DMD - Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD)

TECHNICAL STANDARDS FOR ADMISSION

The Dean and faculty's recommendation that a student be granted the DMD degree by the University of Mississippi Medical Center signifies that the recipient of that degree possesses the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide care across a wide spectrum of dental health needs and to function effectively in varied clinical settings. The dental practitioner must exhibit a unique combination of scientific and health care knowledge, technical abilities, communication and interpersonal skills as well as professional attitudes and behaviors in order to deliver the dental health care that is required and expected of today's dental professional.

The University of Mississippi School of Dentistry has a responsibility for the welfare of patients treated at the school and a responsibility to graduate the best possible practitioners. Therefore, the School of Dentistry maintains certain minimum technical standards for admission to the school. Applicants must possess a basic core of skills and abilities that will allow them to successfully complete the dental curriculum and benefit fully from their professional education. As an integral part of their education, students are required to provide treatment for patients who seek care at the School of Dentistry. The school has the responsibility of ensuring the safety of those patients. This includes the completion of treatment safely and within an acceptable amount of time.

It is the responsibility of the candidate for admission to review the technical standards for admissions. To receive academic accommodations at UMMC, all students must contact the Office for Student Success and complete the appropriate process.

Motor Skills: All applicants must be able to meet the following technical standards: Candidates must have sufficient motor function to conduct various diagnostic and treatment procedures; to manipulate dental instruments and handpieces. These behaviors require both gross and fine muscular movements and coordination, as well as sight, touch and manual dexterity and fully functioning wrists, hands, fingers and arms. Candidates must be able to ensure that basic life support emergency procedures, including CPR, can be performed on all patients; transfer and position disabled patients personally or with assistance from auxiliary personnel; position themselves in an appropriate sitting or standing position so as to render dental care; position dental equipment including carts, stools and dental chair; operate hand or foot controls utilizing fine movements; operate high and low speed dental handpieces during dental treatment requiring controlled movements of less than one millimeter; utilize hand instrumentation including surgical instruments for dental procedures on hard and soft tissues; perform all necessary procedures in required educational exercises including activities in the preclinical laboratories; execute motor movements necessary to arrive at a diagnosis and treatment plan, and provide patient care including emergency treatment; perform motor functions to elicit information from patients or from simulations through palpation, auscultation, percussion and other diagnostic procedures utilizing instrument manipulation.

Sensory Skills: Candidates must have functional use of the senses of vision, hearing, touch and smell in order to observe and learn effectively in the classroom, laboratory and clinical settings and, ultimately, to provide oral health care in a practice setting. These sensory skills must be sufficient to allow the student to acquire information through physical, laboratory and clinical means; to visualize intraoral and extraoral structures; to observe a patient accurately both close at hand and at a distance; and to obtain information from written documents, films, slides and video. Candidates must be able to perform educational exercises, dental examinations, and treatment utilizing functions of vision (acuity, accommodation and adequate color differentiation), touch (tactile sense using direct and indirect palpation), hearing (distinguishing sounds of auscultation and percussion, and discerning audible signs of distress from a patient) and smell (enabling observation and discernment of normal and abnormal odoriferous conditions related to either the patient or environment) in order to correctly discriminate between normal and abnormal tissues or conditions during examination, diagnostic and treatment procedures; read charts, records, small print and handwritten notations; and interpret radiographs and other graphic images with and without assistive devices.

Communication Skills: Candidates must have sufficient fluency in the English language to be able to speak, understand, read and write so as to obtain information from texts and lectures; communicate concepts; perceive and describe patient behaviors and emotional states; communicate effectively and sensitively with patients and all members of the health care team both orally and in writing. Candidates must be able to discuss, explain and exchange information with the patient at a level necessary to develop a health history to address health problems, to arrive at diagnoses and treatment plans and to give direction before, during and after treatment; to retrieve information from texts and lectures; to communicate concepts on written and oral examinations and to other health care workers/providers; and to communicate effectively in spoken and written English in classroom, laboratory and clinical settings.

