Ask away. Will be checking this thread fairly regularly for the next 48 hours.
Finished 1st year @ NYUCD, AMA
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how was your life in NYC overall as a dental student? did you have time to have some fun outside the school?
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Have you found any scholarships/loan repayment options to help with the debt load?
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Why NYU?
I think I've shared this sentiment with others in the past and I might get burned for saying this on here, but I think dental school is harder more in terms of time management than what is expected of you for exams. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it is about realizing what you want to achieve here that makes things toughest in the first semester. (Ex: Are you happy passing and getting out of her as soon as possible, or do you want straight As? Not necessarily a dichotomy between one or the other)
It's hard not to get initially caught up with practicing in lab after hours when a lot of your friends are spending their weekends making preps (drilling) or insertions (fillings). I realized in the middle of the semester that I was happy with where I wanted to be in terms of practical-exam grades/what I already learned during lab hours, so I distributed that freed up time accordingly.
Having said all that, I do feel like I had time to enjoy myself outside of school. Lots of time, in fact. NYC has been great, but I spent quite a bit of time in the city before I started dental school, so the glamour & pace of it didn’t sweep me away like it did some of my classmates. This was only my experience though. Some people stay in the 1st avenue/NYUCD bubble so much that it wouldn’t make a difference whether they were in NYC or not. Other may have had a little too much fun outside of school. Find your balance.
Other than HPSP and government forgiveness for working in underserved areas, I think there is one scholarship you can apply for after you graduate that gives very generous debt repayment options. I’ve heard a classmate speak about it before but have not looked into it further. Sorry I can’t be of more help on this question.
NYU is bar none probably one of the most diverse student bodies of any dental school in the USA. Tuition-wise, it’s not at the very top. Living costs drive it there, but people have been able to offset them by doing things like sharing a room or living further away. We had a 100% boards pass rate this past year, which I think speaks to the professors preparing you well enough for a national standardized exam. The class size is large enough that you’ll find friends that you will get along with/find your niche.
I’m actually typing out a portion of these answers while sitting in a class about diversity right now. It’s amazing how little some of my classmates know about the world around us, and I think it’s helpful for them to gain exposure to patient-relevant issues outside of academics (even though plenty are doing online shopping at the moment). NYUCD does a good job of giving us at least surface exposure to religion, race, and LGBTQ issues.
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Thanks for answering our questions by the way! Nyu has had a rumored reputation of dismissing many of its students and not graduating many of them due to not passing. Does that still occur ? Is it pretty hard to fail classes? I know it sounds like a really pessimistic question but I am interested to find out.
Also what is the way to study for D School exams? Is the material on exams exactly what is covered in lectures? Are there power points , textbooks ?
Also what is the way to study for D School exams? Is the material on exams exactly what is covered in lectures? Are there power points , textbooks ?
Positives: You’ll always find friends, it’s easy to find people who have similar dental-interests/hobbies as you, it’s an extremely diverse place in terms of backgrounds (although based on a demographic survey we did for our class, our class is approximately 95% split between white and Asian [including South Asian] students), a big school means a lot of resources and funding if you know to ask for help. A sense of anonymity can sometimes be nice when you walk into class late by accident 😉 We are split into small groups that we take all our classes/labs with from the first day, so they become like your small family while you are here. It really is quite nice.
Negatives: It is harder to form relationships with row instructors and professors, but I came from a big public school so that’s not very new to me. NYU isn’t a place that hand holds and unless you’re really lucky, nobody really hand holds in the real world either. A lot of people also means that in pre-clinical lab, resources can be limited depending on where you are sitting and the procedure we are trying to learn. Sometimes, I find myself hunting down faculty and based on where I was sitting, there were actually times that row instructors were spread so thin that I had absolutely no help (thank the lords for good classmates). Our diverse class can also foster cliques based on ethnic identity (outside your group practice). Off the top of my head, I can think of students who tend to feel more comfortable mostly socializing with their own ethnicities, but very few people are blatantly unfriendly.
