At a glance: requirements & format
Sourced from the LSU Health New Orleans School of Dentistry IEDP admissions pages and the ADEA CAAPID program listing. Confirm anything decision-critical with the IEDP program office before you spend money.
- Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) — you enter the predoctoral program as a second-year student and complete the D2, D3 and D4 curriculum
- 36 months, full time — the IEDP page describes it as a mandatory three-year curriculum with no waiver of classes
- 5 students — the figure published by both the IEDP program page and the ADEA CAAPID listing (listed as an estimate)
- June 1, 2026 — LSU states that early application is highly recommended
- August 15, 2026 — the CAAPID deadline for the class that starts in July 2027
- Yes — a manikin-based bench test in the preclinical simulation laboratory, graded like a predoctoral competency examination; only invited candidates sit it
- Personal interview with members of the IEDP Admissions Committee, plus the bench test; the process is divided into two sections across one and a half days (Thursday morning and afternoon, Friday morning). Expect roughly 25-35 minutes per conversation, three or more interviewers, a mix of one-on-one and small-group sessions, and an open file
- 90 or above, or 5 or above on the new scoring scale; the score must be less than two years old at application and reported from ETS directly to ADEA CAAPID; the Home Edition is accepted; waived only if you hold a degree from a US accredited college or university
- Pass NBDE Part I or the INBDE to be considered — official scores must be submitted to ADEA CAAPID
- Accepted and considered, not required — upload Advanced Dental Admission Test results as part of the CAAPID application
- Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE) only — a course-by-course evaluation of your dental transcript, plus certification and translation of your diploma and dental licence; uploaded to ADEA CAAPID
- Three required: one from faculty at the dental school that awarded your degree, plus two more from other faculty or any other reference; signed, on letterhead, in English, no more than two years old, and uploaded by the authors to ADEA CAAPID. Up to two further letters may be accepted
- Yes, but only if LSU requests it — a printed IEDP application mailed with a 2x2 photograph, a copy of your passport and a copy of your green card if you hold one, to the Office of Admissions, Attn: IEDP, 1100 Florida Avenue, Box 28, New Orleans, LA 70119
- $75 non-refundable supplemental application fee, paid online through the LSU Health fee payment portal, plus the ADEA CAAPID processing fee
- Acceptance notifications are sent at the end of the selection process; admitted candidates owe a non-refundable $5,000 deposit within 15 days of acceptance, applied to tuition. No formal non-acceptance letters are sent
- Required before enrolment — offers are not final and enrolment is not permitted until a criminal background check returns results LSU deems favourable
- July 2027 — the ADEA CAAPID listing gives July 1, 2027 as the program start
- IEDP program office — Dr. Shirin Khoynezhad, DDS, DMSc, Associate Professor of Prosthodontics, skhoyn@lsuhsc.edu, (504) 941-8290; LSUHSC School of Dentistry, Office of Admissions, Attn: IEDP, 1100 Florida Avenue, Box 28, New Orleans, LA 70119
Requirements change — verify before you spend money
LSU sets its interview dates and bench-day logistics each cycle and does not publish them in advance — the IEDP page carries the dates as unset for this class — and the TOEFL scoring scale, the supplemental fee and the deposit terms are all revised between cycles. Before you book flights to New Orleans, register for the Bench Preparation Course or pay the $75 supplemental fee, email Dr. Shirin Khoynezhad at skhoyn@lsuhsc.edu or call (504) 941-8290 and get the current requirements for your cycle in writing.
How the LSU advanced standing evaluation actually works
LSU runs a file-gate, then hands, then conversation model. The Program Director screens the CAAPID application against hard published requirements before any invitation goes out, so a strong TOEFL score or a competitive ECE GPA buys you nothing until the whole file is complete. The invited then travel to New Orleans for two sections spread across one and a half days: a manikin bench test in the preclinical simulation laboratory and a personal interview with the IEDP Admissions Committee. There is no asynchronous video screen and no telephone round — this program evaluates your hands in person.
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Stage 1: The CAAPID file — the gate that opens before anything physical
Before anyone offers you a seat, LSU screens the file. The IEDP Program Director, working under the Office of Admissions, checks that your ECE course-by-course evaluation shows the program's prerequisite equivalencies — biology with laboratory, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, English and physics — and that a TOEFL score, a passing NBDE Part I or INBDE result, and three letters of evaluation are in. A 3.0 ECE GPA is the recommended floor, and LSU states that more competitive records are given first consideration. Nothing on that list is optional, and nothing can be waived later: the program enrols you as a second-year dental student and grants no waiver of classes.
