don't go to USC

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seansk

USC Dentistry Class 2010
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just don't go here, You know, you can read all my old posts, I used to Love USC, PBL etc. I even fought for USC I have completely changed my mind. I was wrong, and I admit it. here we have to FIGHT FOR PATIENTS, FIGHT FOR OPEN CHAIRS, FIGHT WITH FACULTY. PBL DOES NOT PREPARE YOU FOR BOARDS. THERE ARE NO LECTURES. FACULTY ALWAYS THINK YOUR A DELINQUENT. THEY GET MAD AT YOU FOR NOW REASON. half the clinic chairs are open but no one can use them because they are in the wrong section...WASTED CLINIC SPACE... YOU HAVE TO FIND YOUR OWN PATIENT. SCHOOL GIVES YOU NON maybe like 2 patients or 3 your entire time your there. This is just the tip of the iceberg. In that sense there are a few and I do mean just a few wonderful people there that are trying their best to help out... and they know the system is messed up too.

The entire system is flawed, no wonder 2 years ago there was a 17 percent graduation rate. And from what I hear they are changing the entire system to the traditional system...but don't count on it!!! if you get into anywhere else GO THERE..

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Thanks for the reassurance (Tufts over USC) :p
 
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After I attended USC for an interview, I did not hesitate to decline my offer! No faculty interview, low rate of graduation, and raising tuition made me to decline their offer immediately even if I am from California and I wanted to practice there!
 
Seansk, Can you please tell us more about clinic? I actually opened up the thread NYU or USC couple of days ago http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=589672 since I have been accepted to both NYU and USC and I gave my deposit to both schools to spend more time to decide! It seems to me there are still problems at USC with regard to finding chairs and not having enough faculty there...
 
clinic is divided into sections, perio, endo, operative etc. so lets say gthere are 20 chairs for perio 20 for endo etc. every morning people wait infront of all the computers at school and at home until the clock hits 7:30, now, a couple of things have to go your way

1. the computer you chose at school has to be responsive and fast, if its a slow one your pretty screwed
2. you have to have magic hands. You have to click like your playing the bumble bee on the piano. you have to be fast to get a chair. the system does not always work and its kinda screwy. you schedule chairs for 2 weeks in advance. so if today is monday, i scedule for 2 monday from today. if you don't get a chair, too bad...try the next day, or the next day or the next day. if you patient can come in only on mondays, and you don't get a chair, too bad wait for the next monday , or the next monday etc. this past week, I have not been able to get a single perio chair that i needed. out of 25 clinical sessions, i perhaps got 3 or 4 chairs that i could actually use.

your just clicking away just to reserve spots even if you don't have a patient. some areas such as endo, and dentures are rarely filled up... and on a daily basis you see empty chair all over the clinic. WASTED SPACE. you cannot take you perio patient to an area that is designated for endo or dentures etc. WASTE OF SPACE.

the school is devided into multiple group practices. Some practices have more patients that others and some less. mine has the least. they told me it will take 3 years for my group practice to fill the patient pool to equal others. the past 4 months i have been in clinic, I have only been assigned 6 patients...ALL ON RECALL, non of them require any work and soI don' tknow what to do.

group practices are composed of 20 to 30 students seniors, juniors and soph. people in group practices are supposed to work together and give each other patients etc. but no one does, everyone is for themselves.

I would say about 50 percent of faculty are there to get mad at you and they think you should already be a dentist. the other half are ok.

making life even harder, every faculty member wants something different. There is no calibration whatsoever in the school. so good luck trying to get a chair with the same faculty for multiple session. thats if you can get a chair and good luck trying to convince your patient to come on those specific times.

on top of that we have one of the most rigirous requirements in the country, we are required to do more crowns then many other school, more operatives, more dentures and removables, more of just everything. so this really lowers the graduation rate, plus all the other stuff...

It seems like 90 percent of the time I'm doing something else other than learning dentistry.

thats just my opinion
 
uhh maybe all the fighting is keeping with the "fight on" motto of USC =]
 
wow...it seems nothing has been improved at USC! It should be a last option for every applicant. I have not heard any positive news about USC recently!

