10 Best Dental Schools in the US

IMA’s picks for the best dental schools in the US are East Carolina, Harvard, NYU, UCSF, UNC, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Penn and Washington. Each stands out for a documented strength in how it trains dentists, from long community rotations and early patient care to medical school integration and required research.

These ten programs differ in when patient care starts, how much training happens in community clinics, which research and dual degree options they offer, how they treat out-of-state applicants and what the first year costs. Whether you started with dental school rankings or a list of schools close to home, comparing those differences shows which programs fit the kind of training you want.

Where These 10 Dental Schools Differ

• Community-based training runs from UNC’s four-week third-year rotation to Washington’s five-month RIDE rotation and 27 weeks in ECU’s community service learning centers.
• Patient care starts early at several schools: UNC students receive a primary patient assignment in the summer of their first year, Iowa begins preventive care in D1, Penn places first-year students in Primary Care Units and NYU brings D1 students into its clinics.
• Published first-year 2026-27 figures vary widely, from $50,930.61 in tuition and fees at ECU to a $162,342 total at Penn and $175,147 in estimated expenses at NYU, and they do not all cover the same items.
• Residency shapes where you can realistically apply. ECU limits enrollment to North Carolina residents, UF gives preference to Florida residents and Washington gives preference to Washington and then WICHE state residents.

The 10 Dental Schools at a Glance

These ten schools are an unordered shortlist, listed alphabetically. Each is an accredited DDS or DMD program whose own pages document a distinctive training model, such as long community rotations, early patient care, a research requirement or integration with medical education. They are IMA’s editorial selections, not a ranking issued by ADEA, CODA or any other organization. If you are weighing the two degree names, IMA’s guide to DDS and DMD degrees explains what they mean.

All ten are accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation, which the U.S. Department of Education recognizes as the sole agency that accredits dental and dental-related education programs at the postsecondary level. The table below lists each school’s degree, first-year 2026-27 cost, entering class and average GPA and DAT, as published on the school’s own pages.

DAT figures in the table appear on two scales. The American Dental Association scoring notice explains that the former scale ran from 1 to 30 and that the scale used since March 1, 2025 runs from 200 to 600, with no change to DAT content. Compare only figures reported on the same scale, and use IMA’s Dental Admission Test guide for more on the test itself.

Cost figures also cover different items, and each cell in the table says what its figure includes. Class averages describe admitted or enrolled students, not minimum requirements.

East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine

East Carolina University builds the fourth year of its DMD program around community practice. Students complete three nine-week rotations, 27 weeks in all, at community service learning centers that North Carolina funded in eight rural and underserved locations, including Ahoskie, Elizabeth City, Robeson County, Spruce Pine and Sylva.

At those centers, fourth-year students complete their clinical requirements by providing patient care, learning practice management skills and developing cultural competence. The first three years take place in Ledyard E. Ross Hall on the Greenville campus, where students begin the clinical phase in their second year.

According to ECU’s fast facts, its campus clinics and community centers have treated nearly 111,000 patients from all 100 North Carolina counties, and nearly 90% of graduates work in primary care dentistry in the state. Students interested in research can apply to the Summer Research Scholars Program, which matches selected students with faculty mentors and provides project funding and a summer stipend.

ECU may suit you if you want long, community-based general practice training in rural settings. The main consideration is eligibility: enrollment is limited to North Carolina residents at this time, and much of the fourth year is spent away from Greenville. The $50,930.61 first-year figure in the table is tuition and fees on the fall 2026 schedule, which lists student health insurance separately at $2,366.50 for the first term.

Harvard School of Dental Medicine

Harvard School of Dental Medicine ties dental education closely to medicine. Its DMD curriculum starts with medical subjects such as anatomy, biochemistry and immunology taught by Harvard Medical School faculty, and dental students learn alongside their medical school peers. Every DMD student must also complete a research project before graduation, beginning in Year One.

Students begin treating patients in the Teaching Practice at the end of Year 2 and later spend eight weeks at a Veterans Affairs hospital or community health center. All Harvard Medical School and HSDM courses taken by DMD students are graded pass/fail. For deeper research training, Harvard offers DMD-PhD and DMD-DMSc pathways.

Harvard may suit you if you want a medicine-integrated curriculum and expect research to be central to your education. The main consideration is size: Harvard’s admissions page reports well over 1,000 applications a year for 35 seats, and 36 students entered with the Class of 2030.

The table lists the 3.94 average GPA published for the Class of 2029 and no DAT average. Harvard’s application FAQ says there are no minimum GPA or DAT score requirements and that international students may apply if they completed all prerequisite courses in English at an institution in the United States, Canada, the UK or Australia.

