Northwestern, Loyola, Washington U. (St. Louis).

Fawks

    I'm sure Georgetown was a great dental school.  That's what all the
Georgetown grads have told me. ;-)
    This thing about ranking or rating dental schools is probably less
useful than it seems.  Anyone who has not either taught at two or more
schools for a significant period of time (or attended two or more as
students) would not even be able to give a meaningful RELATIVE rating,
much less an academic critique.
    What is sometimes done is to use raw statistics such as rate of failure
to graduate, failure rate on state board exams, etc., but IMO the
validity of many of these tests are themselves open to question.
    Of course, the AADS does credential schools.  But aside from certain
hard statistics such as numerical clinical requirements, student/teacher
ratios etc., there is evidence that some other influences (such as
politics) play a role.
    When I was at NYUCD (1973-76), the schools credentials were lowerd to
"provisional accreditation"--2 steps below full accreditation and just
one step above unapproved.  It was an open secret that this was a
conscious decision to pressure the university (which had promised the
dental school a new building for years) to finally come up with the
money.  Eventually they did, and we got our full accreditation back.
    One thing I can say unequivocally is that the atmosphere at different
schools can be very different, and this should be a major factor in
choosing a school.  NYU for years before I attended (and years after,
though this may have eventually changed) was well-known for an
atmosphere of fear and mutual mistrust between the students, faculty and
administration.  This changed somewhat when Donald Giddon became the
dean about 1975--things became better between the students and the
administration, and worse (if possible) between the administration and
the faculty.  This is not the kind of thing you'll know from reading a
relative ranking of dental schools (Michigan was #1 when I was in
school) but you MIGHT get some insights by speaking to students, recent
grads, and (if possible) faculty and administration.

Steve

It was a good school, but as someone wrote, you can have good dentists from
bad schools, and bad ones from good schools. When I was always there I was
amazed how many schools have patients that are people who can't afford other
care. At GU most of the patients I had were government employees, and could
have gone elsewhere, but came because of the quality of care. It was a good
school, which made its passing even more bothersome.

T