Seansk, thank you for posting information about USC! At least it help those of us who have options to go to other schools!
 
wow...it seems nothing has been improved at USC! It should be a last option for every applicant. I have not heard any positive news about USC recently!

Seansk, thank you for posting information about USC! At least it help those of us who have options to go to other schools!

i have actually volunteered in usc clinic as a dental assistant for about a year, and i had the chance to talk to students about their feeling towards their school and most of them are pretty negative, most cause of the amount of patient, and avaliability of chairs. and from what i am seeing from the students, the seniors sometimes would have no idea what they are doing.
 
i have actually volunteered in usc clinic as a dental assistant for about a year, and i had the chance to talk to students about their feeling towards their school and most of them are pretty negative, most cause of the amount of patient, and avaliability of chairs. and from what i am seeing from the students, the seniors sometimes would have no idea what they are doing.

ya I bet they don't know anything. They just always tell you what to do...not why. I'm honestly trying to learn here. The moto of the school here is "it is the students responsibility to etc etc." well I guess I'll just go home and read a book then, and don't have to pay 90k a year.

Yes somethings are my responsibility, but when the school messes up too, it also becomes "my responsibility." just doesn't make sense. I don't want to name people, but in one of my preclinical courses, I had got in a bad arguement with my professor to show me how to do something. But the same professor has no problem showing girls what to do, infact he does it for them. There are many professors like this here.

And when they are teaching you, they are always mad. like "what the hell is wrong with you" and try to teach you in a demeaning way. in such way that you won't even want to ask them a question next time.

and you wonder why seniors at the school don't know anything!!! USC pumps out dental robots, not doctors. they leave the doctor part up to you.

can you believe we only had two sessions of dental anesthesia?? and until this year, there was no class for this course, basically you practice two times and you need to how to give injections.

maybe its just me but having no required text for anterior and posterior fixed! (crowns and bridges) can't seem to help either!!

I do not know how it is in other school but here if we have any guidance, we have manuals. MANUALS DO NOT DESCRIBE WHY. They just give you step by step instructions...never the reason!! There is no deep foundation in dentistry at USC. yes we might be good clinically, but we don't know why the heck we do what we do a lot of time...(allthough not all the time). on top of that we don't know crap about materials, cause we don't have classes and we don't have a materials course.

stay for an update...theses are just things are remember about the school so far. YOU KNOW, there are so many things that are wrong, that most, including myself become used to it, and don't even realize it anymore!!!
 
Seansk, It was another thread posted by USC third year student. She was also not happy about clinic, and the way professors behave toward female students at the clinic. I was wondering if you can report these issues to the president or high ranking officials at USC...Anyway, sorry to heat about these issues. I am from LA but I will never spend 300K to attend USC.:scared:


Its the end of my 3rd year in dental school at SC. I was a non-science major coming in so of course I was very worried about boards since you don't learn anything in PBL. Studying for boards was very frustrating b/c we never learned biochem, histology, etc. So I would just sit there trying to read a biochem book but after the 4th chapter it made no sense to me. I was soooo frustrated. I didn't want to specialize so it made things a little better. But I still wish that I had a chance to do better if I had the correct foundation that should have been provided by SC. After I got my results I did better than I thought and somehow biochem was my highest score. I have no idea how that happened. Point is if you want to do exceptional on your boards this is not the school for you, b/c you have no way of really competing with the nation when your school doesn't teach you anything.

Moving on to the clinic.. I have basically been on the clinic floor for the past year. When I was studying for boards I thought that was the worst, but I really had no idea what was coming to me. There is no sense of professionalism at this school. If your a girl and happen to be sleeping with the faculty then you will most likely graduate on time. But for the rest you are faced with sexually charged comments from old nasty dentists whom you must just sit and listen to b/c you are trying to graduate too. And if you want to complain then good luck who do you complain to? Nothing gets accomplished, and you will be blacklisted b/c all of the faculty somehow end up knowing whats going on b/c they are constantly chatting about specific students when they really should be "teaching".

