UCSF vs UOP vs UCLA

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Gar20

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Can't decide which one to attend, but leaning towards Pacific.
Any thoughts?
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To me the benefits of UoP trump any other school. It's a personal preference but honestly, I'd rather enjoy three years at uop than be miserable for four at my state school.
 
tuffnuts said:
To me the benefits of UoP trump any other school. It's a personal preference but honestly, I'd rather enjoy three years at uop than be miserable for four at my state school.
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how do you know you wont be miserable in UOP? and how do you know you'll be miserable in state school?
 
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Nice choice to have. I'd have to agree with uop from pretty much all aspects.
 
If you are set on doing general dentistry then I would choose UoP. However, if you want to specialize in the future, I would suggest either UCSF or UCLA. I don't know much about UCSF so I can't say much for them, but UCLA is a great school if you want to specialize! It is also cheaper than UoP (cheapest school in CA, I believe)
 
oceanangel4 said:
If you are set on doing general dentistry then I would choose UoP. However, if you want to specialize in the future, I would suggest either UCSF or UCLA. I don't know much about UCSF so I can't say much for them, but UCLA is a great school if you want to specialize! It is also cheaper than UoP (cheapest school in CA, I believe)
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Specialize or not UCLA will give you a great education. If you want a ton of opportunities to specialize and pay instate tuition its a great place to be. Also going to UCLA or UCSF allows you the ability of not worrying about letter grades.
 
narrow it down to UCSF vs UCLA...That one less year is just not worth all that stress in my opinion. And these two schools are not just state schools but they are are also highly prestigious offering the best education.
 
I think I have narrowed it down to UCSF and UOP. UCLA was great but I felt the facilities were very outdated and the environment at UCSF was more appealing
 
kingenamel said:
Specialize or not UCLA will give you a great education. If you want a ton of opportunities to specialize and pay instate tuition its a great place to be. Also going to UCLA or UCSF allows you the ability of not worrying about letter grades.
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I did my volunteering at Los Angeles, Beverly Hills. i know at least 3 practices that do not hire UCLA students. one of them employed a UCLA grad years ago and fired him in 3 days. They told me UCLA grads have no clinical skills and they have no interest in hiring them.
 
amiraliagh said:
I did my volunteering at Los Angeles, Beverly Hills. i know at least 3 practices that do not hire UCLA students. one of them employed a UCLA grad years ago and fired him in 3 days. They told me UCLA grads have no clinical skills and they have no interest in hiring them.
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They're probably trojans at heart
 
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UCLA or UCSF. You really can't go wrong either way. UCSF is actually P/F whereas UCLA is H/P/F. UoP is a good school but when you compare it to UCLA and UCSF, the prestigious state schools win big time.

If you look at the number of graduates you end up in competitive residencies like OMFS, ortho, and pedo, UCLA's number is equivalent to Harvard's. For specializing rate, Harvard and UCLA have the highest which are followed by Columbia then UCSF and UPenn.

UCSF's curriculum is often regarded as being more clinical than UCLA's. But I would go to UCLA.
 
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amiraliagh said:
I did my volunteering at Los Angeles, Beverly Hills. i know at least 3 practices that do not hire UCLA students. one of them employed a UCLA grad years ago and fired him in 3 days. They told me UCLA grads have no clinical skills and they have no interest in hiring them.
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I am sure this is a case by case thing. I have a cousin who owns a practice in SF and was complaining about how he tried to hire a few UCSF students but found them to be lacking in experience as well. You're always going to find good and bad students at every school.

Edit: I was just chatting with a friend who goes to UCSF dental school and she said that one of the things she does not like about the school is that there are not enough chairs. She also mentioned that the school thinks very highly of itself. Basically if you complain about the program, people would just tell you it's your fault and that the program itself is fine. They tell you that you're not working hard enough or not motivated enough, thus are experiencing problems. Of course, I don't go there and don't know much about this, but just wanted to throw it out there for you to consider or look into.
 
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About to finish 4th year at UCLA. I've had good experiences and bad experiences here, but in the end I don't regret my choice. The clinical experience isn't great, but the school teaches you enough to be competent. We probably don't get as much hands-on experience as grads from UOP and UCSF, but we are taught all of the fundamentals.

Pros:

- Great location, I love living in Westwood and prefer it over Northern California. The traffic sucks, but there are great restaurants and tons of things to do in the area.
- Amazing extracurriculars - anything you can think of there is a club for it, the school is great for people who like to be active and involved.
- Great research resources - there are many labs and tons of research going on all the time, but it requires some initiative on the students part to find a position.
- H/P/F curriculum - much less stressful in my opinion than graded or ranked, however I now believe this may be a negative if you want to specialize in a competitive specialty other than oral surgery, because many programs are viewing class rank more highly now that boards are pass fail.
- The school is supportive of anyone who wishes to specialize, at some schools you must be ranked highly before letter writers will recommend you for specialty. This is not true at UCLA where everyone is able to apply to specialty regardless of grades.
- For California applicants, UCLA is typically the cheapest option. Westwood is expensive, but cheaper housing can be found in Culver City which is a short drive from campus. Rent has become pretty ridiculous in San Francisco and the surrounding areas the past few years so I feel this is a negative for UOP/UCSF.
- UCLA historically has been one of the best schools for specializing. If you include GPR/AEGD this is typically 70% of the class with 50% going into OMFS, Ortho, Peds, Endo, Perio etc. Previously, 90-100% of those that applied would match into competitive specialties like OMFS or Ortho or Pedo. I believe going forward it will not be as easy for UCLA applicants to specialize due to P/F boards, as there are many that come to UCLA intending to specialize and schools now seem to have trouble differentiating between applicants. This does not apply to OMFS due to the CBSE.

