usc dental?

[jjy2103]

I am considering usc dental...really want to goto la...i hate east coast...
i heard its a lot more chill that other dental schools...is this true?
but i also heard it has lower board pass rate..?
is it pass/fail/honors?

any personal experience would help...
thanks

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[drhobie7]

I am considering usc dental...really want to goto la...i hate east coast...
i heard its a lot more chill that other dental schools...is this true?
but i also heard it has lower board pass rate..?
is it pass/fail/honors?

any personal experience would help...
thanks

I heard from a 1st year that the first semester was very chill. I think it picks up after that. 2nd year is probably pretty tough.

 

[ckrdds]

First year was pretty easy, but that is changing too and this year it was worse than when i was a freshman. Soph year is really tough. The grades are normal grades, but they are based a lot on your PBL cases, so I am not sure how accurate they are. The pass rate for national boards pt 1 is high, but they have been low for pt 2, primarily bc of the change to PBL, but by the time you come through that will be all changed and hopefully will not be a problem anymore. It changes more and more every year! Hope it helps!

 

[egpndoc]

First year was pretty easy, but that is changing too and this year it was worse than when i was a freshman. Soph year is really tough. The grades are normal grades, but they are based a lot on your PBL cases, so I am not sure how accurate they are. The pass rate for national boards pt 1 is high, but they have been low for pt 2, primarily bc of the change to PBL, but by the time you come through that will be all changed and hopefully will not be a problem anymore. It changes more and more every year! Hope it helps!

I was told that their part 1 scores are pretty good, their part 2 scores are lower (About mid 80s) and their CA state licensure pass rates are pathetic. This was from a professor at USC.

 

[Jyaki]

The spread between the top schools compared to the lower tier ones are not that significant when comparing Part II scores. They're all pretty much in the same range. The reason why most students don't try as hard for Part II's is because they're already accepted to specialty programs by the time they take them. Thus, why study hard when all you need to do is pass?

The only time the Part II scores matter is when you're applying to a specialty program AFTER you've graduated.

 

[ForgetSC]

yeah, SC is chill the first 2 years. but there is something wrong with that although I did enjoy that time. I am paying the price now. We just haven't learned much. Its not worth it.
Its the end of my 3rd year in dental school at SC. I was a non-science major coming in so of course I was very worried about boards since you don't learn anything in PBL. Studying for boards was very frustrating b/c we never learned biochem, histology, etc. So I would just sit there trying to read a biochem book but after the 4th chapter it made no sense to me. I was soooo frustrated. I didn't want to specialize so it made things a little better. But I still wish that I had a chance to do better if I had the correct foundation that should have been provided by SC. After I got my results I did better than I thought and somehow biochem was my highest score. I have no idea how that happened. Point is if you want to do exceptional on your boards this is not the school for you, b/c you have no way of really competing with the nation when your school doesn't teach you anything.

Moving on to the clinic.. I have basically been on the clinic floor for the past year. When I was studying for boards I thought that was the worst, but I really had no idea what was coming to me. There is no sense of professionalism at this school. If your a girl and happen to be sleeping with the faculty then you will most likely graduate on time. But for the rest you are faced with sexually charged comments from old nasty dentists whom you must just sit and listen to b/c you are trying to graduate too. And if you want to complain then good luck who do you complain to? Nothing gets accomplished, and you will be blacklisted b/c all of the faculty somehow end up knowing whats going on b/c they are constantly chatting about specific students when they really should be "teaching".

