Grads of Columbia, Penn or UCLA...

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charcot bouchard

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Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be accepted into some amazing dental schools with Columbia, UPenn, and UCLA being among my favorites. As I am considering where I enroll, I wanted to ask graduates of these schools if the debt was worth attending that school.

Columbia and Penn are very expensive (I received a 10k scholarship/year at Penn). UCLA is quite a bit cheaper than either of those schools and still has a really good reputation. I know I am a ways away from making this decision, but at this point I am quite sure I want to specialize, most likely in OMFS. That is one reason all 3 of these schools appeal to me so greatly.

tl;dr Columbia and Penn grads: was the debt incurred by your dental school worth it?

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if you have not yet browse this site you will find out that you should pick the cheapest school possible.
 
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My advice:
-all three schools are specialist factory. From what I know, 80% of their alumni end up being specialists
-go to school with P/F grades. It will make your life more enjoyable during dental school
-go to school with low tuition. The more loan you take out, the more you will regret later on.




Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be accepted into some amazing dental schools with Columbia, UPenn, and UCLA being among my favorites. As I am considering where I enroll, I wanted to ask graduates of these schools if the debt was worth attending that school.

Columbia and Penn are very expensive (I received a 10k scholarship/year at Penn). UCLA is quite a bit cheaper than either of those schools and still has a really good reputation. I know I am a ways away from making this decision, but at this point I am quite sure I want to specialize, most likely in OMFS. That is one reason all 3 of these schools appeal to me so greatly.

tl;dr Columbia and Penn grads: was the debt incurred by your dental school worth it?
 
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My advice:
-all three schools are specialist factory. From what I know, 80% of their alumni end up being specialists
-go to school with P/F grades. It will make your life more enjoyable during dental school
-go to school with low tuition. The more loan you take out, the more you will regret later on.
Yea I go to a midpriced state school with some scholarship+assistance and have <150k debt, but sometimes when I think how much easier it would be to specialize in a P/F school I get grass is greener syndrome. I'm probably going to specialize if I keep up what I'm doing here, but it would be 3x less stressful if it was p/f and I could just cruise by while studying for the CBSE. An enormous advantage. Don't forget that lots of people with the stats (23+, 3.8+ for example) could easily get into the schools you've listed but chose state schools due to price or other reasons. Being top 5-10 is no joke, and these are the people you will be competing against. The subjectivity of clinical BS will only add to the stress. Plus less time to study for the CBSE or take on research projects during the year due to constantly needing those A's.

If you aren't really smart or willing to put in a decent amount of work and would prefer a higher chance of matching a specialty, I would go to those high cost schools. They are a nice handicap for those that would not break into the top 10-15 at a state school.
 
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tl;dr UCLA. Tuition is cheaper than the other two options for sure.
 
As someone who attended 1 of the Ivys and matched into OMS, I think that it was 1000% worth the extra cost. When I was on the interview trail, the majority of the people I met were from those schools. I wasn't the most stellar applicant, but I can think of at least 5 places that gave me interviews because of my dental school. Also, the fact that these 3 schools don't rank ( besides Penn but only top 10 ) really puts you at an advantage if you aren't top 10 caliber. I'm in a ton of debt, but I'd do it again because it totally made my path to OMS much easier
 
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I choose a state school and I'm very (read VERY) happy that I did. I don't know how much experience you have outside of school working, or what type of financial background/knowledge you have, but look up any calculator online and put in your tuition and interest rate and extrapolate that out over your entire time in dental school and residency. With no family help or large savings/scholarship you'll be over half a million in debt, potentially a lot more depending on your lifestyle. Then you'll need to factor in the purchase of a future practice/or buying into a group, purchasing a house, if you've got kids/will have kids you have those expenses. I can almost guarantee you that your future oral surgeon self will look back and be very grateful he took out half the debt for a state school than an ivy.

My best advice is to really consider why you want to be an oral surgeon. Are you in solely for the work they do? Or does money have even the tiniest part to do with it? If it does, and I'm sure that it does, you will never regret taking out less debt.

I also am pursuing OMS. I'm in a class with students who have much better DAT scores than me. But I am still able to stay near the top of my class. You can make it work anywhere if you want it bad enough.
 
