Might Want to Think Twice About Nova

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.... The school has greatly increased the number of international students that they accept. My class size just jumped by 28 compared to the 10 that were added to the fourth year’s class. Despite the increase in students there has been no increase in faculty or chairs in the clinic ...

This is totally unfair to you guys (regular students) - this coming from an international student.
 
Do all schools pile in the international students like that?

Not all of them, and the ones which do, end up screwing over both programs. And it shows.
I'm not talking about Nova here, or any other specific program for that matter, but this is a good illustration.
 
Im at UFCD. Very interesting stuff there OP. We have international students in our class who entered in the early part of sophomore year in time to get in our endo and oral path courses. They have their own clinic and we dont see them too much, but we only have 8-9 max. So are the 28 new heads all international students or are some of them students from other dental schools that left for one reason or another? Anytime you have private institution, they are going to be all about the bottom line.

Nova isnt all bad. I interviewed there, and was accepted. You could be glad you're not in a college town w/ 50k kids if nothing else. You're in a nice city, the school is beautiful. Btw, Is it true they give you all 3 months to study w/ no class to study for part I?

I interviewed at both of UF's "International Trained Dentist" programs.
At UF, ITD's go down one of 2 routes:

1. They are integrated from the very start with the DDS/DMD candidates, in that their application process is almost identical, and in fact compete for the same seats as you guys and start as D1's. Only one or two students (in rare occasions, up to 4) are accepted per class.

2. Enter the 2-year ITD program (which is 12 seats by the way, or at least was until 5 months ago), and are for the most part separate from their DDS/DMD counterparts. It is a certificate program, and in such it is not necessary for them to receive the same didactic/clinical training that you guys do (although they still do a good job).

My point is that it is completely different from what the OP is saying about Nova.

Gooooooooooo GATORS !

Sherif
 
I interviewed at both of UF's "International Trained Dentist" programs.
At UF, ITD's go down one of 2 routes:

1. They are integrated from the very start with the DDS/DMD candidates, in that their application process is almost identical, and in fact compete for the same seats as you guys and start as D1's. Only one or two students (in rare occasions, up to 4) are accepted per class.

2. Enter the 2-year ITD program (which is 12 seats by the way, or at least was until 5 months ago), and are for the most part separate from their DDS/DMD counterparts. It is a certificate program, and in such it is not necessary for them to receive the same didactic/clinical training that you guys do (although they still do a good job).

My point is that it is completely different from what the OP is saying about Nova.

Gooooooooooo GATORS !

Sherif

Let me clear up some confusion. We have three foreigned trains who started the first year with us. Their virtue of foreign-trainedness has no significance in that they are treated just like everyone else in the class and for the most part profs have no way of knowing they ever received any training as a dentist. These type of foreign trained do not contribute to class overpopulation since they are figured into the class size of 82 from the onset.
 
Ok, well our advisor, showed me that a total of 74 students applied from our school, however, that includes students that took at least one class at FIU.
Technically, not all 74 students were at FIU for more than one semester. She went through most of them and estimated that at least 40 were from FIU for more than one semester. Also I know at least three that applied but never too their DATs and/or completed secondaries.

12 out of 40<--and I don't know about the other 25 ppl.

3 to Nova
2 to UF
2 to Maryland
1 to Tufts
1 to Iowa
1 to UPenn
1 to Columbia
1 to Harvard

i met the girl that got into harvard from FIU at my UF interview.

jb!🙂
 
Where do you NOVA students live? I know a pharmacy student there living in a fine apartment an hour away from the school.
 
