U of M of Detroit-Mercy dental students...help!

[smae3282]

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I would love to hear from any U of M of Mercy current dental students as to why you chose the school you did. I'm torn right now between the two schools. What were your deciding factors? Now that you're there what do you think?
Any help to an incoming student would be appreciated!

Thanks
Stephanie
Class of 2008!!

 

[UBTom]

Hey Stephanie,

You might want to give Midoc a PM... Dan is a sophomore at UDM and the ambassador on this board from that school. 😀

There is also someone else here who goes to UMich... I don't remember his handle at the moment though. It'll come to me..

 

[Midoc]

The decision was one of practicality. I was accepted at UDM, I was not at U of M (probably because I didn't apply until December - I wish I had known about SDN back, I would have applied earlier).

With that said, I am very happy that I am going to UDM. In my opinion it is an excellent school with some great faculty. There are of course some down sides to it: older buildings (one has a nuclear fallout shelter sign on it), some professors are "less than great" it is not located in a great neighborhood and the tuition is expensive.

If you're looking for a comparison between the two schools I probably not the best person to talk to because I have not researched U of M all that much. I can give you some generalities though. UDM is considered to be better at teaching clinical skills, has smaller class sizes and a larger more diverse patient population. U of M is considered better academically and is more research oriented and is cheaper.

I'm not sure about the graduate school situation at U of M but here at UDM we have or are soon starting these specialties: Oral Surgery, Ortho, Endo, Perio (starts soon) and AEGD. Having these specialties at the school allows you to observe, assist and participate in more difficult procedures. I have heard no complaints about the specialties taking all the hard cases at our school.

I hope this was helpful, if you need me to elaborate on anything just let me know.

 

[Brand]

I love it here at the U of M. I am pretty familiar with both schools (I volunteered at UofD to get some shadowing experience) so I'll list some pros and cons.

MICHIGAN
PROS- Faculty is amazing. We have an abundance of faculty who are researching the newest and best techniques, who are always will to help out.

-Our new preclinic will be done when we return in Jan. (U of D already has an amazing preclinic)

-20K vs 35K in tuition

-Ann Arbor vs Detroit, I'm not even gonna bother with this one.

-Opportunities for research (Most people say that U of M focuses on research, which is absolutely bogus. It is true that we do a TON of research, but our education does not focus on it. Only about 15 students out of 110 are doing it this year. It is a great opportunity to become more involved with dentistry. I feel bad for them, as we are all preparing for finals they have professional papers to prepare as well. It is an opportunity and by no means a requirement. We get no pressure to participate in the research program. Most of the class just wants to be general dentists and don't care about building their graduate applications. Although, up to a third of the class will go on to specialize.)

-All notes are Powerpoint presentations, available for download. (This is a big deal to me since my undergrad made me hand write EVERYTHING)

-Graduate clinics. We have every major graduate program, and the expert instructors are available to us. We get exposure to the best and newest techniques.

CONS
- 2 credit ethics course. Ethics is great, but not 2 credit hour great.

-More exposure in the clinics at UofD. Not that they teach better clinic techniques, but they treat many more patients.

Can't thnk of any more negatives. I really love it here.

Truthfully, you will be a great dentist coming out of either school. The question is which school will make you the happiest.
Good luck!