Well, I'm glad this has turned into a UoP/UCSF snarkfest since I'm interested in both schools and would love to be in the enviable position of having to choose between the two.
I actually turned in the supplemental app the day after I originally posted (or later the same day depending on how you look at it), and actually managed to finish an entire hour early.
Let's not bash USC, I went to undergrad there. 😀
At this point, I realized that it's pretty much useless having a top choice without going to any of the schools and visiting and talking to people and seeing how you like everything.
What I was wondering about was that you hear about a lot of schools that I think are good schools and people insist that their graduates don't have good clinical skills. Is it true that UCSF has a reputation for graduates less adept at clinical stuff or is that just smack talk because of all research/specialization? I heard the same thing about UPenn where someone insisted that Temple grads had better clinical skills, and again I'm wondering the same thing.
And is it true that at UoP you end up seeing more advanced cases than you probably would at other schools since there's no specialty residents to compete with for the interesting cases? And how big of an advantage do you think that is, either for general practice or for a specialty program, if that's what you plan on doing?
And last random note: I fluctuate between being totally calm about getting into dental school, confident that I have the stats as well as the intangibles to at least have a decent shot at my top choices, and being a total wreck, nervous about the lack of a response (took the DAT August 4th so even though I submitted ADSAAS beginning of June, application was a bit late being completed), and wondering why I didn't apply to more schools even the ones in Nebraska and Tennessee (aka the ones I have zero interest in, no offense to anyone from aforementioned states or attending school there). So basically, congratulations to you guys for being done with all of that, and being at a school that you like. So even though you have a lot of work to do and are stressed about other things, bask in the self-satisfied glow of knowing that a pre-dent would kill to switch places with you. 🙂