Rank the Dental Schools

[ItsGavinC]

I wouldnt be surprised most people who are against the rankings did not get accepted to the aforementioned top programs, UCLA, UOP, UCSF, HARVARD, UPENN.

That logic holds no water. By the very nature of the argument, those students probably didn't even APPLY to those schools.

Incidently, you're taking those 5 schools that somebody else mentioned and already holding them up above other schools. Those are NOT the top dental programs in the country, by any stretch of the imagination. Case in point, since those in favor of rankings put so much faith in stats: the school that consistantly ranks the highest in NBDE 2 scores (and rocked then nation once again this past year) isn't even on that list.

I'll say it again: you guys can rank schools all you want until you're blue in the face. Pre-dents are really the only ones who care.

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[DREDAY]

That logic holds no water. By the very nature of the argument, those students probably didn't even APPLY to those schools.

Incidently, you're taking those 5 schools that somebody else mentioned and already holding them up above other schools. Those are NOT the top dental programs in the country, by any stretch of the imagination.

I'll say it again: you guys can rank schools all you want until you're blue in the face. Pre-dents are really the only ones who care.

ohhh but i bet they did

 

[ItsGavinC]

ohhh but i bet they did

But probably not.

 

[DREDAY]

they are the most sought after dental schools. look at the applicant number stats.

 

[DREDAY]

and the numbers would be higher the "average entering class gpa and DAT scores were lower" to the point that more people felt they had a chance of getting in.

 

[aphistis]

they are the most sought after dental schools. look at the applicant number stats.

You're drawing a false conclusion, correlating a greater number of applicants with a higher-quality program.

 

[edkNARF]

Just for grins, from Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: ip?so fac?to
Pronunciation: 'ip-(")sO-'fak-(")tO
Function: adverb
Etymology: New Latin, literally, by the fact itself
: by that very fact or act : as an inevitable result

You just thew in ipso facto without any regard to how it is used. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ipso facto is an adverbial phrase. These are always placed between two related clasuses, and surrounded by commas. I believe it would have been proper to write:

Once you prioritize the criteria for ranking dental schools, ipso facto, there is no longer objectivity.

I usually make a point to not point our grammatical errors in posts because: 1) I frequently post without proofreading my posts, which are full of errors; and 2) I don't think the purpose of the forum to jump on people for small errors like grammar. I decided to point this out because people usually break out the latin phrases to try to make their point sound stronger by way of looking intelligent.

 

[edkNARF]

You're drawing a false conclusion, correlating a greater number of applicants with a higher-quality program.

He is correct, look up the number of applications in Official Guide to Dental Schools published by ADEA.

 

[aphistis]

He is correct, look up the number of applications in Official Guide to Dental Schools published by ADEA.

I'm not disputing that more people apply to these programs. I'm disputing his conclusion that more applicants directly correlates to having a better program.

 

[edkNARF]

I'm not disputing that more people apply to these programs. I'm disputing his conclusion that more applicants directly correlates to having a better program.

I meant you were correct aphistis. Sorry for not being clear.

 

[DREDAY]

You're drawing a false conclusion, correlating a greater number of applicants with a higher-quality program.

no im correlating greater number of applicants with most desirable dental schools!! and since those schools are the most desirable dental schools, says that based on the overall consensus is that they provide the best dental programs.

 

[aphistis]

You just thew in ipso facto without any regard to how it is used. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ipso facto is an adverbial phrase. These are always placed between two related clasuses, and surrounded by commas. I believe it would have been proper to write:

Once you prioritize the criteria for ranking dental schools, ipso facto, there is no longer objectivity.

I usually make a point to not point our grammatical errors in posts because: 1) I frequently post without proofreading my posts, which are full of errors; and 2) I don't think the purpose of the forum to jump on people for small errors like grammar. I decided to point this out because people usually break out the latin phrases to try to make their point sound stronger by way of looking intelligent.

Sorry, but I'm calling that one out as inconsequential hair-splitting. If the best rebuttal someone can come up with is "you're trying to sound smarter than you are because you didn't bound your adverbial phrase in commas," I can live with that.

 

[aphistis]

no im correlating greater number of applicants with most desirable dental schools!! and since those schools are the most desirable dental schools, says that based on the overall consensus is that they provide the best dental programs.

Right, and for most of recorded history, overall consensus held the sun revolved around the earth, which itself was a flat disk. Did it make either of those so?

 

[aphistis]

I meant you were correct aphistis. Sorry for not being clear.

