Penn vs Tufts

[eagle21]

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I've been accepted to both Tufts and Penn and have been debating over them for awhile now and wanted to see if anyone else might have been/ is currently in my situation right now and would mind sharing their thought process during their own decision.

I interviewed at Tufts first and they were the happiest student body I've seen throughout all of my interviews. They were the only school where I also liked the other candidates. I've heard that Tufts really focuses on making good clinicians. I'm thinking I'll do a GPR/ AEGD and then go into private practice, but I'd like to keep my options open if I do end up wanting to specialize. I'm hung up on Penn because of their high success rate of placement into specialty programs, new renovations, and prestige. Most other factors seem pretty equal between the two schools for me. I don't want cost to influence my decision.

Does anyone know how nice/ supportive/ helpful the faculty is at either school? Does anyone know how much the Penn renovations would really affect the class of 2020? I'm worried we'd be stuck in the construction which would be even worse than just having the old facilities.

Thank you!

 

[Biden_white]

Word on the street is, Tufts has been making alot of (IMO very good) changes to their curriculum - with most set to take effect next year, for the class of 2020 (internally it's called the Tufts 20/20 Curriculum)

Tufts is moving to a complete (Systems-Based) Pass/Fail curriculum (with internal ranking) next year, with the advent of the ADAT and CBSE for Oral Surgery. Most people here don't remember this, but Tufts actually used to be pass/fail up until ~2011. When boards went pass/fail, the administration switched to grades.

They're also moving to a complete organ systems-based curriculum, integrating medicine, pharmacology, histology, physio, etc for each organ system, mirroring the medical school (which started doing this ~5 years ago). Seeing as how many of the basic sciences courses are taught by the same professors, this presumably makes their lives easier. Certain classes, like gross anatomy and biochem, will remain separate, since these lend themselves to being taught as a course.

Presumably this puts Tufts (back) on the same level as Harvard, Uconn, Stony with regards to medical knowledge integrated into the curriculum, giving those who want to specialize a leg up with extra information (not to mention the amazing board/exam review).



Tufts is pretty much the "More clinical, less researched based" cousin to Upenn or Columbia. Not everyone was to do research, and for alot of reasons, it largely doest make any difference when trying to match into a residency (residency directors don't really care, dentistry is mostly a procedure-driven field).

Also - The people at Tufts absolutely love it - the faculty and administration if probably the best in the nation with all the support. The school basically runs the New England area - when it comes down either BU, with instructors yelling at students making them cry (just joking... kind of), to Harvard dental, which is pretty much non-existant, patients usually pick Tufts, which is more well known.

Several people I know at Penn absolutely hate their lives, and others who absolutely love it. It comes down to what you want - they both offer many different opportunities - but I'd like to think Tufts has a better balance. That said, Penn definitely has better research opportunities if thats your thing

 

[Incis0r]

Word on the street is, Tufts has been making alot of (IMO very good) changes to their curriculum - with most set to take effect next year, for the class of 2020 (internally it's called the Tufts 20/20 Curriculum)

Tufts is moving to a complete (Systems-Based) Pass/Fail curriculum (with internal ranking) next year, with the advent of the ADAT and CBSE for Oral Surgery. Most people here don't remember this, but Tufts actually used to be pass/fail up until ~2011. When boards went pass/fail, the administration switched to grades.

They're also moving to a complete organ systems-based curriculum, integrating medicine, pharmacology, histology, physio, etc for each organ system, mirroring the medical school (which started doing this ~5 years ago). Seeing as how many of the basic sciences courses are taught by the same professors, this presumably makes their lives easier. Certain classes, like gross anatomy and biochem, will remain separate, since these lend themselves to being taught as a course.

Wow that is fantastic!!! I've done a lot of research on Tufts and never came across the P/F or the systems based curriculum. I looked it up but couldn't find any mention of P/F....could you share your source for this please? I checked here:http://dental.tufts.edu/academics/curriculum/

 

[The OMFS]

That said, Penn definitely has better research opportunities if thats your thing

And who cares? Ask the Penn students and you will find that less than 5% of the class does any sort of research.

 

[settingthefacts]

Word on the street is, Tufts has been making alot of (IMO very good) changes to their curriculum - with most set to take effect next year, for the class of 2020 (internally it's called the Tufts 20/20 Curriculum)

Tufts is moving to a complete (Systems-Based) Pass/Fail curriculum (with internal ranking) next year, with the advent of the ADAT and CBSE for Oral Surgery. Most people here don't remember this, but Tufts actually used to be pass/fail up until ~2011. When boards went pass/fail, the administration switched to grades.

They're also moving to a complete organ systems-based curriculum, integrating medicine, pharmacology, histology, physio, etc for each organ system, mirroring the medical school (which started doing this ~5 years ago). Seeing as how many of the basic sciences courses are taught by the same professors, this presumably makes their lives easier. Certain classes, like gross anatomy and biochem, will remain separate, since these lend themselves to being taught as a course.

Presumably this puts Tufts (back) on the same level as Harvard, Uconn, Stony with regards to medical knowledge integrated into the curriculum, giving those who want to specialize a leg up with extra information (not to mention the amazing board/exam review).



Tufts is pretty much the "More clinical, less researched based" cousin to Upenn or Columbia. Not everyone was to do research, and for alot of reasons, it largely doest make any difference when trying to match into a residency (residency directors don't really care, dentistry is mostly a procedure-driven field).

Also - The people at Tufts absolutely love it - the faculty and administration if probably the best in the nation with all the support. The school basically runs the New England area - when it comes down either BU, with instructors yelling at students making them cry (just joking... kind of), to Harvard dental, which is pretty much non-existant, patients usually pick Tufts, which is more well known.

Several people I know at Penn absolutely hate their lives, and others who absolutely love it. It comes down to what you want - they both offer many different opportunities - but I'd like to think Tufts has a better balance. That said, Penn definitely has better research opportunities if thats your thing

Speaking as someone who probably has more experience with Tufts than you...

Yes, they are going Pass/Fail (a good thing!), but it will NOT apply to all four years of your time there. Details are still being worked out. Of course, they have to try and make some of it P/F considering how subjective and ridiculous the grading is now from department to department, faculty to faculty, and even from student to student.

Yes, they are moving to an organ based system style of teaching, but they are struggling with how to execute this. Don't expect this to be a good thing any time soon.

Also, it's completely laughable that you compared the level of medical knowledge a Tufts student would have compared with Harvard, UCONN, and Columbia. Stony Brook doesn't belong among those three. There are lots of dental schools that teach a systems based approach, that doesn't equate it with medical school. The depth of knowledge simply isn't there at these other dental schools and that certainly includes Tufts. The basic sciences are weak here. It's a very good clinical school, I'd argue in one of the top tier among other dental schools, but I maintain that, that doesn't matter at the end of the day. One year out of school and you'll more than make up the difference as long as you had a solid conceptual education and exposure to how to do things properly. Tufts will do that.