Ok, so I looked at your school online and here is my opinion. Take it as you wish, but I have some experience with transferring from a cc to a university and the last thing you want is to transfer and the credits that you've taken either 1) not transfer at all, or 2) not apply to your general education/university requirements and then the 4 year school require you to complete further gen Ed. Sooo...that being said, I'd honestly recommend that you choose the DTA (Direct Transfer Agreement) option. This would be the pre-nursing program. If I hadn't looked at your school specifically I would never have advised pre-nursing because dental hygiene seemed like the obvious choice BUT your school is set up so that if you do the pre-nursing DTA option, when you're finished you'll be ready to transfer to a 4 year university with junior status and will basically get a "check mark" with your Associate degree that says "you've fulfilled all the necessary gen Ed requirements and even if things are missing that we require it no longer matters because we participate in the DTA. Therefore, with your Associate of Applied Science (AAS) in pre-nursing, you are now a junior at our school and can now choose a major, take your dental school prerequisites and you haven't lost any credits or time by being at the technical college."
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I hope that makes some sense. Dental hygiene, although giving you knowledge of the field, will actually set you back time-wise in finishing your degree (because it doesn't offer the DTA option) and prerequisites and essentially in applying to dental school. Your best bet is to go pre-nursing and kick butt. Get straight A's or as close as possible. Then transfer to the university, major in something like biology, chemistry, nutrition (some good science background), keep your GPA high, get involved in your pre-dental society on campus, volunteer and shadow with dentists (start doing these things as soon as you transfer to the university), etc. If you stay focused and make the grades, score well on your DAT, I think you'll be just fine. Just be sure to save your prerequisites (chem, bio, OChem, physics) for the university to show the admissions committees that you can handle those courses at a university level.
If you have any more questions let me know! Hope that helps a little. And here's a link to more info about the DTA. It basically lets students transfer from a community or technical college to a 4 year institution without running into problems with credit, just as long as you complete the AAS with the DTA option. In my state we have the same program but it just has a different name...
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http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/transfers/trans_ada.php