Anyways, there are soooo many other reasons why this school is absolutely the most chaotic, bull****, school. We don't even become great clinicians b/c we spend at least over 60% of our time trying to figure out how and when we could possibly bring our patients in with the few chairs that do exist. Do yourself a favor, don't go to this school, go somewhere where you actually have a chance of learning and becoming a better dentist. Go to a school where the dean is approachable and cares what is happening to his students. Our dean will never dare walk through the clinic floor. I think he is too scared. All he would see is the majority of the students standing on line for instruments/supplies, miserable as hell. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions. Don't forget ask about the graduation rates. b/c whats the point of getting into a specialty only to find out that you aren't graduating on time and you will have to defer it if they will allow you to. And trust me spending most of your time worrying about graduating on time is a very miserable way to live.
 
I have to agree....I went to SC and it was not what I would call a great experience. I was a BIO major so PBL was easier for me, but I saw many, many other students struggle. I hate to say it, but if you have an option other than SC, take it. I should have went to ASDOH in retrospect. But it is what it is, so I just have to look ahead.

Best of luck guys!
 
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When I was at USC for interview, I asked the interview coordinator what is the school's attrition rate. He dodged the question by saying you should go talk to the faculty for detailed fact.

Till the end of the day we never had the chance to speak to any faculty. That was already enough for me to know about this school.

And yeah, the one million debt students carry over 25 years period scared the pants off many people in that room too.
 
When I was at USC for interview, I asked the interview coordinator what is the school's attrition rate. He dodged the question by saying you should go talk to the faculty for detailed fact.

Till the end of the day we never had the chance to speak to any faculty. That was already enough for me to know about this school.

And yeah, the one million debt students carry over 25 years period scared the pants off many people in that room too.


Horrible, just horrible. Can't believe they even raised the cost to more than 100K a year when they don't even teach you anything. just wow.
 
When I was at USC for interview, I asked the interview coordinator what is the school's attrition rate. He dodged the question by saying you should go talk to the faculty for detailed fact.

Till the end of the day we never had the chance to speak to any faculty. That was already enough for me to know about this school.

And yeah, the one million debt students carry over 25 years period scared the pants off many people in that room too.

It is funny because I asked the same question from Brian Steele and he dodged the question by referring me to senior students:laugh: Even Brian could not make a convincing case for USC!
 
The (universal) negative feedback about USC I'm seeing in this thread is pretty mind-blowing. I hope the ADA shines their light on the mismanagement of this institution. Definitely lost me and I'm sure a lot of others as future applicants.
 
It is funny because I asked the same question from Brian Steele and he dodged the question by referring me to senior students:laugh: Even Brian could not make a convincing case for USC!

The senior students who had lunch with us and guided our tour were all super optimistic about the school. Rarely had problem with the clinic, claimed PBL was one of the best ways to learn. O yeah, one of them said getting patients should be students' responsibility (sounds strangely familiar?) and as long as you are hardworking and aggressive enough, there shouldn't be problem completing requirements on time. Seriously, they were quite eloquent and close to sincere.

Made me wonder why they weren't even in the financial industry.
 
That is very interesting that people don't like the PBL system in USC, however, I haven't yet seen a thread where people didn't like PBL in, say, Harvard.

Is that because Harvard has a better way of "teaching" their students? Or maybe it is because the students at Harvard are more responsible/mature/smart?...
 
The majority of posts on SDN seems to put down USC. Perhaps the idea is to convince those already accepted (with better stats) not to chose USC so that others (with lower stats) that are still waiting can have a better chance of getting in... Just a crazy thought but it might be partially true.
 
The majority of posts on SDN seems to put down USC. Perhaps the idea is to convince those already accepted (with better stats) not to chose USC so that others (with lower stats) that are still waiting can have a better chance of getting in... Just a crazy thought but it might be partially true.

Why would D3 will say stuff like this?:confused:
 
The majority of posts on SDN seems to put down USC. Perhaps the idea is to convince those already accepted (with better stats) not to chose USC so that others (with lower stats) that are still waiting can have a better chance of getting in... Just a crazy thought but it might be partially true.