Righto. Sorry 'bout that.

 

[DREDAY]

Right, and for most of recorded history, overall consensus held the sun revolved around the earth, which itself was a flat disk. Did it make either of those so?

and also if you speak to the admissions committe at UCLA for example 90% of the people they accept end up going there. meaning that the large number of their applicant pool do think that UCLA is the best dental school.

 

[Bullfan16]

I want (and I would hope other want) to be the best, and not just get in and just graduate.

Seeing that you are a pre dental student, poll some of the D1s-D4s. Propose this statement to them. I am pretty confident most would say once they got in, most of them just wanted to get through, learn the stuff that they had to and tried to graduate as soon as possible. With the exception of Harvard most people graduate and become GP's. From what I have heard only the top 10-20% of each class goes on to specialize (with the exception of the schools that place an emphasis on placing their graduates into post-grad residencies). As an example (and I have asked him this before), pose this question to Zurik. I know he is one person and doesnt represent everyone, but I think you are in the minority here, bud. Hell, ask your dentist. I dont think you get it because you arent in it yet (I realize I am not either, but my father, uncle, cousin have shed some light on what dental school is really like)...dental school is about survival. If you think you are going to do as well as you did in undergrad, you are in for a surprise. Wait until you get there and you might sing a different tune. If I get in, I plan on working as hard as possible to get good grades (but realize just how hard it is to do so) and just want to get through as quick as possible.

Next, I agree that interviews, extracurriculars, etc are meant to be used as screeners, however with the way that the focus of admissions has gone almost strictly to numbers, I am not so sure this person will be excluded, which is sad for whichever dental school accepts her.

I dont think anyone that has posted on this thread has insulted you. I am not sure where you got that from. Gavin posted a point that was very good, although others have said things that were similar, what gives?

Where do you get off being so arrogant? Thanks for trying to prove your point by belittling anyone who disagrees with you.

Lastly, "conceed" is spelled concede.

 

[aphistis]

and also if you speak to the admissions committe at UCLA for example 90% of the people they accept end up going there. meaning that the large number of their applicant pool do think that UCLA is the best dental school.

It's like talking to a wall, everything just kinda bounces off.

 

[Tzips]

you know that song they taught you in pre-1a? "let's be friends, make amends, now it's time to say i'm sorry"? Now, i realise that is not going to happen here - pre-dents are way to mature to need kindergarten tunes - but can we be nice, please? i know that i, for one, am incredibly stressed out now, and i suspect we're all in the same position (except for Gavin, aphistis, et al. who are beyond such worries ); so can we all just cut eachother some slack and pretend, at least, to make nice??

sorry for interrupting this very lively conversation; i just felt the need to put my $.02 in. but that's why they're public forums, right?

 

[aphistis]

Heh, yeah, but Gavin and I have an entirely different set of worries. You'll all find out about them soon enough, hopefully.

 

[Tzips]

Heh, yeah, but Gavin and I have an entirely different set of worries. You'll all find out about them soon enough, hopefully.

yay! more worries on the horizon! now at least i'm assured that i'll never have my nails interfere with my typing; the stress will ensure that they are kept very short, indeed...

<Tzips leaves, urgently searching for her protective nail polish>

 

[datguy2004]

Who do you think you are man? Listen I respect that fact that you and gavin and those other chumps that are adcoms, but what I dont respect is the fact that you and others (G, etc.) put future dental students and not to mention future colleges down? this is supposed to be a forum for support and such not to critize. I for one thing dont want an adcom like that, and I think Im talking for many on here.

Also why not rank the dental school, are you and the other adcoms worried that your school isnt top notch? right now all the dental schools are basically on the same level why not rank them, then dental schools will know where they stand and they will know how to improve their school to rank higher if they wish.... now you tell me whats the prob with that....

I agree with uclaguy (original post), seansk, and dreday.

enjoy my post, or get heated about it but thats my opinon.

datguy

Heh, yeah, but Gavin and I have an entirely different set of worries. You'll all find out about them soon enough, hopefully.

 

[aphistis]

Who do you think you are man? Listen I respect that fact that you and gavin and those other chumps that are adcoms, but what I dont respect is the fact that you and others (G, etc.) put future dental students and not to mention future colleges down? this is supposed to be a forum for support and such not to critize. I for one thing dont want an adcom like that, and I think Im talking for many on here.

What are you talking about? First and most importantly, neither Gavin nor I am on the admissions committee at our respective school. We don't have any influence on admissions decisions. Second, where in this thread have either of us put anybody down? Third, I'm assuming you mean "colleagues" and not "colleges." Yes, I called nitpicking earlier, but I think this one deserves clarification.

