Get in touch: +1 888 453 5021
Below is a table of the top 30 dental schools' acceptance rate data, their average DAT scores, and their average GPAs, as reported in the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) 2025-2026 Official Guide to Dental Schools.
The statistics in this table reflect the 2024 entering class and represent the most officially available data at the time of publication. We update this table as new data is released.
To ensure you submit the most competitive application to these top programs, consider getting support from expert dental school admissions consultants.
The dental schools below have the lowest acceptance rates reported by ADEA, ranging from 3.48% to 7.09%.
These schools accept the highest number of applicants, with acceptance rates ranging from 18.03% to 39.71%, according to the ADEA.
Due to these low acceptance rates, these dental schools are considered to be some of the easiest to gain admission to.
Six factors drive dental school acceptance rates: academic performance, DAT scores, residency status, applicant pool size, class capacity, and holistic review criteria.
Your GPA and DAT set the floor for your candidacy; residency status determines how many seats you are actually competing for; and application pool size and class capacity shape the math behind every acceptance rate you see published.
Once you clear those filters, holistic criteria, including clinical experience, personal narrative, and interview performance, determine the outcome. Each factor is covered in more detail below.
Your GPA and DAT score are the first filter every dental school applies. They do not guarantee admission, but falling below a program's typical score range almost always removes you from serious consideration before the holistic review even begins.
Admissions data shows that schools with the lowest acceptance rates also tend to report the strongest academic profiles. For example, Harvard School of Dental Medicine reports an average AA DAT score of 24.9 and a total average undergraduate GPA of 3.91, among the highest in the ADEA dataset.
Across highly selective schools, admitted cohorts often cluster around AA DAT scores above 22 and GPA means above 3.7, while schools with broader acceptance rates often report lower averages. This suggests that applicants aiming for the most selective programs typically need academic profiles that exceed those thresholds to remain competitive.
Public dental schools often show a strong in-state residency preference. Based on the ADEA data, several public schools direct most offers to in-state applicants:
This pattern suggests that at many public schools, in-state applicants make up the large majority of offers.
Private schools usually show much less residency bias and often make most of their offers to out-of-state applicants:
In practice, that means private schools tend to draw and admit from a much broader national pool.
The size of a school’s applicant pool is one of the strongest drivers of acceptance rates. Schools receiving the largest application volumes naturally become more selective.
For instance, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine received 4,361 total applicants, the largest pool among many U.S. programs in the dataset, and made 467 total offers, which works out to an acceptance rate of 10.71%
On the other hand, smaller programs often see much smaller applicant volumes. Lincoln Memorial University College of Dental Medicine had 408 applicants and made 162 offers, for a 39.71% acceptance rate.
The gap between a pool of a few hundred applicants and one of several thousand can materially change your admissions odds, even before you factor in GPA, DAT, or residency preference.
Acceptance rates are also shaped by how many offers a school can realistically extend each year. Institutions with larger class capacities naturally make more offers.
New York University College of Dentistry made 381 total offers from 3,125 applicants, reflecting one of the largest entering cohorts among U.S. dental schools. In contrast, Harvard School of Dental Medicine extended only 44 offers from 1,263 applicants, contributing to its extremely low acceptance rate. Smaller programs operate with much tighter capacity constraints.
Institutional capacity influences selectivity. Schools that can accommodate larger cohorts can offer more seats, while smaller programs must maintain much lower acceptance rates simply due to limited class size.
Once you clear the academic screening, admissions decisions shift into evaluating factors that numbers cannot capture. Every accredited dental program conducts some form of holistic review, and at competitive schools, it is where most decisions actually get made.
Holistic review involves evaluating all of your application materials outside of your GPA and DAT score:
GPA and DAT get you into the pool. Everything else determines whether you advance.
Depth matters more than volume across every non-academic category. One sustained clinical placement outweighs a scattered list of short-term activities. One genuine leadership role tells a stronger story than five surface-level ones.
Discover your chances of dental school acceptance with our calculator tool!
Based on the 2025–2026 ADEA Official Guide to Dental Schools, the average dental school acceptance rate is about 16%, meaning roughly 1 in 6 applicants receives an offer across programs in the ADEA dataset.
Getting into a US dental school is challenging. The average acceptance rate across accredited US dental programs is around 16%, meaning fewer than 2 in 10 applicants receive an offer.
Most successful applicants hold a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher and an AA DAT score of 20 or above. Beyond academics, schools expect documented dental shadowing hours, healthcare experience, and a compelling personal narrative.
Applying broadly across a balanced school list and submitting early in the ADEA AADSAS cycle meaningfully improves your odds.
Lincoln Memorial University College of Dental Medicine has the highest acceptance rate of any accredited U.S. dental school at 39.71%. That means nearly 4 in 10 applicants who apply receive an offer, making it significantly more accessible than the national average of around 16%.
The hardest dental schools to get into are:
All three accept fewer than 6% of applicants. Across these schools, the average AA DAT score is 22.6, and the average GPA is 3.80.
Dr. Jonathan Preminger was the original author of this article. Snippets of his work may remain.
Reviewed by:
Orthopaedic Surgery Resident Physician, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
Get 15+ free dental school personal statements written by our succcessful applicants free of charge. No strings attached.
ChatGPT
Perplexity
Grok
Claude
Copilot
Google AI
.svg)
