8 Tips to Choose Your Dental College

Thanks for reading this amazing post. A lot of people want to choose dentistry. May be you are already in dentistry and planning for post graduation or a short course. 

This post is applicable for both those who want to join dentistry as undergraduates and students who are planning for post graduation.

There are following things to keep in mind before selecting your next dental college.

So let's get started.

1. Fees structure: Most important point is the fees structure. There are 3 different type of dental colleges in India, government dental college, private dental college and deemed universities. So if you are planning to choose dentistry as undergraduate (after 12th) or post graduate, keep in mind that deemed universities in India are most expensive. Fees will range from few lakhs for both undergraduates and post graduates. Fees structure varies every year and you can find out more about fees structure with the help of mcc website.

Keep in mind, that after you pass out there's a lot of struggle in dentistry, as dentists DO NOT get paid well in India. Unlike medical graduates, who earn atleast 50k and above a month, dentist will just get paid approximately 5-10k a month. The return on investment is quite less; especially if you have choosen a deemed or a private dental college.

(I have also written a separate blog post where i talk about is dentistry in India really worth it?)

If you plan to choose a government dental college the fees will be virtually free for you, as you get a good amount of stipend and fee is negligible compared to a private dental college or a deemed university. 

So based on fees structure, choose a dental college wisely.

2. Patient flow: This is the next most important criteria to consider when choosing your dental college. Government colleges have adequate patient flow, since the treatments offered are really inexpensive and majority of the patients prefer visiting the college. Many deemed universities have good patient flow. 

So if you really want to learn and develop your skills in dentistry, you need to choose a dental college which have adequate patient flow.

(I have written another post where i talk about top dental colleges in India).

3. Dental Material: Next most important criteria to select your dental college is availability of your dental materials. Many colleges will ask you to buy your own dental materials.(This is very common with government and private dental colleges)

Before taking admission in the dental college, ask the students who are already studying inside whether any dental material shortage is there?, whether you need to buy dental materials required in clinics? and are instruments provided?.

For postgraduate student this matters a lot, because if you get admitted to a deemed university the fee is unusually high and you cannot really afford to pay more to buy dental instruments separately. 

If you are an undergraduate, you have to buy some basic instruments for your pre-clinical exercise, which will not be provided by any the college.

When you enter into clinics, the materials which are required by the clinical procedure are provided by the college. You need to ask whether those materials have to be purchased or not.

4. Staff politics: In lot of colleges, there are lot of internal politics that you may not be aware of.

How does that matter?

...well, to answer to this question..read on

If you have shown certain clinical procedure to staff A, and you have recalled that patient to some other day for further clinical procedure or a followup, and assuming staff A is on leave and you are going to show the same patient to staff B, and if staff A and staff B are not on good terms, the student suffers a lot

So, before taking admission to the college, just enquire with the fellow students who are studying in the college, whether any internal politics are there or not.

5. Additional fees: this is really important for post graduate students. Since I'm MDS in Prosthodontics & Implantology, I'll give you an example for the same. In many colleges, to learn dental implants, they charge you separate fees which were not included in the course. 

A lot of colleges, like government dental college, will not teach you dental implants at all; because patients in government dental college, visit those colleges because they don't have enough money for their treatments.

So a lot of expensive treatments are not at all offered in some government dental colleges, so still if the student wants to learn dental implants, a lot of post graduate students pay for dental implants from their pocket.

Additionally, lot of private dental colleges and deemed universities charge material fees separately for using their dental materials.

So enquire these things well in advance before joining the course.

6. Treatment options: Like i said above, before choosing a dental college, just enquire about what kind of treatments are offered in the college. If you are joining the college as post graduate, ask the following questions to post graduates who are already studying in the college

• What cases have the post graduates treated?, 
• What cases you'll get to do?
• Does the patient who visit the college have the capacity to pay for their own treatment procedures?, if NOT then...
• Will you have to pay for them if they cannot afford?

7. Thesis and Research Work Expenses: Many people don't consider this at all before choosing a dental college. This is more applicable for a post graduate student.

Many times the guides alloted to a particular post graduate student might want an in-vivo study (to be performed on a patient as a research work), this might cost a lot more than an in-vitro study (experiments performed in a laboratory and not on patients).

8. Hostel ACCOMMODATIONS: Many colleges will want you to stay in hostels compulsorily, this adds up to your cost of doing your graduation/post graduation. So enquire about the expenses before hand. This may/may not include your food expenses, the travel expenses and more.

I hope you enjoyed reading the post. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below. See you soon in other exciting posts.