The Pre-Dental Guide to Building Your Dental School Target List
Introduction
Congratulations! You’ve decided to pursue a career in dentistry. If you’re not applying to dental school this upcoming cycle, be sure to keep your grades up, stay involved, and continue to develop your professional dental experiences. If you are applying this cycle, you already know there’s a lot to consider: resumes, personal statements, letters of recommendation, AADSAS, and a healthy sidebar of stress.
What’s the best way to make this process go more smoothly? Start early. The more time you give yourself now, the more you’ll thank yourself later when interviews and acceptances begin to roll out.
Why Choosing the Right Dental Schools Matters
Choosing which dental schools to apply to is one of the most important strategic decisions in the admissions process. A systematic approach based on tangible facts will help ensure you make the best choices for your future career and finances. You will be spending multiple years of your life and multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars — you want to make sure that you are making an informed decision. Now let’s get into the steps involved in building your dental school target list.
Step 1: Evaluate the Strength of Your Application
Be honest with yourself about how competitive your application is. Consider the following:
GPA and transcript: How do you compare to the averages of accepted students at each school?
DAT scores: Use them as a benchmark for competitiveness.
Extracurricular involvement: Are you engaged in meaningful activities, leadership roles, and dental experiences?
Letters of recommendation: Are they strong and from credible sources?
Personal statement: Is it high-impact and clearly demonstrate your motivation?
Tip: Generally speaking, we advise students to apply to more schools than they think is necessary (without it being overkill). A common range is 10-15 schools, but this can vary based on GPA, DAT, competitiveness, financial factors, and personal priorities. The admissions process is selective and dynamic and you don’t want to prematurely close any doors.
Step 2: Identify the Key Factors in Your School Selection Strategy
Everyone has their own priority list when it comes to how to evaluate schools. Application Ambassadors recommends to consider the following factors if you haven’t already.
Geographic Location
You’re going to be spending 4 years (3 in a few cases) of your life here. Things to consider: Will you enjoy living here? Is it close to home or is it the new experience you are seeking? Do you know people in this place, or are you ok starting fresh? Is it a big city, suburban, or rural setting? Could you potentially live there after school? Is it expensive to live there? What’s the job market like if you decide to stay there after school?
Class Size and Faculty Interaction
Smaller class sizes typically equate to higher quality interactions with faculty. Honestly, the number of students in a lecture hall doesn’t matter as much. What matters is the student to faculty ratio in the pre-clinical and clinical settings. Ask this question to the dental students you talk to.
Residency Presence
The presence of specialty programs will have a direct impact on your clinical training experience. If the school has residencies, typically complex cases will be referred to the postgraduate clinics, and you will not treat those patients as a dental student. Additionally, if those residents are struggling to get cases themselves, then your opportunities will be further limited. While you will complete the CODA requirements, your actual experience may not be enough to give you confidence in those procedures upon graduation. On the other hand, speciality presence gives you more in depth exposure and networking opportunities. However if a school doesn’t have residencies, then you as a dental student will likely get more hands on experience in terms of quantity and case complexity.
Faculty Strength & Quality of Teaching
This is kind of a tough one to gauge because there are so many variables. It’s information that you would only discover by talking to current dental students at that school (more on this later). Make sure to differentiate between didactic faculty, pre-clinical faculty, or clinical faculty. Dental schools often divide their students into different cohorts/clinics, and thus the faculty interaction also differs. Just try to get a sense if the faculty are generally well liked and care about teaching.
School Reputation & Strength
There are no official dental school rankings. Ultimately the questions you need to ask are: Does this school produce confident general dentists? If your goal is specialization, does the school have high MATCH rates? Is there an adequate patient base for all the dental students? Do you have to find your own patients? Does the school care about student success, or are they just collecting your tuition dollars? Are there resources available to students to aid in their success? Are there specific opportunities that interest you? Does being an alum of a particular school actually help your networking opportunities in a particular geographic area?
Cost of Attendance
Ask yourself honestly: “Do I like dentistry enough as a profession to commit up to ~$500,000+ and potentially make lifestyle changes, even after graduation?” If you haven’t already, you should be looking into how you plan to finance dental school. As of the new student loan rules taking effect July 2026, Uncle Sam is only going to loan you $200,000. The “cheaper” schools are going to get even more competitive to get into. Depending on the school’s estimated cost of attendance, this means you may be responsible for up to ~$300K+ more. This gap is typically filled by military scholarships, family contributions, or private loans. If you’re in the private loan boat, make sure you talk with financial experts about what your loans and terms would look like. Personally, I would go with the cheapest school you get into. Yes some dental schools may provide you with a “better experience,” but at the end of the day, dental school just teaches you the basics. The real experience comes afterwards. I’m not entirely convinced that the extra hundreds of thousands of dollars is worth it — but that’s your call to make.
Step 3: Research Your Target Schools & Build Your List
Once you’ve identified your potential schools, you need to learn as much as possible about them.
A good place to start would be the American Dental Education Association website, as they list all dental schools by state
https://www.adea.org/for-members/current-members/dental-institutions
Check each school’s official website for important information such as: application requirements & dates, required coursework, other recommendations, and points of contact.
Speak with a current dental student at the school you are interested in. This can be the most valuable source of information in your research process. They will provide you with a true look and inside scoop into the school. Students are typically chill and will be straight up with you. Make sure you have a list of questions prepared to ask them. You can also ask your classmates who have applied before you about their experiences and what they learned in their dental school discovery process.
You can email an school’s admission’s representative to see if they can put you in contact with a current student. Alternatively, you can try to reach out to students via LinkedIn, Social Media, or through people you know.
We will be posting another article on questions you can ask current dental students.
Participate in Shadowing/Preview Day at a specific dental school. Schools will often times host predental students on their campus to get a glimpse into their program. This is a phenomenal opportunity to speak with current dental students, faculty, and administrators and gain valuable insight. It’s also a nice way of seeing their facilities in person.
Hesitantly, I’m going to mention forums like SDN, Reddit, DentalTown might provide you with additional information. Remember these are open online blogs, so nothing is official or verified. Take everything with a grain of salt. Also please don’t doomscroll on these sites, it can end up being very counterproductive.
Last but not least: keep an organized spreadsheet of all your target schools! This is a lot of information to keep track of, and there are a lot of moving parts and dates. You don’t want to make a logistical blunder in your application process simply because you were not organized. You can download your free tracking spreadsheet here.
Next Steps for Applicants
Start working on your personal statement, resume, and letters of recommendation — aim for mid-July submission.
Need Help Building Your Dental School List?
If you want personalized guidance on your application strategy or components (personal statement, resume, interview prep) Application Ambassadors offers one-on-one consulting for predental applicants. Schedule your free consultation: https://www.applicationambassadors.com/schedule
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*Disclaimer
This article reflects general opinions and guidance based on experience and research. This information is for general guidance only and should not be considered formal or professional advice. Readers are responsible for their own decisions regarding school applications, finances, and related steps. Always verify information independently.