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As someone who attended 1 of the Ivys and matched into OMS, I think that it was 1000% worth the extra cost. When I was on the interview trail, the majority of the people I met were from those schools. I wasn't the most stellar applicant, but I can think of at least 5 places that gave me interviews because of my dental school. Also, the fact that these 3 schools don't rank ( besides Penn but only top 10 ) really puts you at an advantage if you aren't top 10 caliber. I'm in a ton of debt, but I'd do it again because it totally made my path to OMS much easier
how about stony brook?

(not derailing, go to UCLA OP)
 
if you've done your hw and for sure want to do OMFS without a question go to a P/F school. my vote is for columbia because of P/F and med school integration...you'll have better prep for your cbse
 
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if you've done your hw and for sure want to do OMFS without a question go to a P/F school. my vote is for columbia because of P/F and med school integration...you'll have better prep for your cbse
As a student who's near the top of their class at a state school that's much cheaper, I agree with the sentiment of go p/f over costs.
 
How do you know your rank this early?
They release data about every assignment and I'm consistently in the top 5 on almost every one of them. Up there in hand skills too and will not get below a 95 on any of my classes this semester. Don't think I need a formal rank release to know where I stand, but I guess I can update if they do. not that anyone on this site cares about my performance anyway. Of course there will be different classes in the future but I can't see myself dropping hard until things get really subjective, and at that point I'm confident I can score well on the CBSE.
 
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They release data about every assignment and I'm consistently in the top 5 on almost every one of them. Up there in hand skills too and will not get below a 95 on any of my classes this semester. Don't think I need a formal rank release to know where I stand, but I guess I can update if they do. not that anyone on this site cares about my performance anyway. Of course there will be different classes in the future but I can't see myself dropping hard until things get really subjective, and at that point I'm confident I can score well on the CBSE.
Keep up the good work, it's only going to get tougher. Exponentially tougher.
 
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It's 3:36am. I'm studying for a path exam so I can make a few percentage points higher....
Don't be me. Go to a P/F school. Just strive to pass.
Go to a cheap P/F school.
 
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If you're smart enough to get accepted into an Ivy League school, then you're smart enough to decide not to go to that school.
 
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As someone who goes to a state school and is doing OMFS, I would do the cheapest option that has P/F (UCLA). It would be great to have strong medical classes (i.e columbia) to help with the CBSE but as long as you have more time to study for the CBSE (which is more likely at any P/F school), having a great CBSE score will be more important then school name.

I think with omfs it’s important to remember how long you are going to have to carry the debt of dental school. Unlike your peers you probably will not be able to start paying it off for 8-10 years.

& FYI was still able to get a 85+ CBSE score at a state school (that has grades/rankings and has a very poor didactic background). I know that it would of made it a lot easier if I wasn’t juggling getting good grades at the same time.
 
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As someone who goes to a state school and is doing OMFS, I would do the cheapest option that has P/F (UCLA). It would be great to have strong medical classes (i.e columbia) to help with the CBSE but as long as you have more time to study for the CBSE (which is more likely at any P/F school), having a great CBSE score will be more important then school name.

I think with omfs it’s important to remember how long you are going to have to carry the debt of dental school. Unlike your peers you probably will not be able to start paying it off for 8-10 years.

& FYI was still able to get a 85+ CBSE score at a state school (that has grades/rankings and has a very poor didactic background). I know that it would of made it a lot easier if I wasn’t juggling getting good grades at the same time.

didn't know UCLA was p/f. yeah definitely UCLA then
 
Columbia Dental Grad + Harvard medical grad. fancy degrees but if you saw how much interest I accrue on my loans monthly you'd have diarrhea for a month at minimum. Go to the cheapest school. Don't second guess "well gee I what if I went to Columbia or Penn or one of those fancy Ivy leagues to help me specialize??" because there are smart kids at ivy/non-ivy and just as many if not more tools at ivy league schools.