I don't think that is the complete case...
The negativity towards USC is just overwhelming so there must be something not right with the school.
 
Is there anything good about this school?

In the past, there was really bad bashing on NYU as well. At my interview, there were students telling me not to go to NYU as well.
 
The majority of posts on SDN seems to put down USC. Perhaps the idea is to convince those already accepted (with better stats) not to chose USC so that others (with lower stats) that are still waiting can have a better chance of getting in... Just a crazy thought but it might be partially true.

Well, I think you are exactly right and not crazy at all.

People with higher stats and more achievements deserve to go to other schools that can truly fulfill their goals, and hence they should be persuaded to do so.

Naturally, some students who are only accepted by USC have no other choice but to attend there. Statistically speaking, these people have lower stats.
 
Someone posted above about the tuition, and I couldn't believe it when I read it, so I had to check it out myself... and sure enough, they have increased tuition and fees since I was applying to schools 2 years ago.
http://dentistry.usc.edu/doctoral.aspx?id=912
Plus, they estimate the living expenses at 20K... I always imagined it to be a little bit more than that to live in LA.

How can schools really get away with charging students so much money? How is that ethical? It sure makes me realize how lucky I am to only be 110K in debt after 4 years... and to think that is barely more than what one year costs at USC.
 
There are a ton of USC alumni in So Cal (where I'm from) both general dentists and specialists of all kinds. Back in the day USC was one of the best dental schools in the country and today USC seems to continue to be producing very capable dentists. Much of how you feel about a school is related to how you perform. I'm sure those people that have performed well and are continuing to perform well are not all over SDN 24/7 complaining about "the system". All systems have their flaws and complainers tend to complain regardless of the situation.

All in all I'm not doubting that USC has had its fair share of troubles lately but I don't think the SDN paints the clearest picture of what USC is really like.
 
Someone posted above about the tuition, and I couldn't believe it when I read it, so I had to check it out myself... and sure enough, they have increased tuition and fees since I was applying to schools 2 years ago.
http://dentistry.usc.edu/doctoral.aspx?id=912
Plus, they estimate the living expenses at 20K... I always imagined it to be a little bit more than that to live in LA.

How can schools really get away with charging students so much money? How is that ethical? It sure makes me realize how lucky I am to only be 110K in debt after 4 years... and to think that is barely more than what one year costs at USC.

I looked up the link and I saw that they charge $165 each year for "Dental Gown Usage Fee." Can somebody explain me why they would charge that much money each year for dental gown usage? Maybe I am missing something here.
 
There are a ton of USC alumni in So Cal (where I'm from) both general dentists and specialists of all kinds. Back in the day USC was one of the best dental schools in the country and today USC seems to continue to be producing very capable dentists. Much of how you feel about a school is related to how you perform. I'm sure those people that have performed well and are continuing to perform well are not all over SDN 24/7 complaining about "the system". All systems have their flaws and complainers tend to complain regardless of the situation.

All in all I'm not doubting that USC has had its fair share of troubles lately but I don't think the SDN paints the clearest picture of what USC is really like.

I am sure there are serious problems that D3 or D4 students complaining about their own school. Students are investing a lot of money and that is not what they deserve to get from USC!

I was interviewed at NYU, UoP, and USC and I can tell you that NYU and UoP interviews were way more professional than USC. I had a chance to ask my questions from faculty at my NYU & UoP interviews and I met a dean at NYU and asked questions about the school! When I was at USC I tried to ask questions from director of admissions and after a while he could not answer questions, he got irritated, and said if you don't like PBL format or the way clinic is run please feel free to choose other schools:eek: I spent so much time and money to go and visit USC and they did not even want to bother to present their school in an appropriate way!!! We don't hear these negative comments about other schools even NYU or UPenn with high tuition rates because at least students are graduating on-time, offered lectures, and they have enough patients and faculty members to run the clinic.
 
