You are in the obsessive compulsive environment of a dental school.  Nothing
is completed unless it is better than perfect.  Everything is checked and
re-checked, so it takes many hours longer than in private practice.  IF the
decay is very deep, then the people treating you have to decide what is the
best course of action.  A dental school is always going to shoot for the
finest final result possible, because this is how they want their graduates
to treat people after graduation.

Hang in there and ask lots of questions.  Dental students love to
demonstrate their knowledge.  They should be able to review bone heights,
attachments zones, minimum tissue thickness, crown lengthening procedures,
etc. with you.

Plus, in the dental schools, you generally get consultations from multiple
specialists on every treatment plan for free.  Sometimes, the student simply
meets with the specialists with your records and reviews treatment plans,
other times the specialists get right inside you mouth to look in person.

He could have screwed up, that is always a possibility with students.
I had them screw up a few times, but luckily it was always something
that just cost more time, not too much more pain, nor ruination of
anything...

I plan to write a thorough comparison between going to a dental school
to get work done vs. going to a private dentist office, in the near
future.

But one of the things is that (in my experience, anyway) you spend a
CONSIDERABLE longer time in the chair, at the dental school. They tell
you this up front, at least they told me. Of course, it didn't really
sink in until I had several FOUR HOUR sessions that should have been
only hour and a half or two hour sessions.

For the first time in my life, I had my mouth SORE from being open so
wide for so long. I had cracks in the corner of my mouth that took a
week to heal, from having it open for so long, and maybe from the
drainage tube resting against it; I'm not sure exactly why...

I got cramps in my legs from laying in the chair for so long...

Etcetera...

In the end, there are 2 main advantages do going to a dental school (I
refer here to a Graduate Student environment, not undergraduates;
frankly I would not trust undergraduates to do any major work on me;
I've heard too many bad stories.)

1) The dental school is less likely, I think to recommend procedures
you do not really need, nor sell you materials you don't really need
at outrageous prices. There seems to be more integrity and honesty in
the school environment than in many dental offices "in the big city".
Yes, they may do things "by the book" so require testing and models to
be made and such, perhaps more so than some private dentists. But at
least they're not telling you  that you need, say, a "deep cleaning",
or "root scaling" when in fact you do not (as I have had private
dentists do). And at least someone (one or more profs) is overseeing
the work!

2) The dental school is cheaper, generally. Though, depending on what
you have done and how many, it may not be ENOUGH cheaper to make it
worth the extra time and hassle and suffering that it sometimes
entails. Check the prices ahead of time!

All in all, I would say:
DO NOT go to a dental school unless you really economically cannot
afford a RECOMMENDED private dentist (if you can find one!).

In my case, getting 6 implants, it saved me thousands of dollars. But
if I were just getting one or two, I don't think it would have been
worth it to go to the dental school. As for fillings and crowns and
things, it depends... check the prices, and weigh that against the
reputation of the dental school. In some cases, the prices are not all
that much cheaper! But the time and discomfort at the dental school
(spending a long time in the chair) will definitely be worse. A lot of
times it's because the student doesn't quite know what he or she is
doing and they don't want to ask the prof, they want to figure it out
for themselves. I've had this happen a few times and if I didn't have
my mouth full of cotton, instruments and stuff, I'd yell "GO ASK THE
DAMNED PROF!!!"

Like I say, I plan to write more on this in the near future, but this
is the gist of it.