Going to dental school will cost a lot of money, so this page is meant to help you account for the charges due before you start paying dental school tuition. This is not meant to stress you out, but to help you anticipate how much everything will cost. Dentistry is worth it! All costs are approximate and may change slightly year to year.
DAT $540 (This has increased through the years! This is most recent as of May 2024)
DAT Bootcamp Pro Subscription $500
ADEA AADSAS $264 to apply to the first school and $115 for each additional school.
Each school you apply to will charge you to read the application, which costs anywhere between $20-$251. The average application fee is $76.
All schools require you to submit DAT scores. Some schools also require Casper scores (also called TakeAltus). The Casper test is an ethical, situational judgement test. It asks what you would do in various difficult situations, and why you would do it. The base test fee (what it costs to take the online, at-home test) is $40. It costs an additional $12 per school you are submitting your results to. As of the 2022-2023 application cycle, these are the schools that required TakeAltus test scores:
- University of Kentucky College of Dentistry
- University of Louisville School of Dentistry
- Temple University Kornberg School of Dentistry
- California Northstate University
- Case Western Reserve University
- Indiana University
- University of California Los Angeles School of Dentistry
- University of Detroit Mercy
- University of Missouri – Kansas City
- University of Utah
Lastly, when you receive dental school offers of admission, it typically costs approximately $1,000 to accept your seat in the class. It does not cost you anything to decline an offer of admission.
After you accept your seat in the class, most dental schools will require you to pay $75 for a background check.