Also why not rank the dental school, are you and the other adcoms worried that your school isnt top notch? right now all the dental schools are basically on the same level why not rank them, then dental schools will know where they stand and they will know how to improve their school to rank higher if they wish.... now you tell me whats the prob with that....

I've been addressing the problems with that with every post I've made on this thread. I'm not going to retype everything here for you if you apparently couldn't be bothered to read it the first time. Re(?)read the thread.

 

[bspeedy00]

I haven't explicitly mentioned the reason why it's impossible because I thought it was self-evident. Off the top of my head, let's just take a handful of factors people might use in choosing a dental school: cost, GPA of admitted students, specialization rates, class size, research money, and student satisfaction. This is only 6 criteria out of literally dozens different students will use to make their decision--and even with this tightly cropped list, if you polled a hundred people you'd find them arranged in a hundred different permutations.

You list several important criteria, which should be used in the decision making process; however, there still exist objective criteria outside of the list you present. Once again, here are some: Facility/equipment (new? amount?), quality of faculty (every professor gets reviewed by the school, and some are better than others) , number of faculty (more profs means more resources for students to learn from), difficulty of courseload , practice manangement coursework? , number of research opportunities, number of international opportunities, number of experience opportunities (ie community service work) , pass rate of NDBE , percentage of students that get in to a specialty program out of those that apply in each school (this levels the variable number of people applying for said programs), quality of fellow students (you all work together in various ways, and I for one would rather work with others that work hard/are talented, etc.). These are just some, and all can be objectively applied to the various schools, because I bet that the majority of applicants would view these variables as univerally good.

 

[bspeedy00]

Seeing that you are a pre dental student, poll some of the D1s-D4s. Propose this statement to them. I am pretty confident most would say once they got in, most of them just wanted to get through, learn the stuff that they had to and tried to graduate as soon as possible. With the exception of Harvard most people graduate and become GP's. From what I have heard only the top 10-20% of each class goes on to specialize (with the exception of the schools that place an emphasis on placing their graduates into post-grad residencies). As an example (and I have asked him this before), pose this question to Zurik. I know he is one person and doesnt represent everyone, but I think you are in the minority here, bud. Hell, ask your dentist. I dont think you get it because you arent in it yet (I realize I am not either, but my father, uncle, cousin have shed some light on what dental school is really like)...dental school is about survival. If you think you are going to do as well as you did in undergrad, you are in for a surprise. Wait until you get there and you might sing a different tune. If I get in, I plan on working as hard as possible to get good grades (but realize just how hard it is to do so) and just want to get through as quick as possible.

Next, I agree that interviews, extracurriculars, etc are meant to be used as screeners, however with the way that the focus of admissions has gone almost strictly to numbers, I am not so sure this person will be excluded, which is sad for whichever dental school accepts her.

I dont think anyone that has posted on this thread has insulted you. I am not sure where you got that from. Gavin posted a point that was very good, although others have said things that were similar, what gives?

Where do you get off being so arrogant? Thanks for trying to prove your point by belittling anyone who disagrees with you.

Lastly, "conceed" is spelled concede.

First off, I know people in dental school too, and some of them are not hanging on for dear life. Yes, it is challenging but at the same time managable. I am competative by nature, so what is wrong with that. I like trying to be the best (and I dont think it a character flaw), so dont act like it is outrageous to try.

You dont think anyone has insulted me? Well read the posts. Being told that one is socially challenge, or only trying to help ones ego are not complements. Talking down to me like I am just not worldly enough to understand dentistry is not very respectful either. Especially, since none of you know much about me. As for me being arrogant? How so? I am sorry if my personality is, as I mentioned above, competative, but I have not been arrogant. This is an ironic accusation considering you are criticizing my spelling.