Cognitive Skills: Candidates must possess those cognitive skills necessary to problem solve in all educational and clinical settings, to accumulate, comprehend and apply information as part of learning and in the establishment of a diagnosis and treatment plan, and to provide oral health care. Candidates must demonstrate the ability to acquire, analyze, synthesize, integrate, measure, calculate and manage data and background knowledge in developing understanding and concepts, and to do so in educational and clinical settings; to perform these cognitive skills in a critical and logical problem solving format and to do so within a specific time limited framework; to comprehend three-dimensional and spatial relationships of structures; to make rational decisions regarding patient care; and to provide treatment within an acceptable time frame so as to ensure safety of the patient.

Behavioral Skills: Candidates must demonstrate sufficient behavioral and social skills, professionalism and emotional health to successfully accomplish the responsibilities related to care of the dental patient and to perform to the fulfillment of the full range of academic and clinical duties of a student. Candidates must be able to manage patients with a wide variety of moods and do so in a tactful, congenial and compassionate manner so as to avoid alienation and antagonism; possess sufficient physical ability to meet the demands of ongoing, concurrent classroom, laboratory and clinical educational exercises; adapt to a changing environment, display flexibility and function appropriately in the face of those uncertainties inherent in dental education; possess emotional health sufficient to carry out tasks, have good judgment and behave in a professional, reliable, mature and responsible manner; exhibit appropriate motivation and a genuine interest in caring for others; exercise good judgment in prompt completion of responsibilities attendant to the educational process and to the diagnosis, treatment planning and care of patients; possess interpersonal skills and attributes of integrity, empathy, stability and punctuality to be able to function effectively as part of the dental health care team.

ACADEMIC REGULATIONS

Curriculum – The dental school administration reserves the right to make changes in curricula and regulations and required equipment and supplies when those changes are determined to be in the best interest of the students and the school.

Examinations – Examinations may be written, oral, practical, simulations, standardized patients or other means or combinations. The student may be excluded from an examination for failure to pay tuition or fees. Make-up examinations for failure of a course must have permission of the Student Evaluation and Promotion Committee (SEPC).

Grades –

1. The School of Dentistry employs a numerical grading system based on zero to 100. Some courses are graded as Pass/Fail.

2. A student must achieve a grade of 70 or more in each course and a grade of Pass in each Pass/Fail graded course. Students must satisfactorily complete all requirements stated for each course in the syllabus and all Clinical Practice guidelines in each Clinical Practice syllabus in order to become eligible for promotion.

3. If work is incomplete for reasons beyond a student's control, a temporary grade of "Incomplete" is reported when grades are due. The "I" must be replaced with a final grade prior to the termination of the following semester.

4. If a course extends beyond the end of a semester, the SEPC and the relevant course director will notify students of unsatisfactory progress.

5. Transfer of acceptable course credit attained in programs other than as a student at the University of Mississippi School of Dentistry will be recorded as a "Transfer" grade on the official transcript.

6. All students will be allowed to view their final grades in Workday through the Academic History link in the student record. Students may challenge grades within 30 days of issuance of final grades; otherwise, grades will stand as recorded.

7. The determination of class rank is made by using the 0-100 scale grade point average, which is derived by:

   1. multiplying the grade in a course by the clock hours of that course; and

   2. by dividing these totals (grades x clock hours-of all courses) by total number of clock hours (of all courses, except remedial or repeat courses).

8. The determination of letter grade or four point published grade point average is derived by:

   1. multiplying the numerical grade in the course by the semester hours of that course; and

   2. dividing the totals in "a" by the total number of semester hours.

In order to be eligible for the Dean's Honor List, a student must have attained: 1) an average of 85 or higher for the academic year; 2) must be in the top 20% of the class; 3) must have completed stated guidelines for the academic year; and 4) must have received all passing grades for the academic year.

Withdrawal – Students who are unable to return to school at the beginning of any semester or who must discontinue their work during the year for legitimate reasons ordinarily will be permitted to withdraw in good or satisfactory standing with approval of the Dean. Students who withdraw must complete School of Dentistry check out procedures as per the SOD Business Office and Office of Academic Affairs. Approved withdrawal, if completed on or before the last day specified in the academic calendar, will not be recorded on the student's record. Withdrawals authorized after this date will be recorded as a "W" if student performance is satisfactory and as an "F" if the student performance is unsatisfactory at the time of withdrawal.

