Hey predents, I can see that the name ucsf really scares everyone away.
Luckily, that's not the case. I'm a D1 there, and I can tell you from my experience.
1. The school pays lots of attention on DAT score. If you have superb scores, your W will be forgiven.
Our class DAT average is 21, GPA average is 3.5. Most of my classmates have their academic average scores in the neighborhood of 20, 21, and 22. A few have super scores like 25 and up.
2. UCSF also is big on community service. It's even bigger than their emphasis on research. I strongly suggest that you guys do community works, so your application looks good.
3. The school is located in the sunset area. Probably the highest part of the city of SF. It's very beautiful. The library has the view of the golden gate bridge. Our library is 5 stories, and it's exclusively for all health science related materials. The clinic also has breath taking view of the city, the ocean. It's 5min walk from the Golden Gate Park. The neighborhood is very safe.
4. UCSF has altogether 6 professional schools (dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, physical therapy, and the graduate division). The dental school has hygiene program, international dentist, etc...
5. UCSF has 11 sattelite clinics from eureka to san diego. Just in the city of SF, we have two sattelite clinics: Buchanan dental center houses the international dentists program. The community homeless clinic downtown is run by dental students.(and we are so proud of this) We go there and work on real patients the very first year(we will start next week). Second year, D2already start doing simple fillings, etc... at the community clinic. At the beginning of the fourth year, you have to go to a sattelite clinic for 3 weeks for externship, and play real doctor. Nobody check on you, just do your work, treat patients on your own. Our D4 are really enjoying this.
6. UCSF has the second highest patient pool in the state of CA (only behind lomalinda), about 144,000 patients/yr. You can never run out of patients here. Just the matter of luck that you get good patients or not. The school is extremely generous to students. Most of us get about 9K in average UC grant (free money). Most of loans are also UC loan so interest free while you are in school. Usually we only have to take out the federal subsidize loan. Our graduate debt average is 70K. I think the number is increasing with UC fee increases. But it's still a very good bargain compare to other schools.
7. The school has so many programs that you can participate, observe, etc. There are so many activities here. You guys will have lots of fun while studying. Our gym is super. Most of my classmates enjoy lives way so much. They have a good time explore the city, the school. It seems like lots of socialize, activities going on, all the time. Also, talking about diversity, this is the place. Our class is so even, 40 males, 40 females. And our students together speak 40 different languages. So, it's a big plus for our patients.
8. Faculties here are also nice. Our anatomy prof. give us their cell phone number. So, we can just call them up any time to bug for help. Nobody is ever alone, or single out here. We all stick together. Our class is just so wonderful. Everyone seems to be very talented.
Do not hestitate to apply even if you are out of staters. Especially students from those WICHE states. My class has 10 out of staters. And needless to say, they are all excellent to get here. We even have one canadian.
I wish you guys all the best of luck. Please post more questions, I'll try to answer all of them.