NYU College of Dentistry

NYU College of Dentistry offers clinical training at large scale, with 300,000 patient visits each year and community outreach rotations built into the curriculum. Students enter clinical settings early in D1, rotate through comprehensive care clinics that year and specialty clinics in D2, and gain initial patient care privileges at the end of D2. By D4 they become the primary care provider, as the NYU Bulletin describes.

NYU organizes its clinics into group practices that combine students from D1 through D4 under group practice directors. The school also groups students into 14 Academic Societies, each with about 27 students per class year.

Community care includes yearlong rotations at federally qualified health centers such as Metro Community Health in Brooklyn and the Bronx. Students can also provide care aboard the Smiling Faces, Going Places mobile van, which travels throughout New York City daily to treat underserved public school children.

NYU’s outreach programs reach domestic sites in New York State and Maine and international locations such as the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Guatemala. Research can begin in the spring of the first year, and the dual degree options include a five-year DDS/MPH and a DDS/MBA limited to five students per year.

NYU may suit you if you want high patient volume and several routes into community care in a large urban program. The considerations are scale and cost: about 380 new students enroll each year, and the 2026-27 tuition page estimates first-year expenses at $175,147, including $111,240 in tuition.

UCSF School of Dentistry

UCSF School of Dentistry offers community externships to every third- and fourth-year DDS student, a combined 10 weeks of hands-on clinical experience in community settings. The network grew from 13 to 29 clinics in three years and is built around rural, Native American and low-income urban communities, with partners such as Tuba City in the Navajo Nation. Before an externship, students attend eight lecture sessions, a two-hour site-selection seminar and a pre-rotation seminar.

The experience can suit you if you want training in underserved care across different kinds of communities. Plan for the added expense: UCSF’s 2026-27 cost of attendance includes $400 to $2,800 in externship costs in later-year budgets, depending on the site.

For early research, the Dental Student Research Fellowship gives students mentored research experience during their first two years. The DDS/MBA with the University of San Francisco starts with a foundational DDS year, followed by three years of dental coursework alongside evening MBA classes.

Cost depends on residency. The first-year 2026-27 cost of attendance in the table is $110,983 for California residents and $123,228 for nonresidents, and UCSF’s financial aid summary reports that June 2024 graduates borrowed an average of $198,389 while enrolled. The school has removed minimum GPA and DAT requirements, so the Class of 2029 averages in the table describe that class rather than a cutoff.

UNC Adams School of Dentistry

UNC Adams School of Dentistry gives students patient responsibility in the first year through its Advocate-Clinician-Thinker (ACT) curriculum. After a six-week opening phase, students begin Foundations of Practice, which spans the first two years. In the spring of the first year they join practice groups alongside upper-level classmates, and by summer they receive their first primary provider-patient assignment. Guided Advanced Clinical Practice is the clinical phase of the curriculum.

The third year ends with a four-week extramural rotation at clinical settings around North Carolina. Through Dentistry in Service to Community, learners train in federally qualified health centers, local health departments, free and charitable clinics, prisons and a Veterans Affairs hospital across 59 of the state’s 100 counties. In 2024, DISC learners provided more than $1,000,000 in in-kind oral health care.

Students can join the Student Research Group or pursue a five-year DDS/MBA. UNC may suit you if you want early patient responsibility at a public school with a statewide service program.

Residency makes a large financial difference. UNC’s admissions page notes that North Carolina substantially subsidizes tuition for students domiciled in the state, and the 2026-27 cost of attendance is $87,836 in-state and $116,282 out-of-state for a first-year student living off campus. The admissions page gives a 3.72 GPA and a 460 DAT Academic Average for the most recently admitted class without naming the year, so read those figures as recent context rather than targets. IMA’s guide to dental school requirements explains how GPA, DAT and prerequisites fit together.

University of Florida College of Dentistry

The University of Florida trains students across a statewide network of five college-owned and 11 affiliated centers where DMD students and residents rotate, and almost all patients at the affiliated centers live at or below 200% of federal poverty levels. Community work starts in the first fall semester with Interdisciplinary Service Learning I.

The fourth-year fall semester adds a four-day hospital rotation that orients students to hospital dentistry. UF is the only publicly funded dental school in Florida.

UF may suit Florida residents who want a four-year general dentistry program with training spread across the state. Research-minded students can consider the DMD/PhD program, which UF established in 2012. The combined BS/DMD lets students finish both degrees in seven years instead of eight.

Residency is the central consideration. UF gives preference to Florida residents, and about 10% of each entering class of 93 can be out-of-state applicants who accept an offer. The same page says an out-of-state student may petition for Florida residency for tuition purposes after one full year in the state, but approval is not guaranteed. UF also reviews applications only from U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

In the table, UF’s first-year 2026-27 budgets are $78,842 in-state and $107,970 out-of-state for fall and spring, and the cost of attendance page adds an $11,766.50 summer budget. The Class of 2030 profile shows that 85 of its 93 enrolled students are Florida residents.

