This review finds that college GPA and DAT scores provide dental schools in the United States and Canada with defensible methods for selecting students. College GPA seems the best predictor of academic performance in dental school. The academic average (AA) of the DAT is a better predictor than is the perceptual ability test (PAT), but dental educators who believe that evidence of manual dexterity or perceptual ability must be a part of the admissions decision can find enough supporting evidence to justify doing so. When added to college GPA and the AA, information from the PAT may in fact enhance predictability. There is also evidence, however, that manual skills can be learned during routine dental curricular experiences. Overall, conventional admissions criteria at best account for about 40 percent of the variance in dental school performance, and most of this variance occurs during the early years of the curriculum. Studies are lacking for evaluating criteria that may predict success in admitting students for preferentially addressing current challenges, including achieving diversity of the workforce, ensuring access to care for all, interprofessional health care, ethics and professionalism, filling faculty positions, and conducting needed research. Schools should periodically validate all of their admissions criteria against expected performances and make corresponding adjustments.

East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine is responding to the changes in today's health care system by implementing an innovative model of community-based dental education that prepares tomorrow's dentists to meet North Carolina's future oral health challenges while also providing much-needed care in many underserved areas.

Dental school admissions committees continue to grapple with challenges associated with recruiting, admitting, and enrolling students who best meet the mission of the particular institution. For many students, particularly underrepresented minority students and those from non-traditional backgrounds, standardized tests such as the Dental Admission Test (DAT) are poor predictors of their potential for success. Noncognitive assessment methods can be used in conjunction with traditional cognitive measures in making admissions decisions. These methods have been employed by hundreds of higher education institutions, foundations, and scholarship programs, but are relatively new in dental education. This article describes a prevalent assessment model and discusses one dental school's implementation of the model, with the outcome of enrolling students from diverse backgrounds whose career goals parallel the mission of the school.

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