Tuition is expensive, but everyone makes it happen. People take out loans and if that doesn’t cover it, family/friends/beg/borrow/steal (jk). NYC can be as expensive or cheap as you want it to be and that really is the truth. If you want to live in a one bedroom in a doorman building close by the school and shop at the Union Square Whole Foods every weekend, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny. However, I have friends sharing rooms in Stuytown ($800 a month) to living in studios out in Brooklyn which results in significantly cheaper living costs. Manhattan is honestly a really safe place and I have never felt uncomfortable walking around at any hour of the day. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say, “I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything,” I do not have regrets coming here as of yet. This means that I feel like dental school is essentially going to be a lot of work no matter where you go; I think that everything that you get on top of the work that you should be doing is a bonus. Please understand though that I come from a background where I actively sought out places that made me uncomfortable to open my eyes a bit, as I grew up in a relatively small and extremely safe town.
I honestly don’t really know where that rumor about NYU came from. Maybe someone who was bitter from failing out made it up and then it started propagating? NYU doesn’t actively seek to fail you out of their program, especially considering how much money they lose from each of us if we choose not to continue. There was one boy this year who may have been asked to leave (not completely sure about this), but he had failed his first year two times so this is more of his own problem than the school’s. I honestly think that as long as you put in your work, it’s pretty hard to fail dental school. Getting straight As requires more of a consistent effort, but failing conversely takes a complete lack of effort.
To fail the entire year, you would first need to fail one (or more) of your classes which you get another chance to pass during the summer remediation period. After that, NYU usually gives students the option to repeat their entire first year. So yes, I honestly do think you’d really have to not-try at school or prioritize partying over studies to fail.
Studying requires your own technique. Nobody has a universal formula down. Material on exams… Is mostly on what is covered in lectures and we are only really tested on powerpoint presentations. If too many classmates get a single question wrong, professors are usually amenable to dropping the question. We also have curriculum representatives to take care of those problems. All our lectures here are recorded, so that’s also an added bonus for revision, but some classes have mandatory attendance (and all labs, of course).
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How did you learn anatomy?
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What suggestions can you give for incoming students? Also do you suggest studying some topics (ex. Anatomy) before the semester starts? Finally, I heard some rumors that NYU is harder to specialize after graduate due to the big class size. Is this true?
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We are rented skulls at the very beginning of the year and we work with plastinates in anatomy lab. Other than that lab session, we have anatomy lectures which are fairly easy to follow along with. At the end of the day, it is just bulk as everything becomes cumulative. Labs help a lot with learning lecture content though, so it's vital to take advantage of the small group study that you can do during the time. Other than that, it's just a lot of drawing and memorization. Consistent review will be your best friend
I think the question comes up every year about whether you should start studying before you get here, but honestly, take this time to enjoy the rest of your summer before you arrive.
Don't goof off during labs and ask as many people as you can about feedback on your work. Not everyone's vision will jive with you and you'll get conflicting views on your work. At the end of the day, remember that ideal preparations in lab are just to practice your hand skills and to make sure that you can manipulate your handpiece and burrs a certain way. Your preps in lab are no reflection on your future competency as a dentist.
As for specialties, I have yet to see. I am only a second year still and haven't gotten too much exposure to clinic!
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Barring the native NY students (there are quite a few of them), I think that most people live within a 20 minute walk to school in either Stuytown or Waterside (both 'no broker fee' buildings). Most people living in these complexes also subdivide their apartments into one or more 'flex' bedrooms. You'll understand all of this if you ever come to the school. The other option is to live a bit farther away and spend ~110 USD a month on top of your rent for an unlimited public transportation pass. Some buses are better than others for getting to school. For example, if you live anywhere close to the M15SBS and are traveling uptown, it will drop you off right beside the school. The bus also tends to be quick and reliable, not something that all buses in NYC can claim.
There are pros and cons about how close to the school you'd like to be, but budget at least $800/month for housing alone in Manhattan {at which point, you'd be sharing a room, which might be the flex bedroom, college dorm style}
Your day-to-day life up by the Columbia area might be slightly different, as you will be a lot further north and removed from the downtown area where NYU is located.
Keep your wits about you, use common street sense, and you should be fine. Of course, you'll hear about random crazies in the city no matter where you go. For example, there was a slasher loose in the city this year that targeted strangers and after the terrorist attacks in Paris, everyone was convinced NYC would be next. The Morningside Heights area is extremely safe during the day and only marginally sketchy at night in certain areas.
