- Largest provider of dental care to the underserved in the state of Connecticut. In 2009-10:
- 139,000 total patient visits
- 94,000 patient visits at the Farmington campus clinics
- 45,000 patient visits at affiliated sites
- 18,000 visits for children under 18 years of age; largest single provider of dental services to Medicaid-covered children in Connecticut
- 68% of those served on public assistance
- Largest provider of emergency dental services to adult Medicaid clients in Connecticut
- In 2009-2010, provided an estimated $6.6 million of uncompensated dental care to citizens in need
This is the main number that we should be concerned about because those are the possible patients that you will see.
Let's face it, every single dental school will pull marketing tricks to make themselves seem more attractive. This entire application process is a two-way street. Not only do we as applicants need to appear attractive, so do the schools!
Number is pretty good though! I believe its relatively reasonable since they are the only dental school in that state.
If columbia did not exist, NYU's number would go up even more...
😉
Its not just the Farmington campus that students use. I was under the impression that the d3 and d4 students go to a lot of different facilities that are associated with the school. Either way, its not lacking patients lol
you will not find hardcore gunners in my class. yes ppl may seem ditsy, yes ppl may seem concerned more with their social life sometimes, but dont let that mislead you. our class is straight up full of geniuses. nova did a very good job in picking the c/o 2015. everyone i've talked to has like 21+ on their dat's. out of the 115 students i can honestly say there are no socially awkward nerd-type students. dont judge a book by its cover, you might think someone is not that smart based on first impressions, give them a test and they'll ace it. our class averages for exams are ridic high. i was considered very smart in my undergrad, but now im considered avg here. you gotta realize its not all books and test to get into dental school, let alone be a good dentist.
about the specializing thing. dude realize dental school sucks no matter where you go. you can specialize from anywhere you just have to do well in all your classes and make the right connections. the only reason schools like harvard and uconn are known for specializing because those are the type of students they choose. its not the school that matters, its you.
this forum made me sorta reluctant to go to nova in the beginning. im about 2 months into it and i love it here. yeah im busy as hell but i enjoy (almost) every minute of it. dont beleive everything on the forum, dental school is what you put into it. if your lazy and you want everything handed to you on a silver plate, your gonna get eaten up alive. and thats not just at nova, thats everywhere. learn to adapt and go with the flow
additional note
about the patient pool thing, this is how it works. when you start clinic 3rd year you get assigned 5 patients at a time. now the ppl who complain and say nova doesnt have enough patients are frustrated because their patients cancel on them or are no-shows. this is the time where you gotta put in EFFORT. either drop those patients immediatly and get new ones, or constantly chase them trying to get them to come in. its not that nova has a small patient pool, hell is actually got a huge one. the problem is patients dont show up and **** over students. the responsibilty falls on the student to go ahead and manage his patient list. if your proactive and learn to manage your patients well you'll get plenty of experience.
Thanks for the heads up, its always good to hear from current students.
👍 I guess I should clarify my comments above. I'm not concerned with now smart the students are... Like you said, a lot of them might be very smart! The thing I'm more concerned with is how focused I'm going to be in dental school. After all, I am paying a butt-load of money to get a professional degree. I am nearly done with undergraduate, and am looking forward to attending a professional school. I dont want to expect 4 more years of undergraduate haha. Who knows though, that might be what its like at most schools... I am honestly ignorant of that because I have only interviewed at one school. Once again, these were merely my impressions, not facts.
🙂
hey i have one more question...
did the D1 students showed you guys around again? seems like that was the case last year
and what was your impression on their clinics?
thanks!
Yeah, it was D1 showing us around... I would have preferred D4, or even D3, but we had D1. I did get a few questions shot off at a D3, so that was nice
😀 The clinics seemed average for a dental school. A lot of schools are renovating, so even with a good clinic, there are some amazing ones at other schools. This said, the clinics seemed very capable, no problem there.
I actually see what you wrote here as a positive. A student body where everyone is happy and not always worried about school? That seems like heaven to me lol. I'm sure these students are smart because they got accepted into dental school. The way you describe them is pretty similar to how I act. I come off ass dumb also if you met me in person. I sit in the back of class, sleep during class, skip class, play games on my iphone during class, talk like I'm uneducated, wait to the last minute to study, etc but I'm not dumb.
I tried to show that I like that the students are happy - I also think this is a good thing, and this is one of the better attributes about this school! This might sound weird, but I was expecting the students to talk about dentistry, or patients, or medicine, or something of that nature, but they never did. They talked about what football teams were playing or about the time they went out to Miami, etc. This made it seem like they were simply getting the degree, and were not terribly passionate about the subject(s) they are studying... Its hard to convey my point via writing, but I hope it is at least a little apparent haha. Once again, these are only my impressions, not facts lol
This may be a wild idea but....
could it be possible that the students were instructed to make a concerted effort at appearing happy and positive on interview days for the sake of the program?
I doubt it
number of patient visits is different from the number of patients.
True. I wonder how many schools publish # of patients, vs # of patient visits. Also, I think another important statistic to consider if comparing these is patient retention (# of repeat patients, and/or number of visits per patient, etc). Either way though, UConn has plenty of patients for sure.