Students who have withdrawn in good standing must receive approval for readmission from the SEPC on the basis of their status at the time of withdrawal. Students who have been absent for more than one academic year, must apply to the Admissions Committee for readmission. This readmission application must be made before November 1 of the year prior to enrollment.

Leave of Absence – Leaves of absence are granted at the discretion of the Dean and will be for a period of up to one year.

Due Process – Due process for students is defined in the procedures identified in the Student Handbook.

CREDIT TRANSFERRED FROM A COMMUNITY COLLEGE

A maximum of 65 semester hours of credit from a junior college may be applied toward admission. However, it is strongly recommended that as many required science courses as possible be completed at a senior college or university to improve chances for admission.

PROGRAM ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

The authority to select applicants for admission to the Dental program is vested in the Dental School Admissions Committee (DSAC) and the Dean of the School of Dentistry. DSAC is appointed by the Admissions Committee Directors of the School of Dentistry and includes clinical and basic science faculty of the School of Dentistry and the School of Medicine, representatives of the dental private practice, UMMC School of Dentistry students and other administrative personnel in the various departments at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. All correspondence and records regarding the admissions process are filed in the Office of Enrollment Management become the property of the University of Mississippi Medical Center and cannot be returned or forwarded to the applicant or another school.  Applicants and Admission Committee members are required to sign a confidentiality agreement which grants the committee members authority to review all applicant information when making decisions on selection of candidates. All applicant information reviewed shall be confidential.

Selection of applicants is made on a competitive basis, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, genetic information, or veteran status. Decision and consideration are given to both cognitive and noncognitive components. Cognitive components include overall GPA, overall science GPA, overall DAT (academic average), overall science DAT and masters GPA, if applicable. Noncognitive components include honesty/integrity, ethics/values, respect for others, critical thinking, communication skills, altruism, motivation for dentistry, accountability, support system, maturity, excellence, vision of practice, participation in Health Careers programs, leadership, self-appraisal and research. Recommendations from college science faculty, dentists that have been shadowed and community service directors are also considered. Multiple mini-interviews with members of the Admissions Committee are required. 

For admission purposes, the School of Dentistry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center gives preference to residents of Mississippi, as defined by Miss. Code §§ 37-103-7, 37-103-13 and IHL Policy 610. As such, the School of Dentistry currently accepts admission applications only from individuals who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. The School of Dentistry may choose to not accept applications from students who cannot demonstrate residency as defined by Miss. Code § 37-103-7 and 37-103-13. In recent years, nonresidents have not been considered for admission to DMD program in the School of Dentistry.

Applicants must complete all required course work at an accredited U.S. or Canadian college or university. Full-time members of the U.S. military must obtain orders to be based in Mississippi prior to starting first-year classes. All questions pertaining to resident status should be addressed to the Office of Enrollment Management, University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS  39216-4505.

INTERVIEWS – Applicant files are reviewed by the School of Dentistry Admissions screeners. Applicants whose credentials indicate potential for success in the UMMC dental school program are invited for an interview session which includes multiple mini-interviews with members of the DSAC. Applicants must not present themselves for interviews until requested to do so by the Admissions Committee. Prescreening factors include, but are not limited to, metrics (grades and DAT scores), shadowing experiences (minimum of 70 hours of shadowing is required with at least four different dentists), research experience, commitment to community service (a minimum of 80 hours is required) as well as professionalism, leadership, and other non-cognitive attributes. Interviews are scheduled during specific periods, and applicants are notified in advance of such periods.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE – The UMMC School of Dentistry is now a participant of the ADEA Associated American Dental Schools Application Service, AADSAS. Applicants can apply online. Contact information for ADEA AADSAS:

• Phone: (617) 612-2045 (Applicant inquiries only)

• E-mail: aadsasinfo@aadsasweb.org

It is not necessary that an applicant complete the entire application at once. The applicant may save the application and work on it over a period of time. Once it is submitted, however, only minor changes can be made online. Check with AADSAS to determine what information can be edited after submission of the application.

