I go to a small school (under 5000 students) but I am only 20 minutes away from a large school that has a dental school that I am interested to attend. I have loved the experience at the small school even and I have been able to network very well with people in the community as well as the dental school that I want to attend. The problems with going to a small school is that for every class they only have a couple of sections so the professor choices are limited, and for the upper level classes there is only a handful of choices while at the large school there are a lot of choices.
With regards to academics, I study with my friends who go to the big school, and I have noticed that I consistently do better even though we study together because my professors are always available and when you're in a class of 20-30 students you have to attend class and participate while if its a class of 200-300 then nobody will care if you show up/participate. It also has allowed me to become friends with my professors instead of simply a person that lectures to you. That being said, there are a lot of pros to going to a big school (more opportunities for research for example) so you have to weigh everything. It's a tough decision so good luck!