 

[Tzips]

You list several important criteria, which should be used in the decision making process; however, there still exist objective criteria outside of the list you present. Once again, here are some: Facility/equipment (new? amount?), quality of faculty (every professor gets reviewed by the school, and some are better than others) , number of faculty (more profs means more resources for students to learn from), difficulty of courseload , practice manangement coursework? , number of research opportunities, number of international opportunities, number of experience opportunities (ie community service work) , pass rate of NDBE , percentage of students that get in to a specialty program out of those that apply in each school (this levels the variable number of people applying for said programs), quality of fellow students (you all work together in various ways, and I for one would rather work with others that work hard/are talented, etc.). These are just some, and all can be objectively applied to the various schools, because I bet that the majority of applicants would view these variables as univerally good.

i'm assuming from the above that you envision seperate rankings for each criterion - ie, all the schools ranked in terms of, say, percentage of grads who got into residency of choice, with school(s) x having the highest. while i admit that that is technically feasable (though it may take a long, long time to compile), how would you then condense these dozens of "top" schools (because i'm guessing that many of the lists would be topped by different schools) into a few top ones - by the number of lists each school tops? though this might work, i think it's a slightly risky endeavor, and again, you may end up with some answers that surprise you.

and just a question - how would you rank "quality of fellow students" - by gpa/dat scores? i don't think this would work - the point has been made before about the difference between having good grades and actually being good to work with in lab, etc.; so i'm just wondering exactly what you envision, and i'm sure many would appreciate it if you could lay out your plan more precisely.

 

[aphistis]

You list several important criteria, which should be used in the decision making process; however, there still exist objective criteria outside of the list you present. Once again, here are some: Facility/equipment (new? amount?), quality of faculty (every professor gets reviewed by the school, and some are better than others) , number of faculty (more profs means more resources for students to learn from), difficulty of courseload , practice manangement coursework? , number of research opportunities, number of international opportunities, number of experience opportunities (ie community service work) , pass rate of NDBE , percentage of students that get in to a specialty program out of those that apply in each school (this levels the variable number of people applying for said programs), quality of fellow students (you all work together in various ways, and I for one would rather work with others that work hard/are talented, etc.). These are just some, and all can be objectively applied to the various schools, because I bet that the majority of applicants would view these variables as univerally good.

Those criteria aren't objective in the slightest.

How do you score facilities--age of the building, value of equipment, average age of equipment, or something else entirely?

Quality of faculty? You have to be kidding. You think having a school evaluate its own faculty as part of a competitive evaluation versus every other dental school is going to yield accurate, nay, "objective" results?

Difficulty of courseload--again, how the heck do you objectively measure this?

...And so on.

 

[JavadiCavity]

I have been reading this thread purely for entertainment value but I thought I would give a non-student's input. I am the one in our family who choses our doctors and dentists. I will tell you that I don't care where they went to school (in fact I only know where one doctor we saw went--Harvard--and I hated him and ended up changing). In the matter of dentists, I care about the staff and how nice the dentist is. More important than Harvard or Pacific or anything else is do they make my kids cry? Do they talk down to me? I don't look in the phone book to see where people have gone to school or look at their diplomas to make sure it is a good name, I ask my friends at story time where they take their kids, I talk to the lady next to me at the park...I would say your involvement in the community and your personality would have a lot more to do with your future success then anything else. People go to medical professionals they trust and that is usually someone that they know or that someone they trust told them was good. I say rank dental schools til your blue in the face, it doesn't matter ahill of beans to the consumer. --Wife of jav

 

[bspeedy00]

i'm assuming from the above that you envision seperate rankings for each criterion - ie, all the schools ranked in terms of, say, percentage of grads who got into residency of choice, with school(s) x having the highest. while i admit that that is technically feasable (though it may take a long, long time to compile), how would you then condense these dozens of "top" schools (because i'm guessing that many of the lists would be topped by different schools) into a few top ones - by the number of lists each school tops? though this might work, i think it's a slightly risky endeavor, and again, you may end up with some answers that surprise you.

and just a question - how would you rank "quality of fellow students" - by gpa/dat scores? i don't think this would work - the point has been made before about the difference between having good grades and actually being good to work with in lab, etc.; so i'm just wondering exactly what you envision, and i'm sure many would appreciate it if you could lay out your plan more precisely.

The data for each criteria would not be hard to compile. Call admissions directors and they can give you percentages, NDBE scores, etc. over the phone (assuming that the release of info is ok). News services do this type of investigation constantly (albeit for other programs), and it wouldnt take that long. An overall rank can be formed by examining the position school X has in each category. There is methodology for this type of work, and developing a ranking system for dental school should be no different, provided that the standard for evaluation is held constant. A basic example would be to grade each school 1-10 pts in each category, most overall points is better (assuming you have an objective individual/ or group of people doing the rating).

 

[bspeedy00]

Those criteria aren't objective in the slightest.

How do you score facilities--age of the building, value of equipment, average age of equipment, or something else entirely?

Quality of faculty? You have to be kidding. You think having a school evaluate its own faculty as part of a competitive evaluation versus every other dental school is going to yield accurate, nay, "objective" results?