University of Iowa College of Dentistry

The University of Iowa College of Dentistry is the only dental school in Iowa, and its curriculum builds clinical skill year by year. Patient care begins in D1 with routine preventive care. D2 students place sealants and composite and amalgam fillings in the preventive and operative clinics. D3 students spend designated time in each of 7 clinical disciplines.

In D4, students spend five weeks at an extramural site, such as a federally qualified health center, an Indian reservation or a private practice in an underserved area, plus 4 weeks in the Geriatrics and Special Needs clinic.

The college’s clinics log more than 172,000 patient visits a year and support 26 outreach programs, including the Geriatrics Mobile Dental Unit. About 40% of predoctoral students take part in the Student Research Program, and the college says 78% of Iowa dentists are its graduates.

Iowa may suit you if you want a structured progression from preventive care to clerkships, followed by community, geriatric and special needs experience. Iowa considers residents separately from nonresidents, and the 2026 entering class has 56 residents and 24 nonresidents.

The estimated first-year cost of attendance for 2026-27 is $106,849 for residents and $131,987 for nonresidents, and it does not include health insurance.

University of Michigan School of Dentistry

The University of Michigan School of Dentistry builds community care into the final two years. Third- and fourth-year students train in more than 15 clinics serving underserved populations in multiple Michigan cities, and the D4 capstone course rotates students through off-campus community clinics over three terms. The community program recorded 862,449 procedures between the 2004 and 2024 academic years.

Students also run special clinics that provide free dental care to disabled veterans in the Brighton and Lansing areas. The Pathways Program gives DDS students the flexibility to investigate an area of oral health care they choose.

Michigan may suit you if you want community care built into the last years of school with room to explore a focus. Dual degree options include a DDS/PhD with the Oral Health Sciences PhD program and a DDS/MBA.

Plan ahead: Michigan requires 100 hours of dental shadowing by the time you submit your application. The 2025 entering class included 62 residents and 47 nonresidents, and the school’s average DAT figure of 22 does not name a section or scale, so compare it with care.

University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine

Penn Dental Medicine brings students into its clinic organization in the first year. Each first-year student is assigned to a Primary Care Unit and trained to assist D3 and D4 students, in teaching clinics that handle approximately 22,000 patients each year. Preclinical training uses virtual reality stations that simulate a dental environment. From halfway through D3 and continuing through D4, students provide comprehensive community-based care in extramural clinics.

Community sites include the PHMC Public Health Campus on Cedar, where senior dental students help provide care, and students log approximately 16,000 service hours a year in required and elective experiences. The fourth-year curriculum also includes a two-week hospital externship.

Penn may suit you if you want early clinic immersion, extensive community service and the option of a dual degree. Those options come with conditions: there is no guaranteed acceptance into a companion program, and the 2026-27 cost page lists added tuition for dual degrees, including $3,074 per semester for the MPH.

The same page puts the first-year total at $162,342, including $97,848 in tuition for an 11-month year. In Penn’s Class of 2030, 11% of students are international citizens.

University of Washington School of Dentistry

The University of Washington School of Dentistry runs the Regional Initiatives in Dental Education (RIDE) program, a track that trains dentists for rural and underserved populations in partnership with Eastern Washington University and the UW School of Medicine WWAMI program. RIDE students complete a four-week clinical rotation at a community health center in central or eastern Washington the summer after their first year and an intensive five-month clinical rotation in their fourth year. UW says RIDE has returned over 70 percent of its graduates to practice in rural and underserved areas of Washington and the region.

Community care is not limited to RIDE. Every fourth-year student spends at least 5 weeks in a community dental clinic, at sites throughout Washington and a few in Montana. The curriculum leads into third-year clerkships and a fourth-year general practice model designed to mirror private practice.

UW’s fast facts list outreach clinics at over 30 sites in the Northwest and a Summer Research Fellowship that gives dental students oral health research experience with a faculty mentor. The DDS program begins in Summer Quarter, and the DDS/PhD takes a minimum of 8 years.

UW may suit you if you live in Washington or a WICHE state and want preparation for rural or regional practice. Admission preference goes first to Washington residents, then to WICHE state residents, then to residents of other states or countries who attended high school or college in Washington or are applying to the DDS/PhD. A typical entering class is 85-90% Washington residents.

The table lists no GPA or DAT average for UW. Projected first-year costs for 2026-27 are $107,482 for residents and $134,126 for nonresidents.