Cons:

- UCLA does have a problem with finding enough patients for people to graduate. Some people get lucky and have patients passed down to them with what they need, but others are only able to finish because they are able to bring in patients themselves or pay out of pocket for patients that can’t afford it. This is especially true for the removable prosth requirement, which is significantly higher than most other schools. However, most people who are motivated have no trouble graduating on time and very few students are held back year to year due to not finishing requirements.
- The clinic at UCLA is extremely inefficient. I imagine this is true at most other schools, but UCLA takes this to the next level. There are many unnecessary appointments required before you can even start cases and endless signatures and paperwork are required before anything is done. Again, I don't know what it is like at UOP and UCSF, but from what I hear, students there seem happier with their clinical experience.
- I believe those that want to go straight into practice as a GP will be fine IF they take the initiative and seek out opportunities to improve after graduation. I know many classmates and upperclassmen that have gone straight into private practice and are doing fine. However, you most likely will have fewer patient experiences due to the poor patient pool. Again, some are quick learners and still feel confident going straight into practice.
- Didactically, UCLA is fairly challenging. We have a H/P/F grading system where it is fairly difficult to get Honors (top 5-10% of the class). Passing all your classes is not overly difficult, but it does require hard work, which is true at any dental school.
 
UCLADDS2015 said:
About to finish 4th year at UCLA. I've had good experiences and bad experiences here, but in the end I don't regret my choice. The clinical experience isn't great, but the school teaches you enough to be competent. We probably don't get as much hands-on experience as grads from UOP and UCSF, but we are taught all of the fundamentals.

Pros:

- Great location, I love living in Westwood and prefer it over Northern California. The traffic sucks, but there are great restaurants and tons of things to do in the area.
- Amazing extracurriculars - anything you can think of there is a club for it, the school is great for people who like to be active and involved.
- Great research resources - there are many labs and tons of research going on all the time, but it requires some initiative on the students part to find a position.
- H/P/F curriculum - much less stressful in my opinion than graded or ranked, however I now believe this may be a negative if you want to specialize in a competitive specialty other than oral surgery, because many programs are viewing class rank more highly now that boards are pass fail.
- The school is supportive of anyone who wishes to specialize, at some schools you must be ranked highly before letter writers will recommend you for specialty. This is not true at UCLA where everyone is able to apply to specialty regardless of grades.
- For California applicants, UCLA is typically the cheapest option. Westwood is expensive, but cheaper housing can be found in Culver City which is a short drive from campus. Rent has become pretty ridiculous in San Francisco and the surrounding areas the past few years so I feel this is a negative for UOP/UCSF.
- UCLA historically has been one of the best schools for specializing. If you include GPR/AEGD this is typically 70% of the class with 50% going into OMFS, Ortho, Peds, Endo, Perio etc. Previously, 90-100% of those that applied would match into competitive specialties like OMFS or Ortho or Pedo. I believe going forward it will not be as easy for UCLA applicants to specialize due to P/F boards, as there are many that come to UCLA intending to specialize and schools now seem to have trouble differentiating between applicants. This does not apply to OMFS due to the CBSE.

Cons:

- UCLA does have a problem with finding enough patients for people to graduate. Some people get lucky and have patients passed down to them with what they need, but others are only able to finish because they are able to bring in patients themselves or pay out of pocket for patients that can’t afford it. This is especially true for the removable prosth requirement, which is significantly higher than most other schools. However, most people who are motivated have no trouble graduating on time and very few students are held back year to year due to not finishing requirements.
- The clinic at UCLA is extremely inefficient. I imagine this is true at most other schools, but UCLA takes this to the next level. There are many unnecessary appointments required before you can even start cases and endless signatures and paperwork are required before anything is done. Again, I don't know what it is like at UOP and UCSF, but from what I hear, students there seem happier with their clinical experience.
- I believe those that want to go straight into practice as a GP will be fine IF they take the initiative and seek out opportunities to improve after graduation. I know many classmates and upperclassmen that have gone straight into private practice and are doing fine. However, you most likely will have fewer patient experiences due to the poor patient pool. Again, some are quick learners and still feel confident going straight into practice.
- Didactically, UCLA is fairly challenging. We have a H/P/F grading system where it is fairly difficult to get Honors (top 5-10% of the class). Passing all your classes is not overly difficult, but it does require hard work, which is true at any dental school.
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Thanks a lot! that was great
 
I've seen a lot posted on the UCSF vs UOP debate and I recently interviewed at both schools so I want to try a stab at the comparison with a few things I heard or saw:

UCSF has a wide variety of extracurriculars and research opportunities, and students are able to take full advantage of these with the integrated breaks in the curriculum that allows for a few completely free afternoons every week. In addition, the student body and staff here was highly intelligent but also extremely friendly and laid back (which could have been a consequence of having a more relaxed curriculum). The board pass rates were shown to be the highest in the state of California (by maybe 1 or 2% compared to other schools, but the highest nonetheless). However, I spoke with a D3 who said he had to go out in the community to recruit patients. He said the school has a large patient pool, but its a crapshoot whether or not you can get the diverse clinical experience from your patient pool alone to satisfy the requirements so that can be stressful.

UoP just opened up their new campus in downtown SF really close to the BART, and the dean spoke about a large spike in patients (something like a 30% increase). This may also be advantageous if you want to live farther away and save money on rent. UoP also said they had a fantastic match rate for specialties, but I didn't explore that claim further because I am interested in GP. Also, every time my interview group would run into dental students in the elevator or walking around, they would all say "catch up on your sleep now while you can!" which has to be indicative of the rigorous curriculum. Multiple students told me that a D1 would be at school for 12 hours on a typical day, being either in class or sim lab (the sim lab at UoP is hands down the best in the nation and you get your station all to yourself).

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any more questions!
 
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