Lyon College School 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.

Lyon College School of Dental Medicine is Arkansas's first and only dental school, based in Little Rock, and it's brand new — the program only opened its doors in 2024. That matters for reading every stat below: there's exactly one entering class on record, the inaugural Class of 2028, and every average comes from a single Lyon.edu news release covering that cohort. There's no multi-year trend yet, no separate ADEA class-profile page, and no published acceptance rate.

Lyon dental school stats at a glance

Average DAT score

Lyon's inaugural Class of 2028 posted an average Academic Average DAT score of 19, per the school's published class profile. Lyon.edu's release describes this as "matching the national average" but doesn't specify old (1–30) vs. new (200–600) scale — a 19 corresponds to the traditional 1–30 AA scale. Since this is the school's only entering-class cohort reported to date, there's no second data point to compare it against yet.

If you want to see where a 19 AA (old scale) or its new-scale equivalent actually falls nationally, our DAT score percentiles guide walks through the ADA's official concordance and percentile tables, and our DAT score converter will convert any old-scale score to the new 200–600 scale (and back) in one click.

Average GPA

The Class of 2028 averaged a 3.50 cumulative GPA and a 3.36 science GPA, per the school's published class profile. As with the DAT figure, this is the only GPA data Lyon has released publicly, tied to that single inaugural cohort.

Class size and where students come from

Lyon's entering class runs 80 students, per the school's published class profile. That inaugural Class of 2028 came from 17 states, with 43% from Arkansas and 33% from bordering states, per the same Lyon.edu news release.

Tuition and residency

Lyon doesn't publish a year-labeled tuition figure we can cite with confidence for the current cycle, so check the school's admissions page for the current number. What is worth knowing: the school's own FAQ page states that Lyon does not charge out-of-state tuition — resident and non-resident students pay the same $51,000-per-term rate, per lyoninstitute.com's FAQ page.

Application deadline

Lyon hasn't published a specific application deadline on its official admissions pages that we could independently verify. If you see a deadline circulating elsewhere online, treat it as unconfirmed and go straight to the school's admissions page for the current cycle's exact dates.

What admissions actually looks for

Per the school's Dental Admissions page, candidates must show documented shadowing or volunteering at dental practices or clinics — community health centers or federally qualified health centers count — and need to be prepared to discuss those experiences in essays and interviews. The same page notes that DAT scores older than five years at the time of application are not accepted, so if you tested a while back, check whether a retake is required before you submit.

How we use this data ourselves

Every figure on this page traces back to a Lyon.edu or lyoninstitute.com page we linked directly — not a forum estimate. Because Lyon is a first-year program with only one class on record, there's real uncertainty in reading a "typical" applicant from a single cohort. Use this page as a starting point, then verify anything that matters to your application against the school's admissions page directly, since a new program's numbers can move a lot cycle to cycle.