Most Recent Dental School Ranking in US

[Double Bonded]

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So...I was very lucky enough to be accepted to a couple schools on Dec.1st. I already declined Louisville, ASDOH and VCU, but still deciding between three dental schools (Tufts, USC and Maryland) now.... As I was doing some research on these schools, I found this interesting dental school ranking list. Feel free to check it out.


http://dentalschools.wordpress.com/


13 University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine
13 University of Southern California School of Dentistry
13 Oregon Health and Science University School of Dentistry
16 Louisiana State University School of Dentistry
16 University of Nevada Las Vegas School of Dental Medicine
......

Come on, USC ≠ Pitt or OHSU.

From the article:

The methodology involved the use of GPA, DAT scores, technology used at the dental schools, academic reputation, Part I board scores, and tuition.

Let's go with GPA, DAT scores, tuition (non-resident for 4 years), and class size...I'll leave academic reputation out of it, although we all know which 1 out of the 3 doesn't belong.

USC
GPA: 3.25/3.2
DAT: 19/19
Class Size: 144
Tuition: $256,399

Pitt
GPA: 3.61/3.55
DAT: 20/20
Class Size: 80
Tuition: $173,888

OHSU
GPA: 3.65/3.55
DAT: 19/20
Class Size: 75
Tuition: $187,112


What a stupid list.

 

[wired202808]

Weren't you the dude that was bragging up and down this forum about your RC score on the DAT?


Try re-reading what I wrote and get back to me.

im done with you 🙂

 

[FLOSS UR TEETH]

Dental schools will be ranked in the future.

 

[TheClutch]

its so hard to compare dental schools though. each every school is unique

 

[DentalJedi]

its so hard to compare dental schools though. each every school is unique

Agreed. You'd have to do 2 different ranking systems I think. One for research and one for clinical, otherwise it would be impossible to tell what's "best."

Also, can we drop this "does the school you go to matter" bs. Use some common sense and you'll see that yes it matters to some people, but most people won't care. People use all kinds of stupid things to decide what doctor/dentist to see. For instance, my sister picked her dentist based on which office was nicest to her on the phone and how organized the waiting room was, and for her kids' pediatrician she did research on what school each doctor went to. She is kind of a special case because my family has a high frequency of kidney disease, so she took it very seriously. But still, alma mater will matter at times, but 95+% of the time it won't. Everyone here knows that, I don't even understand what you're all arguing about.

 

[SupDanLOL]

its so hard to compare dental schools though. each every school is unique

Dude/dudette... every school is unique-- and yet they get ranked, nonetheless. But should they?

I think rankings of overall universities are even less telling. At least rating a specific college/program within a university enables the reader to make a more informed decision.

e.g., Yale is always ranked incredibly high as a University. It's a great school. But if you're my roommate, and you're applying to PhD Inorganic Chemistry programs... well then, it's not too highly regarded within that specific academic community.

Which is why I think the more specific the ratings the better. Perhaps rank clinic/didactics/research/specializing, etc. separately.

 

[white fang]

Go buffs...had to finally make an account to rep Colorado at #3!

(even though the list is probably way off, good to see them so high)

 

[HBaller]

Go buffs...had to finally make an account to rep Colorado at #3!

(even though the list is probably way off, good to see them so high)

👍

 

[Bereno]

Funny list. I think its unfortunate that many people are going to read this post, with no knowledge of the dental school world and think its legit. IMO Temple is far from the bottom, and I think UW is far from the top haha 🙂

 

[Tootyfruity]

Hah

 

[iralex801]

An SDN original debate

I'll chime in though. I don't think it matters where you go in terms of your future success. However, it is just a better experience (happier, better faculty, new equipment, more research opportunities, better clinical experience etc, etc) at some D-schools than others. I don't know about you, but I just went to the dentist my parents take me too, which happens to be the closest one to where I live lol.

 

[Kentuckylover]

An SDN original debate

I'll chime in though. I don't think it matters where you go in terms of your future success. However, it is just a better experience (happier, better faculty, new equipment, more research opportunities, better clinical experience etc, etc) at some D-schools than others. I don't know about you, but I just went to the dentist my parents take me too, which happens to be the closest one to where I live lol.

Like

 

[Double Bonded]

Funny list. I think its unfortunate that many people are going to read this post, with no knowledge of the dental school world and think its legit. IMO Temple is far from the bottom, and I think UW is far from the top haha 🙂

Agreed. I was looking through this list again and didn't realize how low Temple was. I withdrew from there but clearly the author of this list didn't do his or her research when arbitrarily ranking these schools.

 

[planisphere]

why even bother reading this post

 

[omnipoDent]

Dental schools will be ranked in the future.

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.

View attachment 18718

 

[FanOfCostco]

Curious: Has anyone's beliefs changed since the beginning of this thread and now (hopefully after experiencing Dental school)

This post is from 2012. Go back to bed.

 

[sobertiger]

Curious: Has anyone's beliefs changed since the beginning of this thread and now (hopefully after experiencing Dental school)

Dental school rankings are meaningless

Sent from my XT1575 using SDN mobile

 

[sgv]

Learn to be a more convenient member of my species



I realize this. However, I am curious to know how content anyone is with the experience they have had with the dental school of their choice and if they ever found themselves doubting or questioning their decision.

Anyone can come up with complaints about their own school. There's always a little buyer's remorse with any school. Sure, there might be some schools that have better clinical education either with sufficient number of cases or available chairs for clinic or additional clinic time or expanded exposure to more difficult procedures. But you will NEVER get an answer as to what school is the best school. This isn't like buying a car or a computer which people do multiple times in their lifetime and have a multitude of experience as a consumer. You only go to dental school ONCE. So there's almost no one out there who can say they've attended more than one school to make a comparison.

The closest thing you can do to finding out the best school is finding out the average number of cases and diversity of cases per dental student. Which is impossible because this is a safely guarded secret which no dental school that I know of will provide openly. What complicates this even more is that many dental schools have group practice models where they split up the class into various groups functioning like an individual practice. Depending on the group you are assigned to you may get crappy experience doing fillings and almost no fixed prosth., or you will get the very best experience and do 3 x as many fixed prosth. cases as another student. Or you may very likely get attendings with very little clinical competence in your group which is a very likely scenario in dental school which tends to attract these types of people. There's a national shortage of academic dentists so schools will hire almost anyone because they're desperate.

For the most part, almost any dental school experience is sufficient (except for Howard...I've heard terrible things...). So most people do the smart thing and go to the most affordable school possible.