Private vs State School for Specializing

[theleatherwalle]

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Hello

I have a question after getting into a debate with one of my friends. Given the situation that a dental school applicant has a 20+ DAT and has been accepted to his state school and an older more prestigious private school, which should he choose. This is not a money debate or a comfort of living debate. My main question was this. I do wish to specialize, and his father who is a specialist told me that state school matriculants often have much greater difficulty specializing than private school matriculants. I asked why, and he basically said they usually have less chairs for specialization and private schools tend to prefer applicants that went to their school for specialty seats. He basically said a state school's job is to crank out dentists not pedo, ortho, endo ect. Anyway, I wanted multiple people opinion on this matter. I wasn't sure to post in the dental or pre-dental forum. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Sublimazing]

Things to Consider:

-Percentage of Students who Matched to a Specialty from the previous 5 years or so
-Percentage of Students who applied to a Specialty from the previous 5 years or so
-Which school will you potentially be able to get a higher GPA at
-Does the school have the specialty you are shooting for
-Does the school offer ample clinical opportunity as a pre-doc in that specialty
-Does the school have clubs/events/ECs geared towards that specialty
-Does the school have someone well known in that field that you might be able to get a LOR from
-Does the school allow students time to do externships (depending on the specialty)

 

[theleatherwalle]

Thanks for the response. Would you say generally the advice he gave was correct? I think these would have been some good questions to ask the selection committee during dent school interviews

 

[poki]

if you look more closely at the stats, the broad statement that state schools primarily train general dentists and private schools train more specialists is not true...

case in point, in California, most graduates of USC and UOP (both private schools) become general dentists

UCSF and UCLA are state schools yet are known for getting more students into specialty programs

some graduating classes at UCLA have 16 or so going into ortho programs

I know that UConn also has a very high specialization rate and I'm sure there are many other public schools that do as well

 

[DrDDSman]

Some private schools have a low specialization rate, some public schools have a high specialization rate. I've shadowed and know specialists/residents from various schools (Temple, Maryland, NYU, Penn, etc). Some schools don't give preference to their grads for specialty programs. I think i heard this for one of the recent NYU ortho residency classes.

 

[dentalprodigy]

Whats the word on UMDNJ's general trend for specialization?

Thx

 

[theleatherwalle]

Okay thanks for the info. It has been awhile since this guy has gone through dental school+specialty work so i guess his information may be outdated. I will say this though. I'm not sure UCLA and UCSF represent "general" state schools. Both those schools have DAT's way above the average state school+California is extremely competitive. By the average, I mean a school like Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kentucky, ect (No offense to anyone who goes there. SDN can get kinda crazy from what i've noticed lurking). Does anyone have any information about specialty rates at dental schools. Doc toothache any input would be greatly appreciated.