I did a two year masters program at UMDNJ and took dental physiology and dental biochemistry with the actual dental students. My roomate while living there was also a third year dental student at the time. If I had to do it all over again, I would not get my masters there, and probably would not go to dental school there, should I have an option to go elsewhere. We were constantly being hit with corruption charges and now they are cutting back in research and many oter areas just to keep the school on level ground. In order to compensate for the loss of money, the school has been over- matriculating (by around 20-30 students) for the past two years and making it incredibly hard on the D1 and D2 students in an attempt to fail them out before clinic rolls around. Even as a masters student among a class of dental students, there was an incredible amount of comptetition and it seemed everyone was out for themselves. Definitely not an environment I would want to be in for four years!!!!!
I'm a first-year student at UMDNJ, so I feel I should respond to this. First of all, I don't think you really know what's going on at the school, since some of the things you say are exaggerated and even kinda outrageous. It's true that our class is the largest ever. It's bigger than D2 by about 15 students. But that wasn't done by admissions people on purpose. Our matriculating class has the highest DAT average of any class in our school history. Simply put, although the admissions people accepted the same number of people in our year as the past years, more than expected number of the people decided to attend UMDNJ, hence the increase in the class size. Our class also consistently has the highest test averages for exams in physiology, histology, etc. That's because kids in our class work their butts off and study really hard - we're an exceptionally motivated bunch. The thing about administration trying to purposely fail students off? That's ridiculous. I have a feeling that almost no one is going fail out from our class since everyone works so hard. Also, although not everyone's like this, many of our classmates help each other out by circulating notes, offering group studies, etc. Plus, the administration offers private tutoring with upper class students for those of us really struggling. And, if you do fail a class, there's remediation offered during summer. AND, if you fail several classes, the school has a special curriculum that offers you to finish D1 and D2 curriculum in three years instead of two. To me, it seems like the administration bends backwards to help you get through, if you're a dental student (I dunno about grad students though).
I have to admit, the level of competition tends to be high in our class, but that's not because students are struggling to pass - the competition is because people want to get A's. Btw, all of our class exams aren't curved. Hence your classmate getting an A or F doesn't really affect your grade at all. As long as you put in sufficient work, you'll pass regardless of what your classmates are doing.
Not coming to UMDNJ for not having enough research opportunity is not a very good reason either. For one thing, you'll have more than enough opportunities to get involved in research - everyone in the adminstration will do anything to get you involved. The problem is that most students don't want to spend their precious summer vacation in the lab and do research because any sort of free time in dental school is, well, precious. Also, many students just feel that general dentistry is what they want to do. But if you want to specialize, and do research beforehand, the opportunity is more than plentiful.