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where did you get this number from? everywhere I have looked with my friends to find housing I did not find ONE place under $1100 for a room in the neighborhoods near NYU (kips bay, gramercy, murray hill, peter cooper village, etc.) Stuy town and waterside plaza's studios are starting around $3000-3200/month and for a 2 bedroom you're looking at $5000/month. The rest of the apartments in those areas aren't that much cheaper either and if you decide to sign a lease on a new apartment with roommates be prepared for insane broker fees. If you are paying $800 for a room in the downtown area you are extremely lucky.
Note that I said in brackets that you'd be sharing a room, college dorm style, for this price. This means you would have two people in one flex bedroom. So imagine half a space, within a space that has already had a bedroom with walls put up in the living room. If you want a full flex bedroom to yourself in stuytown expect at least 1300-1500 a month in a 2 bedroom flex in Stuytown. If you're in a one bedroom flex and want the entire flex to yourself, budget around 1800-1900. I think you misinterpreted my original message.
Stuytown's facilities tend to be nicer and waterside is a little more... Rustic. However, the tradeoff is that you get excellent views from many of waterside's units.
The most difficult class we had, hmm.... Everyone probably has a particular response for this one, but it would probably be the classes that had the most remediating students, which included craniofacial biology (CFB) and organ systems (OS) in the second semester.
CFB required a lot of meticulous details on the final and I think the resounding piece of advice is consistent review if you want an A grade. The difficulty was in the bulk rather than the content. Some people also had trouble jiving with the way the professor taught, as the subject material tended to be a little bit more boring and our professor for the second half of the course was a specialist in his field. He clearly had a passion for the topic, but sometimes people had trouble grasping/understanding the way he taught. I just pretended he was telling me the most exciting story I've ever heard and it helped me focus a bit more. You'd be amazed at how much mind over matter gets you through dental school.
For OS we learned about physiological systems in bulk. The professor who was supposed to come back and teach for us was out in the hospital the entire semester, so we had a substitute who taught most of the course. I loved him, but I know many could not stand his use of analogies. I'm not the best person to ask in regards to the issues people had with him. His sense of humor and teaching resonated with me so it made review that much easier. For our last unit, renal physiology, NYU brought in a professor whom was used to teaching MD students and we were all unprepared for the type of questions he started asking us given the teaching he did. I got it in the end, but it was tough synthesizing all of his USMLE-type questions right before the final exam as he was the last to teach us. I'll copy and paste an example of the practice questions as to how we were tested (remember, NYU is not pass fail, and some professors have made it their retiring wish to never see the school go to the pass/fail system). I got it all in the end, but I thought it was a bit unnecessary for us to learn this and be graded on an A+/A/A-/B+, etc... scale.
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For students who are studying for the CBSE and want to pursue oral surgery, those questions look similar to the CBSE exam questions I've seen. Not necessarily a bad thing that you had this sort of testing since it can prepare those students.
Are most of the students there wanting to specialize or be General Dentist? I've heard that NYU pumps out specialist due to their class sizes, and it would be easier to break into the top 10% (or whatever it is) in order to be eligible to specialize.
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nope, the prices have increased again in stuytown this year and likewise for waterside plaza. My friend will be sharing a flex room with another person and he STILL will be paying $1100/month even with half a space. The $800 price you mentioned for half a space are with the old leases that people may have signed a year or 2 ago. The new leases at these complexes have astronomical numbers, two of my friends are going to be paying more than $1700/month for flex rooms. It's legit insane
People usually don't go around advertising that they want to go into x, y, or z. Everybody may have a general idea but it won't be definitive until after third year when people commit to writing their specialization applications. It's funny because I've heard the opposite about NYU having a general-dentistry trend. Who knows? I certainly do not.