There are a ton of USC alumni in So Cal (where I'm from) both general dentists and specialists of all kinds. Back in the day USC was one of the best dental schools in the country and today USC seems to continue to be producing very capable dentists. Much of how you feel about a school is related to how you perform. I'm sure those people that have performed well and are continuing to perform well are not all over SDN 24/7 complaining about "the system". All systems have their flaws and complainers tend to complain regardless of the situation.

All in all I'm not doubting that USC has had its fair share of troubles lately but I don't think the SDN paints the clearest picture of what USC is really like.

your write SDN does not do justice and paint a clear picture of USC, its worse!!

you can't judge something until you are there, I have not been on SDN 24/7. Infact recent events have forced me to come back on SDN to just report what I have seen. I have been away from SDN for almost 2 years now, and this is the first major post since then. I am not talking about hard workers and delinquents. I'm talking about the entire system that is flawed. I dare you to come onto the clinic floor here ask any senior or junior about the program and 99 out of a 100 will give you a negative feedback... and that 1 percent that will give you a good feedback is the pretty girl, whom to all the professors run to help and do their work for them... Don't believe me go find other 3RD AND 4TH year students on SDN, and ask them the same question!

and i'm sure USC USED to graduate capable doctor when they had the traditional system, in fact it used to be amazing....but the past 10 years... the entire system has completely changed and gone down the drain...maybe you should talk to people who have graduated withing the past 5 or 6 years.... to get a better statistic of what's going on.
 
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your write SDN does not do justice and paint a clear picture of USC, its worse!!

you can't judge something until you are there, I have not been on SDN 24/7. Infact recent events have forced me to come back on SDN to just report what I have seen. I have been away from SDN for almost 2 years now, and this is the first major post since then. I am not talking about hard workers and delinquents. I'm talking about the entire system that is flawed. I dare you to come onto the clinic floor here ask any senior or junior about the program and 99 out of a 100 will give you a negative feedback... and that 1 percent that will give you a good feedback is the pretty girl, whom to all the professors run to help and do their work for them... Don't believe me go find other 3RD AND 4TH year students on SDN, and ask them the same question!

Seansk, I have been on this forum for a while and I remember your positive threads about SC once you were D1. I am really sorry to hear about all these issues! I am sure it has been tough on you. Just don't give up and fight on to graduate and hopefully leave it behind. It's bad that they charge students 100K every year and they don't provide help for students to graduate on-time! Hopefully Dean or other staff at SC hear your voices and they start making immediate changes otherwise they will loose their accreditation which is bad for a school like SC with good reputations in the past!
 
Authors:

Fincham AG, Shuler CF.
Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology, School of Dentistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA. [email protected]

*Note: They work at USC, would that be considered bias?

I guess they are bias! It would be funny if USC switch back to traditional lectures :)
 
If the reputation of USC is that bad, is it in danger of closing down unless it makes some drastic improvements?
 
Hey Sean, are you pissed over the most recent practical exam? I heard over 50% just failed. There's something wrong when more than half the class is failing exams
 
So when I was at my Iowa interview they said USC had people out to look at their block rotations and how they were doing things in their curriculum. During my UCSF interview UCSF said that USC was looking at changing their format because it is very expensive to run PBL program. Sounds odd it appears from all the comments that it should be cheaper to run the PBL. I was invited to USC to interview and after going through the web site of PBL I can't see how anybody with other options would go subject themselves to this? Hope this link works check out the program.

 
Hey Sean, are you pissed over the most recent practical exam? I heard over 50% just failed. There's something wrong when more than half the class is failing exams

oh, thanks for mentioning that, I wasn't even thinking about that...i guess we've all gotten used to that kind of thing here, exams seem worthless here...you just take them to take them...but that's not even the main reason for my outburst!!
 
This is to Renelar, the OP, and any other people who are naive... Things like that can happen any where, not just USC. It can even happen at Tufts too!
You can't get stressed out and act like a delinquent in clinic. Patient's health is at stake. This is coming from a senior dental student with half a semester to go. Remember that it takes the right person with the right attitude in order to be a dentist.


do you go to usc? I would like some D3 and D4 USC students to comment on this.
 