Order matters, because the file gate sits upstream of everything you can rehearse. You cannot earn an interview with your hands, because nobody sees your hands until the Program Director has already decided the paperwork is complete. Only after the CAAPID application and the ADEA processing fee arrive does LSU decide whether to request the supplemental application — a printed IEDP form, a 2x2 photograph, a copy of your passport, and a copy of your green card if you hold one, mailed to the Office of Admissions in New Orleans with the $75 non-refundable fee paid online.
The supplemental application is invitation-only, and it is not electronic
Applicants routinely pay the $75 fee and mail the packet the week they submit CAAPID. LSU's instruction is explicit: submit CAAPID, pay the ADEA fee, then wait for the school to request the supplemental application. Sending an unsolicited packet does not move your file forward, and the fee is non-refundable. Wait for the email, then post the form, photograph, passport copy and green card copy to 1100 Florida Avenue, Box 28.
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Stage 2: The manikin bench test — hand skills graded as a competency examination
The manual assessment happens in the preclinical simulation laboratory, on manikins, with clinical faculty observing. LSU describes it as a bench test and grades it the way the school grades competency examinations for its own predoctoral students, so you are being measured against the standard its D2 students must hold, not against a separate international-applicant curve. The program also runs a Bench Preparation Course and a calibration session ahead of the assessment: participants are given the detailed preparation specifications and expectations, then practise the procedures and take faculty feedback before the graded day. The interview process is split into two sections across roughly one and a half days — a Thursday morning and afternoon, then Friday morning.
Sequencing explains the pressure. Five seats are available, so one unpolished preparation or a missed margin is not a detail — it is the whole ranking. The committee is also watching something you cannot cram: whether you take instruction, adjust mid-procedure, and work cleanly under a clock with people you have never met. Candidates who attend the preparation course walk into the graded room already knowing the specifications; candidates who skip it spend the first hour of their assessment learning the format.
Pay for the calibration session before you pay for anything else
The Bench Preparation Course is the only published way to see the specifications and the grading expectations before the graded test, and it is staffed by the faculty who evaluate the bench test. Register as soon as your invitation arrives, then practise every published preparation under the clock until the sequence — plan, prepare, check the margin — is automatic. Hand speed without self-checking reads as a risk in a competency-format examination.
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Stage 3: The committee interview — open file, one-on-one and small group
The second half of the visit is the personal interview with members of the IEDP Admissions Committee. Expect more than one conversation: applicants typically describe three separate interviews across the two sections, each running roughly 25 to 35 minutes, with three or more interviewers involved overall. The room is mixed — some conversations are one-on-one, others are with a small group of faculty — and the interviewers work from the file, which means your personal statement, your ECE GPA, your TOEFL score and your letters are all live material they can question directly.
The prompts tend to be broad and personal rather than clinical: why dentistry, what your purpose in life is, what you last made with your hands, whether you are mechanically inclined, what you do when you are upset. That is not filler. LSU is admitting five people into a three-year D2-to-D4 curriculum where you will be graded alongside students who took the full path, and the committee is testing whether you are the colleague who stays steady when scrutinised. Answer as the person who will sit in that cohort, not as a résumé.
Prepare your own file like an open-book exam
Open file means the interviewer can reach for anything you wrote. Re-read your personal statement, your CV and your letters, then write a two-sentence expansion for every distinctive item — clinical volume, an outreach programme, a research project, a practice you ran. The trap is a question about your own application answered vaguely because you wrote it a year ago, and the recurring LSU prompts (purpose in life, why dentistry, what you last made with your hands) should be rehearsed aloud until they sound spoken, not recited.
What LSU's IEDP admissions committee is really evaluating
LSU publishes its requirements but not a ranked rubric. Read the six criteria below as the things the file gate, the bench day and the committee interview are built to measure — each one maps to a stage you can prepare for, not to generic interview advice.
Curriculum equivalence on paper
The Program Director reviews your credentials to confirm your undergraduate preparation covers biology with laboratory, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, English and physics. A 3.0 ECE GPA is recommended, with more competitive records considered first. This is the first filter and it happens before any invitation.
English proficiency as a hard gate
TOEFL iBT 90 or above, or 5 or above on the new scale, less than two years old, reported from ETS to ADEA CAAPID. The waiver exists only for a degree from a US accredited college or university — high school does not qualify. A missing or stale score stops the file rather than softening your candidacy.
Board examination readiness
You must have passed NBDE Part I or the INBDE, with official scores sent to CAAPID. ADAT results are accepted and considered but never required. Because you enter as a second-year student with no waiver of classes, the committee reads your board record as evidence you can carry the D2 load.
Manual dexterity under observation
The manikin bench test in the preclinical simulation laboratory is graded against the same competency standard applied to predoctoral students. Faculty watch technique, sequencing, time management and how you respond to instruction — which is why the calibration session exists and why skipping it is a scoring risk.
