Average DAT Scores

The DAT or Dental Admissions Test measures an applicant's potential for success based on performance in several academic disciplines.  Here is a graph of the rising competitiveness of scores in recent years:

I cannot emphasize more how competitive it is to get into dental school these days.  You must have very good grades and very good DAT scores.  After research and studying recent trends and speaking to Deans of dental schools, I can say with confidence that it is harder to get into dental school than medical school.  I have heard of someone saying, "If I don't get into dental school, I can always fall back on medical school." Wow, how times have changed.  In fact, even since I wrote my book and alluded to the increasing application/acceptance ratio to dental schools these days, there has been an increase in the number of applications for the limited slots available.  There is a rapidly rising number of applicants and the quality of those applicants is rising very rapidly as well.