How to Choose Among These Dental Schools

ADEA’s advice on where to apply lists factors such as geographical location, student body, curriculum type, clinical or research focus and community-centric or larger clinical experiences. Applied to these ten schools, those factors come down to a few practical questions.

Start With Where You Can Realistically Enroll

Residency rules narrow the list before anything else. ECU enrolls only North Carolina residents, UF and Washington give preference to in-state or regional applicants and Iowa reviews residents and nonresidents separately. At the public schools, the resident and nonresident figures in the table can be far apart, so read the figure that matches your own residency.

Decide When You Want Patient Responsibility

If you want to work with patients early, look closely at UNC, Iowa, Penn and NYU, where first-year students are already in the clinic in the ways their profiles describe. If you would rather spend long stretches in community practice, ECU, Washington, Michigan and UCSF build extended community rotations into the later years. Neither model is automatically better; the useful question is which one fits how you learn.

Match Research and Dual Degrees to Your Goals

Harvard requires a research project of every DMD student. At the other schools, research runs through programs such as the UCSF and UW fellowships and Iowa’s Student Research Program. Several schools offer DDS/PhD, MPH or MBA combinations. These can add years, tuition or a separate admission decision, so choose one only if it supports a clear goal.

Consider Class Size and Setting

A class of 35 seats at Harvard and roughly 380 new students a year at NYU are very different experiences. Think about whether you want a small cohort, a high-volume urban clinic, a state-focused public school or a regional rural track.

Check Your Application Fit

Review each school’s current prerequisites and policies before you designate programs. ADEA also publishes a state-by-state school list to help you choose where to apply, and IMA’s ADEA AADSAS application guide explains the application process.

Build Your Dental School List

Start with the programs whose residency policies, costs and clinical structure fit your circumstances. Then compare the experiences that matter most to you, whether that means early patient responsibility, extended rural service, research or a dual degree. A shorter, well-considered list will help you give each application the attention it deserves.

Once you have chosen your schools, prepare for their next steps with IMA’s guide to dental school interview questions. If you still need exposure to dentistry before applying, you can also consider whether a pre-dental internship fits your preparation goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are the Best Dental Schools in the US?

IMA’s picks for the best dental schools in the US are East Carolina, Harvard, NYU, UCSF, UNC, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Penn and Washington, listed alphabetically rather than in rank order. Each was chosen for a documented strength such as long community rotations, early clinical exposure, medical school integration or a research requirement. The best fit for you depends on your residency, budget, preferred class size and the kind of clinical training you want.

Which Dental Schools Offer Long Rural or Community Rotations?

ECU, Washington, UCSF and Michigan build extended community-based training into their programs. ECU fourth-year students spend 27 weeks in community service learning centers, Washington’s RIDE students complete a five-month fourth-year rotation, UCSF students receive a combined 10 weeks of community externships and Michigan’s D4 capstone rotates students through community clinics over three terms. UNC, Iowa and Harvard include shorter off-campus rotations of four to eight weeks.

How Much Does the First Year of Dental School Cost?

First-year 2026-27 figures in this group range from ECU’s $50,930.61 in tuition and fees to NYU’s $175,147 in estimated total expenses. Those endpoints are not directly equivalent because ECU’s amount does not include a full living-cost budget, while NYU’s does. Public schools may also publish different resident and nonresident totals. Compare the categories, academic period and residency status attached to each number in the table.

Can Out-of-State Applicants Attend Public Dental Schools?

Yes, some public dental schools accept out-of-state applicants, but their policies vary considerably. ECU currently limits enrollment to North Carolina residents. UF gives preference to Florida residents and says about 10% of an entering class of 93 may be out of state. Washington prioritizes Washington residents and then WICHE residents, while Iowa evaluates residents and nonresidents in separate pools.

Which Dental Schools Put Students in Patient Care During the First Year?

UNC and Iowa assign forms of direct patient care during the first year, while Penn and NYU place D1 students in clinical settings. UNC gives students their first primary provider-patient assignment in the summer after they join practice groups. Iowa begins with routine preventive care. Penn teaches D1 students to assist upper-level students in Primary Care Units, and NYU integrates D1 students into comprehensive care clinics before they receive initial patient-care privileges at the end of D2.

Do These Dental Schools Require Research?

Harvard requires every DMD student to complete a research project, starting in Year One. The research programs described for the other schools are opportunities: UCSF and Washington offer mentored fellowships, about 40% of Iowa’s predoctoral students take part in its Student Research Program and ECU selects students for summer research scholarships. Check each school’s curriculum for its current expectations.

How Can I Confirm a Dental School Is Accredited?

Use the Commission on Dental Accreditation program search. Filter by the DDS/DMD program type, narrow the results by state or city and confirm that the exact school and degree you are considering appear in the results.