Why are dental schools not ranked?

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dentalwhiz

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why are dental schools not ranked by generally credible sources, such as US news?
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I'd say it'd be hard to rank one dental school better than another, unless you were somehow directly assessing the clinical abilities of students right out of the schools. I've been told dental school is what you make of it regardless of where you go, there are schools that create better clinicians than others, but you can get the same education everywhere. You get out what you put in.

US News also ranks dentistry as the #1 job, but doesn't take into account student debt acquired or how stressful of a job it is and makes it sound like such an easy life, so I'm not sure I'd call it a credible source to begin with.
 
Cthuluhoop said:
I'd say it'd be hard to rank one dental school better than another, unless you were somehow directly assessing the clinical abilities of students right out of the schools. I've been told dental school is what you make of it regardless of where you go, there are schools that create better clinicians than others, but you can get the same education everywhere. You get out what you put in.

US News also ranks dentistry as the #1 job, but doesn't take into account student debt acquired or how stressful of a job it is and makes it sound like such an easy life, so I'm not sure I'd call it a credible source to begin with.
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Isn't that ultimately true of any program you go to; do what you make of it? Also, have you noticed that medical schools are ranked by us news? regardless of there credibility, US news seems to be the go-to source of rankings by the general population. I find it particularly weird that even PHARMACY schools are ranked by US news.
 
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But they are ranked:
#1 The cheapest school you get into.
#2 The next cheapest school you get into.
#3 The next, next cheapest school you get into.

Seriously though, no one cares where you went to dental school. I’ve been practicing for almost 4 years and I can count the number of times I’ve been asked by a patient where I went on my hands with fingers to spare. And as far as helping you specialize, it doesn’t matter so long as you put in the work. I’ve interviewed at competitive peds programs and there have been people from “prestigious” schools like UPenn and people from newer “startups” like Roseman all in the same interview group. Gunners are simply drawn to fancy schools like moths to a flame. Gunners tend to go on to specialize. This simple fact is behind the high specialization numbers coming out of these schools. It’s not something inherent in the education they provide (aside from a slight edge on the CBSE for OMFS applicants from med based schools).

Big Hoss
 
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lwergod said:
because dental school is not law school and ultimately, rank is not that important for like 90% of dental schools.
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How US News Calculated the 2019 Best College Rankings
-Faculty Resources
-Graduation and retention rates
-Graduation rate performance
-Expert Opinion
-Standardized tests
A few things US news considers when ranking schools. I think this would come in handy for some people when choosing a program to matriculate into.
 
lwergod said:
because dental school is not law school and ultimately, rank is not that important for like 90% of dental schools.
Click to expand...
Have you noticed that pretty much all other healthcare programs are ranked?
 
perhaps you would have better luck to email an editor or analyst that works for US-News.
 
I believe that dental schools made an agreement among themselves to not participating in ranking.
 
The way most schools are ranked is through research funding, it’s not like they rank them based off of best dentists that come out of said school. If one school costs you 150k and one schools costs you 450k, well that’s a difference of a fresh new Ferrari. Which one do you think is better?
 
No, dental schools are not ranked. All the rankings online are based on research output, which most ppl don't give a crap about.


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OP dental schools aren't ranked because there is no real consistent basis to rank them. Different schools cater to different needs.
 
dentalwhiz said:
why are dental schools not ranked by generally credible sources, such as US news?
Click to expand...
Kaylamarie757 said:
They are ranked.

ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2018 - Dentistry & Oral Sciences | Shanghai Ranking - 2018.


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Click to expand...

QS World University Rankings 2019, subject Dentistry

Dentistry

Discover where to study with the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2020: Dentistry.
www.topuniversities.com www.topuniversities.com
 
wengerout said:
Those rankings are dodgy at best and fake news at worse.
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I don't know. Maybe. But all ranks and all polls are subject to bias of course. In any case, he was asking for rankings and there are. Some are made by news organizations, other by companies. QS, THE, and Shanghai are supposed to be for Education what Forbes and Bloomberg are for Business.
 
Why does it matter? We all end up as a dentist anyway. I understand why medicine would mean something. But dental, pharm, etc.... I never understood why.

Unless you ranking by most expensive
 
I've heard quality of education does vary from school to school though, like some schools focus more on didactic and some schools focus more on clinical.

For example a school without specialty programs, their dental students do a lot more specialty procedures so these students might be more prepared to enter the real world.
 
kkotminam said:
While dental schools aren't ranked, I do think some schools are definitely better than others. Here's one list made by some "insider" Top 10: Best Dental Schools in the US and Canada (Ranking) For 2018

Personally, I know some people attending these schools and I would agree overall that the list seems accurate; their top 10 were schools I would like to attend.
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This article was originally written in 2011. Completely outdated now. Talking about schools that had recent renovations (completed between 2010-2013) are now outdated. They no longer score NBDE so saying UNMC is great because they had the highest NBDE scores in 2007 again means nothing now
 
pubhealthdent said:
This article was originally written in 2011. Completely outdated now. Talking about schools that had recent renovations (completed between 2010-2013) are now outdated. They no longer score NBDE so saying UNMC is great because they had the highest NBDE scores in 2007 again means nothing now
Click to expand...

Also Big Hoss won't like that an expensive private school is #1
 
The original was written then, it has been updated. I know because the original/previous years list had some schools that aren't on this list
pubhealthdent said:
This article was originally written in 2011. Completely outdated now. Talking about schools that had recent renovations (completed between 2010-2013) are now outdated. They no longer score NBDE so saying UNMC is great because they had the highest NBDE scores in 2007 again means nothing now
Click to expand...
 
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