The stereotype that you have to be in the top 10% to specialize really isn't true. It certainly would help for oral surgery, I guess, but even then... I wouldn't say it's necessarily easy to be at the top. The class of 2019 has a reputation for being a high-achieving year and a lot of us are extremely motivated students. A lot of the motivation is intrinsic and wanting to be the best dental students we can be rather than aiming for a place in the top echelons. People are friendly here even with the subtle slant the school takes that encourages competition. Then again, it might be my own group of friends
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current D4 here-NYU is a good school, but if i had the choice i would go to another school (preferably one that is less $$)
clinic is great, but the caveat is that you're held accountable for things that you may not have control over. a lot of 4th year students have to spend time after graduation before they're officially cleared because they didn't make the school enough money..it sucks, and to be honest i'm not sure if it's legal, but it happens. and another thing to note is the graduation requirements-which are totally doable, and NYU certainly has the patient pool for it..but the distribution of procedures is very lopsided. administration relies on the professionalism and teamwork of students to share procedures, which is extremely stupid and blindly optimistic. if you ask anyone who is an upperclassman you'll hear the same thing. it's just the culture of the school. it's a very 'me' oriented culture. of course there are exceptions, but throughout my years at NYU it has been pretty evident
overall, they work you pretty hard here, which has its pros and cons. there will be days when you are here from 730-8. not to mention you'll be pulled out of clinic to participate in stupid externships or rotations, which have the potential to be excellent..but again, you're expected to make the school a certain amount of $$ and being pulled out of clinic doesn't help
clinic is great, but the caveat is that you're held accountable for things that you may not have control over. a lot of 4th year students have to spend time after graduation before they're officially cleared because they didn't make the school enough money..it sucks, and to be honest i'm not sure if it's legal, but it happens. and another thing to note is the graduation requirements-which are totally doable, and NYU certainly has the patient pool for it..but the distribution of procedures is very lopsided. administration relies on the professionalism and teamwork of students to share procedures, which is extremely stupid and blindly optimistic. if you ask anyone who is an upperclassman you'll hear the same thing. it's just the culture of the school. it's a very 'me' oriented culture. of course there are exceptions, but throughout my years at NYU it has been pretty evident
overall, they work you pretty hard here, which has its pros and cons. there will be days when you are here from 730-8. not to mention you'll be pulled out of clinic to participate in stupid externships or rotations, which have the potential to be excellent..but again, you're expected to make the school a certain amount of $$ and being pulled out of clinic doesn't help
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Different schools do this in different ways. NYU makes you produce around 30k over two years, based on procedures, I believe? I'm not absolutely sure on this but I think this is the ballpark number.
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So we can't graduate unless we produce certain amount of money? Does majority of students able to produce that money within regular school years?
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i mean, i'm not sure how one would quantify it, because it is a point system that is only used at NYU. these points can be achieved by doing exams, or other procedures.
Bottom line, if you have your graduation requirements completed but are still deficient in how much money you make the school, they still will keep you behind. it's not something that's advertised (for obvious reasons)
what they do is they keep you after graduation and will either keep you on the clinic floor so that you can continue to see emergency patients or patients from your roster, or they send you to the urgent care clinic to see emergency patients. this can last for weeks after your graduation. and yes there is a chance that you can miss the start date for your residency, which is extremely stressful.
and as far as production is concerned...it's not something that a lot of people would mind, but again going back to my original statement...procedures are distributed in a really uneven way so things that are beyond your control can still be used against you
Bottom line, if you have your graduation requirements completed but are still deficient in how much money you make the school, they still will keep you behind. it's not something that's advertised (for obvious reasons)
what they do is they keep you after graduation and will either keep you on the clinic floor so that you can continue to see emergency patients or patients from your roster, or they send you to the urgent care clinic to see emergency patients. this can last for weeks after your graduation. and yes there is a chance that you can miss the start date for your residency, which is extremely stressful.
and as far as production is concerned...it's not something that a lot of people would mind, but again going back to my original statement...procedures are distributed in a really uneven way so things that are beyond your control can still be used against you
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Thanks for your reply!
But how many students are held after graduation usually?
I am a bit worried now because I have not been told about this requirement thing before..
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if i had to put a number on it, i'd say at least 50-60 easily
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No, I was saying about the number of students that can't graduate on time.. Since NY states requires GPR, I am a bit concerned about not being able to finish after graduate.. (Since we will have a starting date for residency..) So it is a bad thing that the school can't train many their students completely on time during the academic year.. 🙁
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