Should I pick NYU or LECOM

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I have been blessed by receiving acceptances to both NYU and LECOM, but am not sure what school to pick. NYU would cost me a fortune, while the curriculum at LECOM is sort of contentious to say the least. I am not sure if I would succeed with a PBL curriculum and am leaning toward NYU. But, also at NYU I will have to take on a tremendous burden of loans. Any good advice?

 

[kingenamel]

Personally if I were picking between the two I would pick NYU due to the traditional approach and that its a super established school. I thought the school was a lot nicer than what I heard from other people. Are you located in state for either of the schools?

 

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I am out of state for both schools. To be honest, I liked NYU much better than LECOM. There just seems to be bountiful of opportunities at NYU. But, it is very hard for me to justify taking an additional $100,000 in loans to attend NYU. This decision is killing me!

 

[kingenamel]

Ya I actually was pleasantly surprised by the school. The students there were really nice and the faculty were very welcoming. There will be a lot of opportunities but at the same time it will come at a huge price. Manhattan living is not cheap by any means. I talked to a few students and some of them commute from New Jersey because it was cheaper but then they have a bigger commute which could get annoying at times.

 

[xatlasb]

I have been blessed by receiving acceptances to both NYU and LECOM, but am not sure what school to pick. NYU would cost me a fortune, while the curriculum at LECOM is sort of contentious to say the least. I am not sure if I would succeed with a PBL curriculum and am leaning toward NYU. But, also at NYU I will have to take on a tremendous burden of loans. Any good advice?

I would definitely choose NYU. More established program and curriculum, one of the strongest schools clinically, much better location, no need to move your 4th year, no PBL, very high passing rate on boards (if I remember correctly, their class passed part 1 with 100% passing rate), opportunities for research and specializing, the list goes on. True you are taking on more debt, but I think in this case, it is worth it.

 

[Bis-GMA111]

depends on what you want to do, tbh. if you're set on just doing general dentistry and nothing else then i'd say LECOM. going to nyu gives you more opportunities (i.e. research) yes, but you have to be proactive if you want to reap the benefits of these opportunities. people go into dental school with ideas of doing x, y, and z but once the dust settles and the work actually starts...you find that you won't have much time to do a lot of things. everyone comes in wanting to do OMFS, ortho, etc. but understand that most dental schools are there to produce general dentists. while i agree that the clinical training here is pretty on point, anyone will tell you that your proficiency is really built up when you're out in the real world and in residency, not when you're in dental school.

and xatlasb, while i agree with most of what you said...taking on more debt is never, ever worth it, bc at the end of the day, no one cares where you went to school.

 

[dentistkim]

But, NYU kicks out students if they don't do well...???

 

[free99]

But, NYU kicks out students if they don't do well...???

naaaa, one of the deans addressed this at my interview. He walked us through the process of academic remediation and what a student would have to do to be dismissed for academic reasons and, suffice it to say, it's hard. Dental school attrition rates are really low, generally <1 or 2%, and are even lower if you filter out attrition for non-academic reasons. The exact figures over the past 10 or so years are published here on page 47.

 

[Bis-GMA111]

let's just put it this way. you really, really have to go out of your way to get kicked out here. you can remediate 3-4 classes a year....and believe it or not, a lot of people remediate (which is kind of unfortunate). but in terms of failing out, it does happen, but not very often.

 

[rnco]

NYU. Lecom is a joke….

 

[Longcatislong]

Not long ago, I was seriously considering attending LECOM. Although I ended up not putting my deposit down there, I nearly did. What appealed to me about LECOM was the vast amount of clinical experience and independence you get there. If you're planning on doing general dentistry, then LECOM's a good place to be. For a private school, it's pretty affordable. The main reason I chose to not to attend LECOM was PBL. I really couldn't see myself learning effectively from that method. You need to assess that for yourself...will PBL work for you? To me, that's really the main reason to either chose LECOM or toss it out of consideration.

I don't know enough about NYU to comment (besides it has expensive tuition, and on top of that you're going to living in one of the most expensive cities in the world). With that, you ought to think about how much NYU is worth to you...it's a lot cash.

 

[dieanotherday]

HOLY CRAP. Just read what this is, that sounds like an unending awful game of 20-1million questions until someone gets the right answer as your entire dental education.

Don't do it!