim clinic. Second year is all dental classes, pharmacology, and the sim clinic. Third and fourth year are in the clinic with patients. At Midwestern you work in pairs in the clinic, so one person is assisting. A third year is always paired up with a fourth year, so you have someone to mentor you when you first get in. You also get a lot of patients at the clinics here. You are allowed to see as many patients as you can fit in, and it seems like from what I have seen that you see more patients per day here than other schools. They have a big emphasis on teaching quadrant dentistry (fixing all of the problematic teeth in one quadrant of the mouth instead of just one tooth in that quadrant) which should help us learn to work faster here. If you are interested in research, Midwestern has some research with a good professor over the program. He has a PhD and just studies dental materials. We also have a teacher who only teaches the business side of things. I really love Midwestern. I think they have the best faculty, technology, sim clinic, and clinic. The only downside is the cost. I am doing the Air Force, so that doesn't matter so much to me.
You can't really go wrong. You will be a dentist wherever you go, but you may have more experience and be a better dentist if you go to certain schools. Location is a big deal too. I didn't like Seattle, but I love Phoenix. Go to an area you like.
One last note. For any other Mormons out there, Midwestern has lots of LDS people. There are many dads and some moms here. The dean of the dental school is LDS. Some people go party here, but less than most schools. There is a great family environment here at Midwestern.
AT Still: AT Still seems like a great school if you want to go into a community health center (health care for low income or native American patients), but that's about it. They really have a strong emphasis on service, but they seemed to me to be lacking in other areas. They do not have near the technology that other schools like Midwestern have (CADcams, lasers, etc.). They send you out on a lot of rotations during your third and fourth year, which means you get to travel and get patients, which is cool, but also means you have to travel a lot. Not real stable if you have a family like I do. Lots of Midwestern students in professions other than dentistry have to travel for rotations, and I do not envy them. This might not be such a problem if you are single, but realize you may end up in locations that are either poor or podunk, which might be a really cool experience. AT Still has its place, but I wouldn't suggest it if you just want to go into private practice. Apartments in this side of Phoenix are a little cheaper ($100-200) than around Midwestern. AT Still has a very small campus, albeit nice. The faculty seemed good and caring, but I know many Midwestern professors left AT Still to come to Midwestern, even though for many it means a much longer commute to work. That might say something about their thoughts about the school. I thought they took boards after the first year, which is good. They have a modular system where you just do one subject for a few weeks, which is cool. They also bring in guest lecturers who are accomplished dentists, which I like. They had a nice classroom setup where you had table of students collaborating, so less lecture style learning. They did everything on iPads. If you want to go to AT Still, get some serious service experience under your belt.
Nova: Best area for a dental school. Davies (the suburb of Fort Lauderdale where Nova is), is beautiful. A little traffic and toll roads, but still great. The school had an okay campus. The grounds were beautiful as well as most of the buildings, but their clinic was mediocre. It looked a little old, but not ancient. Extremely friendly staff in my experience. I felt like they did everything they could to convince me to come to their school. The big things I didn't like were their sim clinic (it was okay, but not great like Midwestern), and their clinic. When I interviewed they told me you have to provide your own patients for the clinic. To me that is a red flag. Many students are able to do this just fine (especially if you have friends from church and the like), but I could see it causing problems, or at least giving a lot of extra work and stress. If I remember right you also took your boards after the second year instead of the first, which was a con for me. I wouldn't have been disappointed if I went to Nova, but they did have some cons.
University of Washington: I am from the Seattle area, so I am very familiar with the area. I did not go here for my undergrad. While interviewing everyone told me how prestigious UW was, but I really don't think that means anything. I think the prestige mostly comes from the public hearing a lot about UW and their having a lot of funding for research, not from their dental education being so much more quality than other schools. Don't get me wrong, you can get a good education there, but I seriously do not think it is better than other schools. UW has a beautiful campus, except the medical and dental schools. These are entirely contained within a large building just off the main campus. This building is a hospital as well as school, and it is old. The building is has been built in parts, so the look will change as you travel throughout the building. It is a maze of a building, with elevators not making it all the way to the top and such oddities. The dental school seems to be in one section on all of the floors, meaning you take a lot of stairs. Their lecture halls were decent. Their clinic and sim clinic did not look as old or bad as the rest of the building made me expect. They seemed to have better technology than AT Still or Nova, but still not as good as Midwestern. They just changed how the first year works so that now there is no summer break between the first and second year. They were not clear with me whether or not this meant you would be paying for an extra quarter, which was seriously worrisome to me. They bluntly told us that the school struggles for cash, so it wouldn't surprise me. The faculty did not seem to care about the students near as much as any of the other schools I interviewed at. They have very good research. They have a small class size, which could be nice. I actually was initially going to go to UW (I was accepted there, at Midwestern, and at Nova), but going back to Seattle and seeing some things there made me change my mind. I accepted them and then rejected them. Their administration was not at all impressive to me. Inefficient sums it up. One other thing to note is that although UW is a good price if you are a resident, the cost of living is very high there. I don't think you can find a 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle for less than $1500, and those are not nice apartments. If there is anything cheaper, my guess is it is not in a good area. Also, although I grew up in Washington my whole childhood, I went to school out of state. They told me I would be a resident until I accepted them, at which point they told me I was not considered a Washington resident. They said I could give them some forms to make them count me as a resident, but there was no guarantee that it would work. That really had me worried. Their 3rd year is spent doing clerkships (practicing specific aspects of dentistry instead of just seeing your patients) and the 4th year you see patients. UW can certainly be good if you want to stay in Washington, but it was not my favorite.
Midwestern: Midwestern to me was the most quality school. They have a beautiful campus, very caring faculty, and the best technology. The sim clinic has two brands of CADcams (cerec and one other brand I can't remember). We get trained with lasers and get more training in orthodontics and oral surgery than most schools. One thing that helps with that is that Midwestern does not have residents, so the students get to see all of the patients. You take boards after the first year, which is nice. The first year is mostly basic sciences, which are arranged in modules. This means that for 1-3 weeks you focus on one topic, like the muscular system. During that module you talk about the biochemistry, microbiology, and everything else. I like that arrangement. You also have dental classes the first year and you spend all of Monday in the sim clinic. Second year is all dental classes, pharmacology, and the sim clinic. Third and fourth year are in the clinic with patients. At Midwestern you work in pairs in the clinic, so one person is assisting. A third year is always paired up with a fourth year, so you have someone to mentor you when you first get in. You also get a lot of patients at the clinics here. You are allowed to see as many patients as you can fit in, and it seems like from what I have seen that you see more patients per day here than other schools. They have a big emphasis on teaching quadrant dentistry (fixing all of the problematic teeth in one quadrant of the mouth instead of just one tooth in that quadrant) which should help us learn to work faster here. If you are interested in research, Midwestern has some research with a good professor over the program. He has a PhD and just studies dental materials. We also have a teacher who only teaches the business side of things. I really love Midwestern. I think they have the best faculty, technology, sim clinic, and clinic. The only downside is the cost. I am doing the Air Force, so that doesn't matter so much to me.
You can't really go wrong. You will be a dentist wherever you go, but you may have more experience and be a better dentist if you go to certain schools. Location is a big deal too. I didn't like Seattle, but I love Phoenix. Go to an area you like.
One last note. For any other Mormons out there, Midwestern has lots of LDS people. There are many dads and some moms here. The dean of the dental school is LDS. Some people go party here, but less than most schools. There is a great family environment here at Midwestern.