Difficulty of courseload--again, how the heck do you objectively measure this?

...And so on.

Serioiusly, I dont understand how you couldnt rank a facilities quality objectively. Create a scale, evaluate facilities. Yes, quality of faculty can be measured too. I didnt mean that each school evaluate faculty for outside use, but they do so internally, and tenure the ones they think are quality. Crap profs have difficulty getting tenured. Also, years of experience, or research can add to the value of a prof. Yes, courseload is not the same in each semester of the various school, and there are sometimes varieties in some classes. Some curriculums are more demanding, Everything that you say is not objective, can be with the proper methodology.

 

[luder98]

Although I somewhat agree with your view of schools in general, I think you might have chosen a wrong career path. Have you thought about becoming a lawyer?

 

[Dr.Smiley-OR]

Although I somewhat agree with your view of schools in general, I think you might have chosen a wrong career path. Have you thought about becoming a lawyer?

I totally agree......... And she is being very arrogant (although she does not like to be labeled so).

 

[Tzips]

I didnt mean that each school evaluate faculty for outside use, but they do so internally, and tenure the ones they think are quality. Crap profs have difficulty staying tenured. Also, years of experience, or research can add to the value of a prof.

Not sure i agree with you there - in my experience, profs get tenure more becuase of their research (and thus potential monies they can bring in terms of royalties) and less because of how well they can teach. there are many tenured profs where i am now who couldn't teach to save their lives, much less their jobs . and i don't think it's a matter of "staying tenured" - once a prof has tenure, he pretty much has it made - i don't think schools 'un-tenure' someone for anything less than absolutely heroic feats of evil.

and you are right about things like percentages, et al. - i wasn't thinking mathematically. but how would you judge the more amorphous things like "quality"? and who would you ask to do the judging? i agree with aphistis - once you get beyond things that have hard, quatified numbers, any ranking would automatically lose its objectivity, because it would be skewed by the knowledge etc. of the reviews - and this is assuming that you would have completely 'impartial' judges.

 

[Bullfan16]

A basic example would be to grade each school 1-10 pts in each category, most overall points is better (assuming you have an objective individual/ or group of people doing the rating).

Where can you find someone or a group of individuals that are going to be objective? Tzips brought up some good points about tenured professors. A lot of them can't teach worth a damn, so whats the point of trying to quantify something that in essence is meaningless? Why are you so hung up on this? I truly hope that your future classmates are ready for what they are going to encounter........

Javadi's Wife (like your name, lol): Good stuff...its nice to have an outside observer come in and state something that clearly 2-3 people just dont get. Its not about numbers, universities, or getting ahead in healthcare today. Its about the quality of work, chair side manners and helpfulness of a dentist and or a healthcare practitioner that determine how "good" they are. This is something that Bspeedy, Dreday and a few others are missing. The other aspect that they are missing is that there are no rankings for dental schools, so please just GET OVER IT. As someone pointed out previously, the only people who care about this stuff are pre-dental students. So my question is what possible advantage do you have when you start practicing (over another dentist), if you went to in your words a "Tier 1 school"? In the scheme of things, this just does not matter in the slightest. Clearly, its people like Javadi's wife who are going to help build your practice.

I still dont get why you guys care so much. Gavin and Bill have stated over and over there is no way to fairly quantify and compare schools across the nation. This is one of the reasons its hard for students to transfer to other schools.....programs are so different from one another its hard to take a student who has 1 year under their belt, bring them in to a new school and hope they can pick up where they left off. Each program is unique and does things their own way.......how can you measure the ability of one school versus another when this occurs? Also, as Gavin mentioned the student holds their own fate in their hands, its not about the school. Each student has to perform a certain amount of work before they can graduate, how can a school be ranked based on this?

Man this is getting old.

 

[bigbevo34]

Serioiusly, I dont understand how you couldnt rank a facilities quality objectively. Create a scale, evaluate facilities. Yes, quality of faculty can be measured too. I didnt mean that each school evaluate faculty for outside use, but they do so internally, and tenure the ones they think are quality. Crap profs have difficulty staying tenured. Also, years of experience, or research can add to the value of a prof.

There is no way you can objectively rank the faculty. A good teacher is some one who can help students learn the material the best and this obviously will be different for every student. So there is no way that a person can say school X's faculty is better than school Y's faculty for anybody other than themselves. Oh and I had a computer programming instructor who's been at my school for 40 years and he is terrible. Experiences doesn't necessarily equate to teaching ability.

