What other schools were you considering before accepting LECOM?
Well ill be honest I am originally from Texas and to me the most important thing was cost. After you graduate from school and start making payments youre going to wish you picked the cheapest school if you didnt. Compounded interest (as I am always preaching to my classmates) will literally kill your finances if you are borrowing unnecessarily.
With that said I definitely wanted to stay in Texas but the cards didnt play out that way. I interviewed at Houston but got waitlisted. I also interviewed at Nova and was given an interview at Kentucky but didnt go because it was more expensive than LECOM (which I had already gotten into at that point)
To make a long story short my main concern was 1. cost 2. clinical experience
The reason why I put clinical experience second is because no matter what dental school you go to, there are not massive differences in clinical experience even though everyone claims there is. When you graduate from dental school you are just going to have a general idea of what you are doing regardless of where you graduate from so cost is far more important imo.
In hindsight I am glad I chose LECOM because even though it is not going to give me waaaaayyyyy more clinical experience than other schools, I see now that compared to other schools not only is it far cheaper to attend, our clinical experience is in fact superior because of how early we are placed in the clinic.
As D1's we are already assisting and doing hygiene, as D2s we are already doing minor operative procedures and simple extractions. Name a single other schools that allows for that. Now the reason I say it is not a massive difference between other schools is that you are not going to get a TON of hygiene and operative/surgery experience in your first two years but you do get some vs other schools where you get none so it does give you more comfort as you transition into your third year. The clinical experience in your first three years is not superior because of shear volume but in how early you are exposed to it.
Also in D4 year you leave to either Defuniak Florida or Erie PA and dont share patients with the entire D3 and D4 class like other schools, you only share them with half of your D4 class so from what I hear, you never have a shortage of patients.
Sorry for the long answer but thats why I feel that LECOM is superior.
Is everything great about the school? Absolutely not, like every school there are things I hate about it but the pros outweigh the cons. I'm not gonna lie if I had gotten into a cheaper school i.e TX, I would have definitely opted for that option but LECOM imo is a close second.