Letters that read like faculty endorsement
One letter must come from faculty at the dental school that issued your degree; two more may come from other faculty or any reference, and all must be signed, on letterhead, in English and less than two years old. LSU calls the letters non-negotiable, with additional practice or shadowing letters welcome.
Fit for a five-seat cohort
Five students enter a 36-month D2-to-D4 curriculum in New Orleans. The committee is selecting people who will hold up in a small, closely watched group where classmates, faculty and clinic staff know each other — which is why the interview leans on personal purpose, self-regulation and how you treat colleagues.
LSU dental advanced standing interview questions (with coaching notes)
These are the prompts LSU's IEDP evaluation is built around, grouped by the four things the process measures. The motivational and behavioural sets recur across descriptions of the open-file committee interview; the bench-day set covers the manual-dexterity and calibration conversation that surrounds the manikin test. Practise every answer out loud — the bench day leaves no room to improvise your delivery for the first time.
Motivational & background
4 questionsWhy do you want to be a dentist?
How to answer
This is the first question of the interview, so it has to be finished, not discovered. Open with the origin — a specific patient, procedure or influence — then show the thread from your dental degree to a US licence. Close with what you intend to do clinically. The trap is passion with no evidence; name a case, a rotation or a practice you built.
What is your purpose in life?
How to answer
It recurs in almost every LSU interview, so decide your answer now. Give one sentence of principle, then two sentences of proof — the clinical work, teaching or community service where that purpose is already visible. The trap is a slogan. Commit to something you have acted on, and keep it short enough to survive a follow-up.
How have you shown your commitment to dentistry?
How to answer
Answer with evidence, not feeling. Walk through your dental degree, then the years since: clinical hours, continuing education, a practice, an outreach programme, research or teaching. Include one thing that cost you real time or money — that cost is what makes the word commitment credible to a committee.
If you could not choose dentistry as a career, what would you choose?
How to answer
Pick a second path that shares a mechanism with dentistry — surgery, engineering, teaching, public health — and explain the overlap: working with your hands, diagnosing, or long relationships with patients. The trap is naming something that makes dentistry sound like a fallback. The overlap must show why this field won.
Behavioral
5 questionsTell me about something you advocated for that met opposition, and how you handled the debate.
How to answer
Give one situation, the real resistance, your argument, and what changed. Name who opposed you and how you kept the working relationship intact afterwards. The trap is a story where you simply out-argued everyone — LSU wants a dentist who can push a clinical standard without breaking the team around them.
Give me an example of when you showed empathy.
How to answer
Choose a clinical or family moment where someone was frightened or in pain, and describe the specific thing you did — how you explained, waited, or changed the appointment. Say what the person did next. The trap is a vague statement about caring; empathy shows up in behaviour, never in adjectives.
What do you do when you are upset?
How to answer
Describe the mechanism you actually use — a pause, a walk, writing the problem down, calling a colleague — then give one occasion when it protected your work. The trap is claiming you never get frustrated. The committee is testing self-regulation with a patient in the chair and a schedule running late.
What was the last idea you had?
How to answer
Have a genuine recent idea ready: a workflow fix in your practice, a case you re-planned, a teaching tool, a treatment sequence you changed. State the problem, the idea, and what you did with it. The trap is reaching for a grand invention you never acted on — the committee values execution over originality.
Can you handle doing the same career for 30 years?
How to answer
Answer with the parts that renew for you — the technical craft, patient relationships, teaching, research, a specialty you may add later — and tie one of them to something you have already sustained. The trap is treating longevity as endurance. The committee wants to hear how you keep the work interesting for three decades.
Ethical & scenario
5 questionsOne of your assistants calls in sick on a full day of appointments. What do you do?
How to answer
Work the problem in order: patient safety first, then triage the schedule — which appointments can move and which cannot — then cover, then communicate. Say who you call and what you tell the first patient. The trap is deciding alone; leadership means delegating and informing, not silently absorbing the day.
A five-year-old you are supervising hits his thumb with a hammer. What do you do?
How to answer
LSU uses this to watch you triage out loud: comfort the child, assess the injury for swelling, deformity or nail-bed involvement, immobilise and cool it, contact the parent, and refer for imaging if the injury warrants it. The trap is panic or a shrug. Show calm sequenced judgement and say what you would not do.
What is the most important thing you can do to make a patient feel relaxed and comfortable?
How to answer
Name one behaviour and defend it — explaining each step before you perform it, checking in during the procedure, or controlling pain properly — then give an example from your own practice. The trap is answering with the decor of the clinic or with being friendly. The committee is listening for communication, not amenities.
How would you give recognition to someone who deserves it?
How to answer
Be concrete: state the specific behaviour you are crediting, credit it in front of the team, and match the gesture to what that person values. Then say when you have done it. The trap is vague praise or a private thank-you. Recognition is leadership — the point is reinforcing the standard for everyone who is watching.