Yes, courseload is not the same in each semester of the various school, and there are sometimes varieties in some classes. Some curriculums are more demanding, Everything that you say is not objective, can be with the proper methodology.

Again it depends on the individual. What's easy for one may be harder for others. And so how can it be objectively measured?

 

[aphistis]

Serioiusly, I dont understand how you couldnt rank a facilities quality objectively. Create a scale, evaluate facilities. Yes, quality of faculty can be measured too. I didnt mean that each school evaluate faculty for outside use, but they do so internally, and tenure the ones they think are quality. Crap profs have difficulty staying tenured. Also, years of experience, or research can add to the value of a prof. Yes, courseload is not the same in each semester of the various school, and there are sometimes varieties in some classes. Some curriculums are more demanding, Everything that you say is not objective, can be with the proper methodology.

I don't know if you're just completely unfamiliar with the concept of bias and how it works or what, but it's pretty clear this discussion isn't going anywhere. I'm finished with it.

 

[DREDAY]

There is no way you can objectively rank the faculty. A good teacher is some one who can help students learn the material the best and this obviously will be different for every student. So there is no way that a person can say school X's faculty is better than school Y's faculty for anybody other than themselves. Oh and I had a computer programming instructor who's been at my school for 40 years and he is terrible. Experiences doesn't necessarily equate to teaching ability.






Again it depends on the individual. What's easy for one may be harder for others. And so how can it be objectively measured?

OMG!!! I THINK YOU ALL ARE MISSING THE POINT HERE!!! we know that through ranking a school you are not going to please everyone. But by having rankings the purpose is not to please everyone, but to please the majority of people by incorporating issues of importance. So you might not think UCLA or Harvard are the best dental school. But if the majority of the people do think that way, then the ranking for those schools are #1.

 

[aphistis]

OMG!!! I THINK YOU ALL ARE MISSING THE POINT HERE!!! we know that through ranking a school you are not going to please everyone. But by having rankings the purpose is not to please everyone, but to please the majority of people by incorporating issues of importance. So you might not think UCLA or Harvard are the best dental school. But if the majority of the people do think that way, then the ranking for those schools are #1.

You're not describing "objective rankings" at all.

And, for what must be the two or three millionth time in this thread, popular opinion doesn't prove anything.

 

[DREDAY]

if it was medical school or law school

Most people dont care! If you say you graduate from harvard in any major or specialty, a joe blow will be more impressed than if you say you graduated from any other university.

 

[bigbevo34]

OMG!!! I THINK YOU ALL ARE MISSING THE POINT HERE!!! we know that through ranking a school you are not going to please everyone. But by having rankings the purpose is not to please everyone, but to please the majority of people by incorporating issues of importance. So you might not think UCLA or Harvard are the best dental school. But if the majority of the people do think that way, then the ranking for those schools are #1.

so the best schools are the ones that people think are the best and the rankings should reflect that. makes perfect sense

 

[DREDAY]

You're not describing "objective rankings" at all.

And, for what must be the two or three millionth time in this thread, popular opinion doesn't prove anything.

Well the objectivity would only be requisited for the parts that require "objective rankings" such as, how good the teachers are, how good is the clinical work you get done. But when speaking about objectivity you would measure those points with statistical data such as, how many hours each school dedicates to clinical, research, board exam preparations. What percent of class pass board exams with what percentile score. Takin everything into account, you can rank dental schools with in depth information that you do not have otherwise.

Furthermore I can't even begin to count the number of pre-dental school students that dont know anything about the schools they are applying to. A ranking system with clear cut qualities drawn out would make people alot more knowledgeable. AND US NEWS for example, for medical schools, break down the rankings into 2 catergories, One for research and one for clinical, which makes it easy to distinguish what school is better, based on what kind of education you want.

 

[KobeInnocent]

This is what I think. Medical school is ranked because med students are highly competitive overachievers who want to step on top of people in life. That is why they have an intrinsic need to rank the schools and see exactly how much smarter they are from other students. While dents on the other hand don't give a crap and just want to get their DDS degree and start drilling teeth. All the critieria for ranking that speedy stated can be obtained when you attend the interview, therefore you can make a ranking for urself which is ALL u need to determine where you want to go. Maybe speedy, you belong in the medical field.