Not worth IMO. Cheapest dental school = less loans = less interest = less diarrhea = more money to spend on non-underwear related expenses
 
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As someone who attended 1 of the Ivys and matched into OMS, I think that it was 1000% worth the extra cost. When I was on the interview trail, the majority of the people I met were from those schools. I wasn't the most stellar applicant, but I can think of at least 5 places that gave me interviews because of my dental school. Also, the fact that these 3 schools don't rank ( besides Penn but only top 10 ) really puts you at an advantage if you aren't top 10 caliber. I'm in a ton of debt, but I'd do it again because it totally made my path to OMS much easier

Columbia Dental Grad + Harvard medical grad. fancy degrees but if you saw how much interest I accrue on my loans monthly you'd have diarrhea for a month at minimum. Go to the cheapest school. Don't second guess "well gee I what if I went to Columbia or Penn or one of those fancy Ivy leagues to help me specialize??" because there are smart kids at ivy/non-ivy and just as many if not more tools at ivy league schools.

Not worth IMO. Cheapest dental school = less loans = less interest = less diarrhea = more money to spend on non-underwear related expenses

OP as you can see there is no consensus on this particular topic. In your case I would probs go to UCLA, but then again I knew at my interview I wanted to come to Columbia. It all just depends on your individual situation.
 
Definitely go to UCLA because its cheaper, P/F, much better weather/women, and everyone knows its an elite first choice school with famous well connected faculty. Columbia and UPenn are for people who couldn't get quite get accepted at a quality public school.
 
Columbia Dental Grad + Harvard medical grad. fancy degrees but if you saw how much interest I accrue on my loans monthly you'd have diarrhea for a month at minimum. Go to the cheapest school. Don't second guess "well gee I what if I went to Columbia or Penn or one of those fancy Ivy leagues to help me specialize??" because there are smart kids at ivy/non-ivy and just as many if not more tools at ivy league schools.

Not worth IMO. Cheapest dental school = less loans = less interest = less diarrhea = more money to spend on non-underwear related expenses

The legend has spoken.
 
Does the fancy degree help to attract well-to-do patients? I always wondered...
 
It would be interesting to contrast the first round #acceptances/#offers ratio from UCLA and Columbia? Almost no one turns down a top shelf public school to go to a crazy expensive private school. On the specialty applicant circuit both UCLA and Columbia are well regarded, but UCLA is cheaper, Pass/Fail, and the quality of life is immensely superior. If you like crap weather and medical curriculum go to UConn.
 
It would be interesting to contrast the first round #acceptances/#offers ratio from UCLA and Columbia? Almost no one turns down a top shelf public school to go to a crazy expensive private school. On the specialty applicant circuit both UCLA and Columbia are well regarded, but UCLA is cheaper, Pass/Fail, and the quality of life is immensely superior. If you like crap weather and medical curriculum go to UConn.
What are your criteria for saying the quality of life is way better at UCLA? The weather? From all the students I have talked to, it seems the quality of life leans toward Columbia.
 
UCLA blows. And is H/P/F which does make a difference from just strict P/F although no ranking. You can specialize anywhere. Go where you'll be happiest.
 
Columbia Dental Grad + Harvard medical grad. fancy degrees but if you saw how much interest I accrue on my loans monthly you'd have diarrhea for a month at minimum. Go to the cheapest school. Don't second guess "well gee I what if I went to Columbia or Penn or one of those fancy Ivy leagues to help me specialize??" because there are smart kids at ivy/non-ivy and just as many if not more tools at ivy league schools.

Not worth IMO. Cheapest dental school = less loans = less interest = less diarrhea = more money to spend on non-underwear related expenses
nearly sh-t my pants when I read this. clever, very funny, and very much based in reality.
 
This is from another post of his a few days ago.

Yo, its H/P/F which does make a difference depending on where you wish to specialize. No ranking though, which is good or bad depending on your personal views regarding that. As a graduate from UCLA I can certainly say it sucked but there is some value from being treated like garbage for years in terms of how it can make future crappy situations seem not so bad because it may not equate to that of the UCLA experience if one were so fortunate to experience themselves.

Now, after having been to med school, I can see how different and better students are treated at a med school compared to a dental school. After my first week at med school I was like Holy **** is this how a health profession school is supposed to be like!? Talk about med students whining and being babied man, what a joke that is. Funny thing is they don't know nor can understand how good they actually have it.
 
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