My former dentist is a current USC faculty and he is the worse dentist I've ever been to. I would have sued him, but I didn’t realize that within the stack of papers I had to sign was a document saying that I can’t sue him. Damn tricky bastard! It doesn’t surprise me that their curriculum is suffering.
 
This is to Renelar, the OP, and any other people who are naive... Things like that can happen any where, not just USC. It can even happen at Tufts too!
You can't get stressed out and act like a delinquent in clinic. Patient's health is at stake. This is coming from a senior dental student with half a semester to go. Remember that it takes the right person with the right attitude in order to be a dentist.

This is to Guner, and anyone else who takes the internets too seriously. The "colon-uppercase-letter-P" insinuates a none-too-serious statement. Obviously USC is not the only school that has or will ever have problems. However, there is ample evidence that it IS happening at USC, and moreso than at other schools. It's called the search bar for all you Guners that are too naive. This is coming from a senior interwebs user with more than half a lifetime to go. Remember that it takes the right person with the right attitude to be an interwebs user :D
 
My former dentist is a current USC faculty and he is the worse dentist I've ever been to. I would have sued him, but I didn’t realize that within the stack of papers I had to sign was a document saying that I can’t sue him. Damn tricky bastard! It doesn’t surprise me that their curriculum is suffering.

That's illegal and won't hold up in court. Bring it to peer review if you think so strongly about your case.
 
I would imagine the price of tuition to be high simply because they have so many faculty members. Imagine 8 people per group, 144 students total. That's 18 groups meeting every day with 18 different "facilitators." USC has to be paying each one a lot of money obviously. Instead of 1 biochem instructor, USC has to employ 18 different ones. It would make sense your money is going there.
 
I would imagine the price of tuition to be high simply because they have so many faculty members. Imagine 8 people per group, 144 students total. That's 18 groups meeting every day with 18 different "facilitators." USC has to be paying each one a lot of money obviously. Instead of 1 biochem instructor, USC has to employ 18 different ones. It would make sense your money is going there.

first of all not all 144 students meet every day...first and half of second year we have case sessions 3 times a week, and third year becomes once...so...its not even that much.... and they only pay each facilitator 200 dollars for every 6 sessions...not all facilitators are dentists...in fact some don't know s*** about dentistry!!

roughly 60 percent of our dental school tuition goes to the actual school, not the dental school, so the freaking football players can have new cleats every time they play. And they still can't freaking win a championship!!!
 
first of all not all 144 students meet every day...first and half of second year we have case sessions 3 times a week, and third year becomes once...so...its not even that much.... and they only pay each facilitator 200 dollars for every 6 sessions...not all facilitators are dentists...in fact some don't know s*** about dentistry!!

roughly 60 percent of our dental school tuition goes to the actual school, not the dental school, so the freaking football players can have new cleats every time they play. And they still can't freaking win a championship!!!

200 for every 6 sessions? No wonder they don't give a $hit. I get paid more for doing more useless work lol

But you have to consider tuition paying for other people, i.e. the 500 deans of the school lol
 
first of all not all 144 students meet every day...first and half of second year we have case sessions 3 times a week, and third year becomes once...so...its not even that much.... and they only pay each facilitator 200 dollars for every 6 sessions...not all facilitators are dentists...in fact some don't know s*** about dentistry!!

roughly 60 percent of our dental school tuition goes to the actual school, not the dental school, so the freaking football players can have new cleats every time they play. And they still can't freaking win a championship!!!

Hey Seansk, I feel really bad for you, and I only hope that your next 1 year will pass by fast.

I was wondering whether some students transfer to other schools. I know transfering is usually very hard, but do your classmates discuss about transfering?
 
Hey Seansk, I feel really bad for you, and I only hope that your next 1 year will pass by fast.

I was wondering whether some students transfer to other schools. I know transfering is usually very hard, but do your classmates discuss about transfering?

hey thanks for the encouragement..."IF" ITS ONLY ONE YEAR to go, hoping to graduate on time..

ya a bunch of people from the class of 09 were discussing transferring to other schools before starting clinic...but I think its way too hard.

you know whats sad...seeing people that were supposed to graduate in 08 and 07 still in clinic up until recently
 
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