 

[DREDAY]

This is what I think. Medical school is ranked because med students are highly competitive overachievers who want to step on top of people in life. That is why they have an intrinsic need to rank the schools and see exactly how much smarter they are from other students. While dents on the other hand don't give a crap and just want to get their DDS degree and start drilling teeth. All the critieria for ranking that speedy stated can be obtained when you attend the interview, therefore you can make a ranking for urself which is ALL u need to determine where you want to go. Maybe speedy, you belong in the medical field.

DUde most people dont know anything about any dental school. They dont know how good their clinical or their Research is. If there was a ranking system like they do for medical school where they rank the schools based on clinical and another one based on research, you will be able to determine which school is best for you and SAVE MONEY. suppose you have a 3.0 gpa and your DAT scores are 18, 18. Most people spend a gazillion dollars sending their applicaitons out to every single dental school. IF you have a ranking system that gives you information pertinant to each dental school and how good they are in the field that interests you most, you will not only save money by not applying to schools that dont interest you, but also you will be able to determine what qualities are most important to you when you apply. A ranking system is not just based on putting numbers next to a school. Its about doing thorough research on every dental school and aquiring data from every dental school and determining which one is best according to a set criteria. I like many of the dental students, wouldnt be able to tell you anything about louisiana dental, howard, meharry florida, and other dental schools. But if they were ranked and there were books that had done extensive research on each dental school to indicate to me which one is best, I would have been much more informed and many people would be able to decide which one is best for them. Giving dental schools the freedom of not being ranked, only hurts the students because there is no competition, like there is for medical schools. Unless you are a communist I dont see how ranking dental schools would hurt.

 

[bspeedy00]

I totally agree......... And she is being very arrogant (although she does not like to be labeled so).

I dont even think you know what the word arrogant means. Defending ones views is not arrogant.

 

[bspeedy00]

Not sure i agree with you there - in my experience, profs get tenure more becuase of their research (and thus potential monies they can bring in terms of royalties) and less because of how well they can teach. there are many tenured profs where i am now who couldn't teach to save their lives, much less their jobs . and i don't think it's a matter of "staying tenured" - once a prof has tenure, he pretty much has it made - i don't think schools 'un-tenure' someone for anything less than absolutely heroic feats of evil.

and you are right about things like percentages, et al. - i wasn't thinking mathematically. but how would you judge the more amorphous things like "quality"? and who would you ask to do the judging? i agree with aphistis - once you get beyond things that have hard, quatified numbers, any ranking would automatically lose its objectivity, because it would be skewed by the knowledge etc. of the reviews - and this is assuming that you would have completely 'impartial' judges.

Sorry, I wrote in the wrong word. It was supposed to be getting tenured. However, what ever system is used does not have to be and exact measure, but just a relative scale. It just takes someone to outline a system, and apply it uniformily. I bet there are plenty of unbiased individuals out there. We are talking about dental schools, not abortion. I dont think the entire world would have bias for/ against certain schools.

Also, I think you and aphistis expect me to outline some exact method today. But I am simply defending the position that it is possible to set up a system, and that such rankings might serve an informative purpose. There are plenty of stataticians that could do a superior job in performing such a task, and I would bet money that people do this type of investigation could think up a fair way to rate those characteristics.

 

[bspeedy00]

Where can you find someone or a group of individuals that are going to be objective? Tzips brought up some good points about tenured professors. A lot of them can't teach worth a damn, so whats the point of trying to quantify something that in essence is meaningless? Why are you so hung up on this? I truly hope that your future classmates are ready for what they are going to encounter........

Javadi's Wife (like your name, lol): Good stuff...its nice to have an outside observer come in and state something that clearly 2-3 people just dont get. Its not about numbers, universities, or getting ahead in healthcare today. Its about the quality of work, chair side manners and helpfulness of a dentist and or a healthcare practitioner that determine how "good" they are. This is something that Bspeedy, Dreday and a few others are missing. The other aspect that they are missing is that there are no rankings for dental schools, so please just GET OVER IT. As someone pointed out previously, the only people who care about this stuff are pre-dental students. So my question is what possible advantage do you have when you start practicing (over another dentist), if you went to in your words a "Tier 1 school"? In the scheme of things, this just does not matter in the slightest. Clearly, its people like Javadi's wife who are going to help build your practice.

I still dont get why you guys care so much. Gavin and Bill have stated over and over there is no way to fairly quantify and compare schools across the nation. This is one of the reasons its hard for students to transfer to other schools.....programs are so different from one another its hard to take a student who has 1 year under their belt, bring them in to a new school and hope they can pick up where they left off. Each program is unique and does things their own way.......how can you measure the ability of one school versus another when this occurs? Also, as Gavin mentioned the student holds their own fate in their hands, its not about the school. Each student has to perform a certain amount of work before they can graduate, how can a school be ranked based on this?