Oh boy, where do I start on this forum, I wish I would have found it earlier and I hope I remember to cover everything that’s been talked about. I’m a third year at nova and let me tell you, it is not that bad. You have to realize that every class at every school has a few people that will absolutely hate everything about their school, in this case we have a few who have decided to post on SDN I guess to get the school back, not to mention the second year class is already know by faculty and administration as the class that complains about everything. First of all, yes there are problems at nova, just like there are at all dental schools, but they are trying to be solved. Adding new IGD students without having more faculty and clinic chairs first was a bad idea, but they are in the process of hiring faculty and many things are in the works for clinic chairs. Lets set the additional student situation straight first; first year classes at nova are 105 students, they used to fill the spots of students that dropped out or that were held back with IGD students usually 5-10 making the class size remain 105, with my class they added new sim lab chairs allowing for a class size of 119 and we have about 19 IGDs. In the second year class they added more sim lab chairs so their class will be ~135 with ~35 IGD students. To help solve the clinic chair problem they are opening a 4th year clinic in north Miami beach (about a 30 minute drive from nova) this clinic will have 21-25 chairs opening 21-25 chairs in the predoc clinic at school per day, not bad for only an addition 14 students in clinic per day, this clinic is slated to open in August, but will most likely get pushed back a month or so. I addition the clinic in north Miami will be set up more like a private practice, allowing students to see more patients per day = more procedures completed. There are also more clinic chair projects in the works, but they want to get this one up and running before working on anything else, so problems of the second year’s even larger class size are already being worked on. There are eventual plans for a new post doc clinic to be built, opening the entire second floor to predoc clinic, but this won’t be done for years. Currently in the clinic I have not had any problems booking chairs in clinic and there haven’t been any fights for chairs, I know things will probably pick up in fall, but so far no problems. Everything else brought up in this thread are sort of non-issues, but I’ll touch on them anyways. Lets see, endo course along with many courses are slightly disorganized and for a lot of things they just want you to dive in and figure it out, its slightly stressful, but looking back it was a pretty good way to learn, I realize some people aren’t good at this and like to get their hands held through all the steps, but if they did this then dental school would probably be 6 six years and require 4x the amount of faculty (you’ll get used to it and still get a good education). The class room chairs sounds like a problem with your class size and I’ll personally bring it up at the student government meeting tonight to see if its been solved yet (not that I think sitting in desks on the side is that big of a deal). First years give tours because third and four years are either seeing patients and cleaning up until well after 12 or setting up for an afternoon patient by 1230. Stealing endo teeth, well sorry it happened, but it never happened in my class, but your class is a lot more cut throat. Time for board studying – 4 weeks off at beginning of summer, then classes all day mon, wed and I think you guys have class for an hour on Tues and Thurs = plenty of time to study. As far as the janitor strike, I have no idea what that has to do with anything. The endo cheating thing from a while back was just stupid and not even worth talking about. Ok, not sure if I missed things and I don’t really come on here much so I probably wouldn’t check back on this thread for a while. If you have any questions for me your best bet is to pm me, sorry if I offended anyone. Also its a great area to live in, a little hot in the summer, it is flat, and the people could be nicer, but other than that its great.
 
Oh boy, where do I start on this forum, I wish I would have found it earlier and I hope I remember to cover everything that’s been talked about. I’m a third year at nova and let me tell you, it is not that bad. You have to realize that every class at every school has a few people that will absolutely hate everything about their school, in this case we have a few who have decided to post on SDN I guess to get the school back, not to mention the second year class is already know by faculty and administration as the class that complains about everything. First of all, yes there are problems at nova, just like there are at all dental schools, but they are trying to be solved. Adding new IGD students without having more faculty and clinic chairs first was a bad idea, but they are in the process of hiring faculty and many things are in the works for clinic chairs. Lets set the additional student situation straight first; first year classes at nova are 105 students, they used to fill the spots of students that dropped out or that were held back with IGD students usually 5-10 making the class size remain 105, with my class they added new sim lab chairs allowing for a class size of 119 and we have about 19 IGDs. In the second year class they added more sim lab chairs so their class will be ~135 with ~35 IGD students. To help solve the clinic chair problem they are opening a 4th year clinic in north Miami beach (about a 30 minute drive from nova) this clinic will have 21-25 chairs opening 21-25 chairs in the predoc clinic at school per day, not bad for only an addition 14 students in clinic per day, this clinic is slated to open in August, but will most likely get pushed back a month or so. I addition the clinic in north Miami will be set up more like a private practice, allowing students to see more patients per day = more procedures completed. There are also more clinic chair projects in the works, but they want to get this one up and running before working on anything else, so problems of the second year’s even larger class size are already being worked on. There are eventual plans for a new post doc clinic to be built, opening the entire second floor to predoc clinic, but this won’t be done for years. Currently in the clinic I have not had any problems booking chairs in clinic and there haven’t been any fights for chairs, I know things will probably pick up in fall, but so far no problems. Everything else brought up in this thread are sort of non-issues, but I’ll touch on them anyways. Lets see, endo course along with many courses are slightly disorganized and for a lot of things they just want you to dive in and figure it out, its slightly stressful, but looking back it was a pretty good way to learn, I realize some people aren’t good at this and like to get their hands held through all the steps, but if they did this then dental school would probably be 6 six years and require 4x the amount of faculty (you’ll get used to it and still get a good education). The class room chairs sounds like a problem with your class size and I’ll personally bring it up at the student government meeting tonight to see if its been solved yet (not that I think sitting in desks on the side is that big of a deal). First years give tours because third and four years are either seeing patients and cleaning up until well after 12 or setting up for an afternoon patient by 1230. Stealing endo teeth, well sorry it happened, but it never happened in my class, but your class is a lot more cut throat. Time for board studying – 4 weeks off at beginning of summer, then classes all day mon, wed and I think you guys have class for an hour on Tues and Thurs = plenty of time to study. As far as the janitor strike, I have no idea what that has to do with anything. The endo cheating thing from a while back was just stupid and not even worth talking about. Ok, not sure if I missed things and I don’t really come on here much so I probably wouldn’t check back on this thread for a while. If you have any questions for me your best bet is to pm me, sorry if I offended anyone. Also its a great area to live in, a little hot in the summer, it is flat, and the people could be nicer, but other than that its great.