Upon verification of an applicant's primary application, the applicant will be provided with a link to complete the UMMC School of Dentistry's supplemental application. The supplemental application fee is $50.

Admission Timeline 2025-2026

• Begin working on application: May 13, 2025

• Begin submitting application: June 3, 2025

• Application deadline:

  • AADSAS deadline: October 1, 2025 (Application, all documentation and fees required by AADSAS must be received by AADSAS.)

  • UMMC School of Dentistry deadline: November 1, 2025 (All application materials, including secondary application, fees, official transcripts and letters of recommendation, must be received.)

• Earliest date of acceptance notification: December 15, 2025

DENTAL ADMISSION TEST (DAT) – Applicants for admission to the UMMC School of Dentistry must take the American Dental Association Dental Admission Test (DAT). The test must be scheduled to be taken by computer at Prometric Testing Centers. Information regarding the American Dental Association Dental Admission Test may be obtained from the pre-dental advisor in most colleges or from the American Dental Association, 211 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611.

By following a well-planned schedule, the pre-dental student should be ready to take the test at the end of the second full year of college work; the DAT is generally taken by March of the third year of college work. DAT scores more than 3 years old are not accepted. Candidates seeking to retake the DAT must wait 90 days before a re-test is allowed.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS – The applicant must show credit for at least three years of college work, totaling not fewer than 90 successful semester hours (grade of "C" or better), completed in an accredited United States or Canadian college or university.

In addition, all applicants must meet the following minimum requirements:

PLEASE NOTE: While not required, these courses are highly recommended: foreign language, sociology, psychology, speech, humanities, philosophy, embryology, histology, immunology, cell biology, physiology, comparative anatomy, gross anatomy, neuroanatomy.

There is no time limit on the validity of a baccalaureate degree; however, the Admissions Committee has concerns when prerequisite courses have been taken ten (10) or more years ago. If a science course is being used for any course requirement (for any method) and was taken ten (10) or more years ago, it must be repeated.

Unacceptable Courses – None of the minimum 90 acceptable semester hours of collegiate course work listed or described or recommended above may be met by the following: correspondence courses; courses in physical training, military science, or dogmatic religion; courses in mathematics or science designed for non-science majors; or course credit granted without college-level testing and grade. A limited number of distance learning credits may be accepted for liberal arts electives; however, none will be accepted for required science and math courses. Courses taken outside science and math departments (course numbers other than BIOL, CHEM, PHYS or MATH) are not acceptable as required courses.

Online Courses – Effective Fall 2023, online courses will no longer be accepted to satisfy pre-requisites for the Doctor of Dental Medicine program. Online courses taken between Spring 2020 and Summer 2023 are acceptable to satisfy pre-requisites. Special consideration will be given to non-traditional students on a case-by-case basis.

Approved Elective Courses – It is recommended that the student develop proficiency in a specific area while in undergraduate school and acquire a background in the humanities and social sciences, consulting with a pre-dental/pre-health profession advisor concerning specific courses.

COMPLETION OF DEGREES – An applicant enrolled in a degree-granting program at any college or university is expected to complete the requirements for and earn that degree before enrollment in dental school. Unless prior approval has been granted by the Admissions Committee, this applies to both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

CONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE – Acceptance to the dental school is conditional; the Admissions Committee may rescind an offer of acceptance at any time before matriculation if an applicant fails to maintain expectations upon which the acceptance was based. Examples include, but are not limited to, a significant decline in academic performance, failure to complete prerequisites or other course work and degrees in progress, patterns of unprofessional behavior and incidents discovered in a criminal background check.

SPECIAL STUDENT

No student may enroll for courses in the School of Dentistry as a special part-time student without being admitted by the Admissions Committee and receiving approval from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs to attend class(es).

School of Dentistry Admissions
Email:  DMDAdmit@umc.edu
Phone: (601) 984-6060