I was recently accepted to all three. I really want to do dentistry (mother is a dentist) and UoP has a good program for that, but a lot of my classmates are saying that I should go to UCB or Rice because those universities overall have better names. The problem is that Cal doesn’t have a good pre-professional program for it, and I would much rather go to California than Texas. Anybody already in the 5 year program want to throw their opinion out?
Also, how hard is it to get into the 5 year? There doesn’t seem to be any solid statistics online, but one of the school representatives that I asked before I applied said it was below 10% acceptance. I just want to know what the odds were out of curiosity.
Stats if you’re interested:
GPA: 3.95 UW, 8 APs
SAT: 2280 comp
Extracurriculars: Varsity soccer player 3 yrs, class treasurer, 100+ hrs commservice, plus some others
Race: White
Gender: Male
Thanks.
@blahyahooie Who cares what your friends say. Name doesn’t matter in the world of medical/dental care. If you are a dentist or medical doctor, you get recognized either way. 2+3 is a good investment because you’ll graduate undergrad in 2 years and save your parents a lot of money. I can already guess that you are in a well-off family (your mom makes big bucks probably?) so financial aid would be minimal. Yearly tuition from UoP is about 50k without financial aid. Program is rigorous but if try hard, it will pay off well in the end.
If you do choose this program, you will graduate 2 years earlier than your friends. They will be surprised and ask themselves why they didn’t apply for such a program.
Hey @blahyahooie I am currently a student at the university of the pacific and UOP is one of the best schools for Pre-Dent in the country. No its not a big name but in the Dentistry world it is a big name school. Not only do you get out ready to work in 5 years but the odds of you having a job out of graduation is extremely high. And getting into the pre-dent 5 year is so extremely difficult. It is hard to get into the Pre-dent program to begin with and then getting into the 5 year track is even harder so you should feel very honored.
Just wanted to add, that if you are in the 5 yr program, you will graduate about 3 years before people who graduate from Cal or Rice and apply to a 4 yr dental school.
Also, in the 5 yr program at UOP, you must be able to maintain a 3.75 gpa, though i am not sure how stringent they are if you fall below that.
If you go to UOP, you are guaranteed an interview at the dental school. This is not true for many who apply, who are not even invited to interview.
congrats.
I went the long way, went to Cal, then UCSF. Felt it was a long ways, and a little waste of time .
If you known want to be a dentist 100% attend UOP. I am a dentist and no one cares where u went to undergrad. have u seen the new UOP dental school? It’s amazing.