paragraphs :idea:
 
Well I needed a break from studying for the boards and this thread definitely served that purpose. Anyway her is my response.

First let me start with the positives...
For the most part I love my class. It is filled with a very diverse group of people who really get along quite well. Overall most people work very hard to do well, but we share a lot of info and there is no shortage of helping each other out. I think Nova has done an excellent job in choosing students, at least from my year. For what it's worth, as difficult as our clinic situation may be, most of the 4th years I knew that just graduated felt very confident in there skills acquired at Nova.

I too am a 2nd year at Nova. In fact I'm the class president so I am very much aware of these issues. Most of what the OP posted is very true. We have more students now and the same clinical chair space as before, so yes that is scarry. But for what it's worth we are trying to change things.

This fall our Miami Beach Clinic will be used for 4th year clinical rotations. So that will be at least an additional 20 chairs every day. Also on this rotation you will have the chair for the entire day. So instead of only seeing one or two patients a day, you will have the oppurtunity to see 3,4, or even 5 patients if possble.

There is also talk of building a new clinic, but I hate to speculate on time frame. I hope it is true as there is a lot of revenue coming in from all of the additional IDG students.

The seat situation is classes is a ridiculous issue but in reality hasn't been a problem because we never have a 100% attendance. That being said, SGA is working to fix the situation.

As far as faculty goes, that is definitely a problem. However it is much worse in the summer when many of the part time faculty take vacations.

I'm tired and need to go to bed...but for anyone looking into Nova....

There are many issues here we are working on and yes, some of it is very frustrating. That being said, I do believe that Nova will prepare me to be a great dentist and I am going to do everything I can ensure that that happens.

To AnnonymousNova, please feel free to private message me any more of your complaints and I will see what I can do. The administration knows of most of the problems but I agree that they need to let us know that they are working to remedy these issues.

Good Luck studying for boards!
 
I am also a D2 at Nova and I have had a great first year. I have felt like the faculty has been more than willing to help. I have seen many professors stay an hour past five to help students with their projects. The international students are dentists from other countries. They have alot of experience and they have taught me alot. It is almost like having 28 extra professors in our class. I have heard that the clinic has a few problems, but if you are half way organized you shouldn't have many problems. Most of the upperclassmen that had problems in clinic are those that took every other day off. The faculty are tryng to make more room for the extra students, and I am sure it will be fine by the time D2s get to clinic next year. Nova wants to be the best and is constantly trying new things. The clinic just went paperless, all patient charts are going to be electronic. Its a pain for the students that had to learn a new system, but it will be better for me and everyone after me. This school is always growing and changing. It is difficult to have everything perfect especially in the midst of change. If your are lazy and have a nack for complaining I am sure you wont like Nova or any other school either. Most of the D2s' that I have spoken with are very happy here.
 
(Sigh. I gave up SDN once I got into dental school. I thought I would never again have to sift through the “hearsay” comments and dental school “rankings” in hopes of finding that golden nugget of information that might help my chances of acceptance…

…but when I heard on our NSU website about what was going on I figure I had to say some good words about NSU.)

I am a third year student like JMJFB23 (we’re in the same class – best class ever!) and I like NOVA. I’ve gotten a great education (prepared me well for part one of the boards) and made a lot of good friends. It has also provided me with the opportunity to travel a lot for ASDA events. During these trips I’ve met a lot of dental students from other schools and I’ve found that everyone has something to complain about. It helps to put things in perspective when I hear about issues (professor shortages, clinic requirement, booking chairs, raised tuition, etc.) from students at OTHER SCHOOLS.

I do my fair share of complaining with my friends at NSU. If something really concerns me I’ll let SGA know. (But, most likely, they are already working on it.)

Dental school, in general, pretty much sucks. It’s like a job but you’re paying them to be there. But Nova Southeastern is a great school (as in you will be a great, well prepared dentist one day) and anyone who gets in should strongly consider attending.

