I sadly must agree with Pat. I am a current first year and am feeling the increasing "pain" that is UConn. When I chose this school, I knew that it would be incredibly hard. What I didn't know is what you must do to get through it all. (Just so you know, we have already had two people drop out of our class and will most likely have two or three more have to remediate the year)
Most of the basic instructors in 1st year (with some notable good exceptions, of course) are pompous head-in-the-clouds researchers (I'm sure it is no different 2nd year) who don't know how to teach, but only how to lecture. This is probably the case at other schools, but is perfected here in CT.
The same goes for most of the dental profs., although the dental education first year so far has been so poor (ie down to the molecular level times infinity on about every issue) that it is really hard to gauge how our real clinical experience will be. We have begun some pre-clinical classes, but have done so little that it is hard for me to tell you how it "really" is. The only hands-on dental class we have completed is morphology, which I think is about the same at all schools.
Back to the basic science...I am a pretty smart guy and can learn resonably efficiently...but I can honestly tell you that I and only I have been responsible for teaching myself 75-85% of the material. It is not that it is not MENTIONED in lecture, but it is not TAUGHT. That combined with more presented material than any other US dental school equals mass hysteria around 3 weeks before an exam.
Now, I will say that I love our class...and having only 40 odd people in it is great, because we really get to know each other well. We have some fun times...I guess it is like war...you band together in response to the ridiculous demands placed upon you. There are some classes and instructors that I do like and respect. However, that being said, I think it is fair to say that at LEAST half of the class is quite unhappy with the school.
In UConn, I thought I would get a school with a tough curriculum that, while beating me down from time to time, would be taught so well that you can't help but do well on the boards. I thought the reason why UConn attracts good students and does well on the boards is because the stuff is just taught well.
Reality is that, just like Pat said, the reason we do well is because you learn to teach yourself everything. You learn the value of an hour of studying. You get so much stuff thrown at you that if you make it through those first two years you just have to be the kind of person that can also study well for the boards on your own. Basically, UConn attracts the type of student that is smart and is willing to be abused for a few years in exchange for a good reputation. This translates into a student that will also be able to study hard enough independently to do well on ANY standardized test. This, in my opinion is also one reason why many of our students get accepted to residencies...the programs know that the kind of student that comes out of UConn has to be able to hack it on their own...and they know that we are forced to learn how to be successful without any help. VERY attractive to residencies, because that is what they do to you as well!
One thing to make you not worry as much...I firmly believe that any student that they accept can make it through the program. They only accept smart, competitive kids and you will make it through! Also, you can pimp out all of your other friends at other dental schools with all of the stuff you know that they will never see. Sure, youll never use it, but you'll still know much more than they do. You can also make fun of your fellow medical student colleagues, who you know YOU could easily replace while they would never hack it on the dental side...they are usually easy targets.
In four years, I will most likely come out and seriously succeed at anything...not really because of the school itself, but because the school will have taught me how to survive through hell. If it sounds like a mix between correspondence school and the military, you've just about got it.