Besides that the main problem that every pre-dental student should ask dental schools that they are interviewing at is "WHAT IS YOUR GRADUATION RATE?" the second most important question is what are your board scores? (keep in mind that board scores are not solely based on the school, there are people in our class that did particularly well, I think one person got a 98) But graduation rate is completely out of your hand. Only 36% of the 2007 class is graduating on time. There are multiple reasons why this is true. Too many to explain here but I will mention a few.
1. Not enough faculty coverage for the number of students that are permitted to be on the clinic floor
2. The majority of the faculty that is on the clinic floor does not have the authority to sign off on fixed work so you end up prepping a crown with one faculty in one appt take a final impression on your 2nd appt and then send the lab work out. Then you spend a day or two trying to track one of the five faculty who do have the authority to sign it off only to have them tell you that there needs to be adjustments made. Then you bring the patient back but unfortunately the faculty who can sign off is rarely ever teaching on the clinic floor. Do this 5 + times until your patient gets completely fed up and doesn’t want to come back.
3. So many requirements: 30 fixed (crowns), 9 removable arches, etc..
4. Soo many comp exams on live patients who must qualify for these exams. The faculty grading are nearly impossible to pass, and it is soooo hard to find pt’s that qualify. Every day we are bombarded by seniors emailing us looking for compable crowns. They are more like begging us for these crowns.
5. Again not enough faculty to sit your patient down and do the work
6. Last week attempted to take a final impression of a crown. RDA left early (the person who takes the impressions). Tried to get the material needed from the dispensary but guess what they were all out. Brought patient back tonight only to beg every single faculty on the clinic floor to please cover me. I explained that I don’t need there assistance I have everything signed off. I just want to get a final impression. But after one hour of running around that didn’t happen. Had to send my pt. home. Apparently, 2 faculty just decided to cancel their night chairs, and of course nobody bothers to tell the poor dental students!!

Anyways, there are soooo many other reasons why this school is absolutely the most chaotic, bull****, school. We don’t even become great clinicians b/c we spend at least over 60% of our time trying to figure out how and when we could possibly bring our patients in with the few chairs that do exist. Do yourself a favor, don’t go to this school, go somewhere where you actually have a chance of learning and becoming a better dentist. Go to a school where the dean is approachable and cares what is happening to his students. Our dean will never dare walk through the clinic floor. I think he is too scared. All he would see is the majority of the students standing on line for instruments/supplies, miserable as hell. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions. Don’t forget ask about the graduation rates. b/c whats the point of getting into a specialty only to find out that you aren’t graduating on time and you will have to defer it if they will allow you to. And trust me spending most of your time worrying about graduating on time is a very miserable way to live.

 

[Jyaki]

It's really too bad when you see posts like these from your own school or any other school. Dental school is tough, and is meant to be tough. And all the complaints you list, do you really think that it only happens at USC? I have several friends that are at different dental schools and they ALL complain about their school. Administration, faculty, organization, no respect, ya-da-ya-da. Same reasons and they all think that they're school is the worst. It happens everywhere. No school is perfect, and no school can satisfy every single student. I've grown to understand that the whiners will always find something to complain about no matter where they are. You still have 1.5 years left, so why not make the best of it? If you see Seniors making mistakes, why not learn from them? Just remember, if you constantly talk down about your school, as a graduate from that institution how do you think your colleagues/patients will perceive you...an incompetent one?

 

[lionelhutz]

jyaki,

why is it that its mostly usc students bitcching and moaning? i don't see a lot of other students from other schools complaining. This is the way almost everyone feels at usc. The school has big problems.

I'm tired of people saying "just sit back and take it. itll be over soon". you have to speak up and make this problem public. The administration and faculty have to be put to shame. Then things will change. We need to get alumni involved. We need to have prospective dental students ask and bug them about graduation rates. We are already spending close to $300k for our education.

Dental school was meant to be 4 (four) years. not 4.5 or 5 years long. Is this happening at other schools? Is it normal for almost 2/3 of students from other schools to stay extra semesters? This problem has been going on for years. It hasn't been just this year or last year.

 

[TeethVader]

It's really too bad when you see posts like these from your own school or any other school. Dental school is tough, and is meant to be tough. And all the complaints you list, do you really think that it only happens at USC? I have several friends that are at different dental schools and they ALL complain about their school. Administration, faculty, organization, no respect, ya-da-ya-da. Same reasons and they all think that they're school is the worst. It happens everywhere. No school is perfect, and no school can satisfy every single student. I've grown to understand that the whiners will always find something to complain about no matter where they are. You still have 1.5 years left, so why not make the best of it? If you see Seniors making mistakes, why not learn from them? Just remember, if you constantly talk down about your school, as a graduate from that institution how do you think your colleagues/patients will perceive you...an incompetent one?

Perhaps you might not be aware that out of 175 students that conforms the class of 2007 (both International Students and Regular class) only 19 students are graduating on time? That's right! There are major problems at this school and there's nothing being done to get this resolved.