Good luck with your applications. J
 
Nova is a "beginner" dental school that has a long way to go before it will compare to other dental schools that have more experience. If you can go somewhere else, you will be doing yourself a favor.
 
ouch. Nova has come a far way.
 
I'm a starting D2 at Nova and absolutely love it here! If you don't like it, you don't have to apply...either way I love the clinical experience, the amazing faculty, and everything else about this school.

If you are thinking of applying to NSU, and your not sure, I'd be more than happy to give anyone a personal tour of the school or answer any questions regarding the program.

Best of luck to everyone!

Samin Eftekhari
[email protected]


Hey all, im a D-1 at Nova, and since we have D-2,3,&4 represented here, I thought i'd jump in. So far my experience (although not as lengthy as the upper classmen) at Nova has been great for the most part.... Are there a couple of "bugs" in the system, sure, find me a school that is 100% perfect, but they are aware of the problems at Nova, they address them head on and work to fix them.. (for example, if we have too many over lapping exams, they move them around to not overwhelm us) I have heard about the chair problem and it has been addressed many times that they are working to fix it (you don't just open a new clinic over night) as for seats in the class room, i've never had a problem or seen one of my classes that didnt have empty seats if need be.... My whole class works together, everyone is friendly toward each other and the faculty is very helpful if you need them.. I can't tell you how many times i've gone to visit a professor to go over a test, ask questions, etc... All in all, im really happy with my choice in Nova, I would do it again and im grateful they accepted me.. I feel like they are doing their part, preparing me to be a dentist..
 
Sorry to bring up an old thread but has the situation changed at NOVA with regard to all the negative aspects?
 
Sorry to bring up an old thread but has the situation changed at NOVA with regard to all the negative aspects?

...It's bad to bring back these types of threads back up. 😀
I sort of feel like the person who made was just trying to open some spots in Nova for a waitlisted friend. Maybe it is just me.
 
...It's bad to bring back these types of threads back up. 😀
I sort of feel like the person who made was just trying to open some spots in Nova for a waitlisted friend. Maybe it is just me.

Maybe he was upset for not receiving the grades in first year and second year was already beginning to take a toll on him.
 
I am also a D2 at Nova and I have had a great first year. I have felt like the faculty has been more than willing to help. I have seen many professors stay an hour past five to help students with their projects. The international students are dentists from other countries. They have alot of experience and they have taught me alot. It is almost like having 28 extra professors in our class. I have heard that the clinic has a few problems, but if you are half way organized you shouldn't have many problems. Most of the upperclassmen that had problems in clinic are those that took every other day off. The faculty are tryng to make more room for the extra students, and I am sure it will be fine by the time D2s get to clinic next year. Nova wants to be the best and is constantly trying new things. The clinic just went paperless, all patient charts are going to be electronic. Its a pain for the students that had to learn a new system, but it will be better for me and everyone after me. This school is always growing and changing. It is difficult to have everything perfect especially in the midst of change. If your are lazy and have a nack for complaining I am sure you wont like Nova or any other school either. Most of the D2s' that I have spoken with are very happy here.


I can attest to this!!! A good portion of the faculty stays behind well after 5pm if we need help. And the international students have helped big time as well.

Overall Dental school in general is gonna suck no matter where you go- first 2 years suck the most, third year is considered the fun year (so i've heard), and fourth year everyone is running around to finish all their reqs.
 
FYI, class of 2012 is the best class at NOVA!!! No point in denying it buddy!!!

😀
 
i know it is an old thread. But wondering if any Nova students can tell me how the program at Nova right now so far.
Thanks for the help
 
Go ahead and ask a specific question- I'm a D2. There are several D1's, D2's, and D3's here...
 
is Nova still like what the OP described it to be?
 
Here is a major problem with people in our society and you, Tah-E, are included here. Too many people now days don't care. They think like you do and say suck it up when there is an obvious problem. Instead of trying to fix a problem, they say it is not my problem to deal with or I cannot do anything about it and the problem continues. Then down the line when another person complais about the issue, they say suck it up, deal with it, chill out about it, ect. I had to deal with it, so you can too. WHY? If there is a problem, do something about it. Don't defend the problem. You can agree there is problem without publically chastising a person for wanting to inform pre-dents that there is a major problem. You agree there is a problem, so why tell the OP to grow some balls and suck it up or withdraw from the program. The OP wants to be a dentist and is sucking it up, but he has the freedom here to anonymously inform people of the situation at the school without fear of being reprimanded or blacklisted by administration and faculty.
My 10 cents.
Amen!!!!!👍
 
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