What are the best things about attending Creighton University School of Dentistry?

The best thing in my opinion about Creighton University is the amount of clinical experience we get. Before going to Creighton, I knew this was something they boasted about, but I don’t think I fully understood the value until being in school. I have a friend who attends dental school at the University of New England and he is 100% sure that he needs to do a general residency because he said (in his 3rd year – Mid March) has only used his handpiece on a live patient 3 times. Quite simply put, when I graduate from Creighton I feel confident enough to know I won’t need to do a residency to be able to do all things involved in a general practice. Before the end of my 2nd year, I had completed a class 1 (type of filling) on a patient,

░░

What are the worst things about attending Creighton Dental School?

Grading scale – At Creighton, the lower-bound of a C is set at 77%, meaning anything below that is a D. This is something a lot of people tend to struggle with, especially when given a 50 question exam on over 1700 slides (I am not making this up). The way the grading is set up, if you get 2 Cs in lab courses you are at risk of having to remediate (repeat) the class and even the entire year. It also makes it hard to specialize, since your competing with so many students from other programs who could have gotten the same 80% you did, but because of their program's grading scale, they get a B and you get a C. However awful this is, it can also be seen as a positive, because the tough grading scale pushes all of us to try our best on every project, improve on skills we lack, and ask for help when we need it.

░░

What do students need to know/what do you wish you knew before attending Creighton Dental School?

The school really cares about making you the best clinical dentist they can. With this comes a lot of hand-eye coordination skills and a really heavy course of Dental Anatomy and Operative Dentistry. They expect a lot from you and only a few will get A’s and B’s in the whole course. The grading system has no minuses and, as mentioned previously, the grading scale is weird, so if you are looking for a place to get easy A’s, this is not that place. However, you are going to get a lot of great clinical practice here so it’s a balancing act. I have seen many students come out of here feeling confident/pretty good about going into practice.

░░