California Northstate University College of Dental Medicine: Average DAT, GPA, and How to Get In

Numbers below come from the school's own published materials as of July 2026 (each is linked to its source). Admissions stats shift every cycle — treat these as a snapshot and confirm on the school's official admissions page before you apply.

California Northstate University College of Dental Medicine (CNSU), in Elk Grove, California, is a private DMD program and one of the newest dental schools in the country — it admitted its first class in January 2022 and is expanding into a new facility at 2200 Broadway in Sacramento with an 80-chair dental clinic (per a CNSU news article, cnsu.edu). As a young program, CNSU's public data trail looks different from older schools, so we've separated what it actually publishes from what it doesn't below.

Northstate dental school stats at a glance

What DAT score and GPA does Northstate actually look for?

Northstate's admissions requirements page does not publish an actual reported average DAT or GPA for a specific entering class — we won't hand you a made-up number the way some aggregator sites do. What CNSU does publish, per the school's admissions requirements page, is a set of desired benchmarks rather than a class average: a desired DAT Academic Average of 18 or higher, a desired PAT of 17 or higher, a minimum GPA of 2.80, a preferred GPA of 3.20, and a note that admitted students' GPA is "3.40+ likely mean." Treat those as the bar CNSU says it wants, not a confirmed stat about who got in — and confirm current numbers on CNSU's admissions requirements page before you apply, since they can shift by cycle.

Curious where an 18 AA or a 3.40 GPA actually sits nationally? Our DAT score percentile guide walks through the ADA's official percentile tables on both the old 1–30 and new 200–600 scales, and our free DAT score converter converts Northstate's stated benchmarks between scales in a click.

Prerequisites and application process

Two things in CNSU's published requirements catch applicants off guard. First, unlike many dental schools, CNSU explicitly requires one semester or quarter (3 units) of Human Anatomy as a standalone prerequisite, on top of the standard biology, general chemistry, and organic-chemistry-with-lab sequence (per the school's admissions requirements page). Second, CNSU requires the CASPer situational-judgment test in addition to ADEA AADSAS (per the school's admissions requirements page). Neither is universal across dental schools, so if you're applying broadly, build both into your timeline early.

Tuition and cost

CNSU's official 2026–2027 cost-of-attendance PDF for continuing students lists $93,339/year in tuition, with total estimated tuition and fees per year ranging $113,375–$117,607 depending on class and year (per CNSU's Cost of Attendance and Tuition and Fees document). CNSU is a private, single-tuition-rate program, so it doesn't split pricing by resident versus non-resident status. Separately, CNSU's 2025–2026 University General Catalog states a total estimated 4-year program cost (tuition plus fees) of $482,168.

Class size and application deadline

CNSU does not publish a stated class size or a specific AADSAS application deadline on its admissions pages. Rather than guess, check the school's admissions requirements page directly for the current cycle's dates and class-size figures, since programs this new tend to update their published requirements as classes expand.

FAQ: Northstate dental school admissions