Man this is getting old.

The people I am talking about dont have to be unbais in all matters of life, just dental schools. If you havent picked up on anything yet, well you will never understand. I am not going to keep dumbing it down for you.

 

[dds]

Why do most pre-dental (and even some dental) students begin ranking schools like UCSF, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, or UCLA as their top choices if they these schools do not provide for the BEST clinical envionment. I can understand a person's rationale for going to these schools if they were thinking along the lines of specialties and wanting to do research. However, when I talk to pre-dental students most say they want to be a good clinician and not a researcher and many do not know if they want to specialize.

Most dental students end up becoming General Dentists, so are many predents out there keeping their options open to specialize or wanting to attend the school because of its name? Many students go into school thinking they will specialize, but dental school will break them down and then the majority think otherwise. I think there's a HUGE problem in terms of labeling a school as being an "elite" one if it helps you get into a specialty because afterall most dental students become general dentists. There should be much more emphasis on ranking schools based on the opinion of future general practitioners vs. those who go into specialty.

Has anyone been to the UCSF clinic floor? It's horrible! You would think that a school with all that state money (part of the reason for their high ranking) would put it into getting new equipment and lab benches, but most of the money goes into research.

To me, clinical environment and instruction is heavily UNDERRATED. If I wanted to do research and specialize, I would go to Harvard or UCSF in a heart beat. But, I want to be an excellent clinician so I pick UOP, Tufts, AZ, or UNLV.

 

[bspeedy00]

Why do most pre-dental (and even some dental) students begin ranking schools like UCSF, Harvard, Penn, Columbia, or UCLA as their top choices if they these schools do not provide for the BEST clinical envionment. I can understand a person's rationale for going to these schools if they were thinking along the lines of specialties and wanting to do research. However, when I talk to pre-dental students most say they want to be a good clinician and not a researcher and many do not know if they want to specialize.

Most dental students end up becoming General Dentists, so are many predents out there keeping their options open to specialize or wanting to attend the school because of its name? Many students go into school thinking they will specialize, but dental school will break them down and then the majority think otherwise. I think there's a HUGE problem in terms of labeling a school as being an "elite" one if it helps you get into a specialty because afterall most dental students become general dentists. There should be much more emphasis on ranking schools based on the opinion of future general practitioners vs. those who go into specialty.

Has anyone been to the UCSF clinic floor? It's horrible! You would think that a school with all that state money (part of the reason for their high ranking) would put it into getting new equipment and lab benches, but most of the money goes into research.

To me, clinical environment and instruction is heavily UNDERRATED. If I wanted to do research and specialize, I would go to Harvard or UCSF in a heart beat. But, I want to be an excellent clinician so I pick UOP, Tufts, AZ, or UNLV.

Well said.

 

[msf41]

For those of you continuing this debate over ranking dental schools...Today when I was interviewing at the University of Iowa, the director of admissions said that US News and Reports is coming out with a ranking of dental schools in the spring.

She said that national dental schools collectively have not supported or participated in ranking surveys for more than a decade, but next year they decided that they would.

Has anyone else heard about US News coming out with this report in the spring?

 

[trypmo]

For those of you continuing this debate over ranking dental schools...Today when I was interviewing at the University of Iowa, the director of admissions said that US News and Reports is coming out with a ranking of dental schools in the spring.

She said that national dental schools collectively have not supported or participated in ranking surveys for more than a decade, but next year they decided that they would.

Has anyone else heard about US News coming out with this report in the spring?

Argh! That's terrible! I had a lot of respect for their standing up to US News et al. and refusing to participate in ranking. That sure took some guts. Too bad if that era is coming to a close.

 

[aphistis]

For those of you continuing this debate over ranking dental schools...Today when I was interviewing at the University of Iowa, the director of admissions said that US News and Reports is coming out with a ranking of dental schools in the spring.

She said that national dental schools collectively have not supported or participated in ranking surveys for more than a decade, but next year they decided that they would.

Has anyone else heard about US News coming out with this report in the spring?

Thanks for the heads-up. Having those rankings come out will really raise the level of dialogue here in the pre-dent board.

"ZOMGZOMG MY SCH00l IS TEH BESTEST!!!121"
"NUHUH MINE IS LOSAR UR SK00l SUXX"

I'm glad I'll probably be too busy in lab to be around here much.