How would you treat your co-workers?
How to answer
Answer as a colleague, not as an owner: assume good intent, share the load when the schedule is brutal, correct privately and credit publicly, and take the unglamorous tasks yourself. Give one example of behaving that way under pressure. The trap is listing virtues instead of describing a decision you actually made.
Bench-day & calibration prompts
4 questionsWhat was the last thing you made with your hands?
How to answer
Have a real answer ready — a provisional crown, a suture on a model, a repaired instrument, something you built — and describe the sequence you worked in: plan, execute, check. The trap is naming something you only watched being made. LSU asks this because a graded manikin bench test is in your immediate future.
Are you mechanically inclined?
How to answer
Say yes, then prove it in one sentence of evidence: instrument repair, model work, handpiece maintenance, or a hobby that demands tolerance and precision. Describe what you do when a step fails the first time. The trap is over-claiming speed without explaining how you check your own margins before submitting.
Are you a good loser?
How to answer
Reframe it as coachability. Describe a time you were corrected on technique or lost a competition, what you did with the feedback, and how your work changed afterwards. The trap is defensiveness: on bench day you will be graded and told what to fix while you are still standing in the room.
If the committee asked you to retake a board examination or repeat coursework before you enrolled, how would you respond?
How to answer
Say yes, then show the mechanism: a study timeline, the resources you would use, and why the extra work is worth it. LSU enrols you as a second-year student and waives nothing, so an answer that negotiates instead of accepting remediation signals that you have not read the program model.
Want feedback on your answers — not just the questions?
Practice these questions freeYour LSU IEDP preparation timeline
Work backwards from the August 15, 2026 CAAPID deadline and the July 2027 program start. The two things that most often cost applicants an LSU cycle are a TOEFL score or ECE evaluation that lands after the deadline and a bench day entered without the calibration session.
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Before June 1, 2026 — build the file while the portal is shut
- Book the TOEFL iBT if the US-degree waiver does not cover you — LSU requires 90 or above, or 5 or above on the new scale
- Order the ECE course-by-course evaluation of your dental transcript, diploma and dental licence
- Send NBDE Part I or INBDE results from the ADA to ADEA CAAPID, never directly to the school
- Ask the faculty member who knows your clinical work for the letter from your graduating dental school, and line up the two additional referees
- Check that your transcript shows biology with laboratory, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, English and physics
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June 1-30, 2026 — submit through ADEA CAAPID in the first month
- Open the CAAPID application the week the portal opens — LSU states early application is highly recommended
- Draft the personal statement around your dental education, dental activities and professional goals
- Check that your full legal name matches your passport on every document you file
- Pay the ADEA CAAPID processing fee and confirm each letter of evaluation has been uploaded by its author
- Keep a clean copy of everything you submitted so the supplemental packet can be reproduced exactly
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July 1 - August 15, 2026 — close the gaps before the deadline
- Retake the TOEFL if the first score came in under 90 and results can still arrive before August 15
- Upload ADAT results if you have them — accepted and considered, never required
- Confirm your INBDE or NBDE Part I pass and that official scores have reached CAAPID
- Watch your inbox for LSU's request for the supplemental application; it is not issued automatically
- Chase any letter writer who has not uploaded before the deadline closes
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After August 15, 2026 — the invitation window
- Expect notification by email; an interview invitation is not an offer of admission
- Register for the Bench Preparation Course as soon as your invitation arrives, since places are invitation-based
- Block leave for a Thursday and the following Friday — the process runs across one and a half days
- Email the IEDP program office at skhoyn@lsuhsc.edu or call (504) 941-8290 to confirm your dates in writing
- Keep flights and hotel refundable until the program confirms the schedule
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The weeks before your bench days — calibrate your hand skills
- Attend the calibration and Bench Preparation sessions and leave with the written specifications
- Practise every published preparation under the clock until plan, prepare and check is automatic
- Confirm which instruments you must bring and buy them early rather than in New Orleans
- Write your two-sentence expansion for each line of your own file: ECE GPA, TOEFL, board scores, letters, personal statement
- Rehearse the recurring prompts aloud — why dentistry, your purpose in life, what you last made with your hands
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Interview and bench days — one and a half days in New Orleans
- Arrive at the preclinical simulation laboratory early and confirm the manikin and kit setup before the clock starts
- Work the bench procedures in a fixed sequence and check your own margins before handing anything in
- Treat every faculty interaction during the two sections as part of the assessment
- In the committee interview, answer the question asked and stop — padding costs you follow-up questions
- Bring two genuine questions about the D2-to-D4 curriculum, clinic rotations and patient volume
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After the bench days — decision, deposit and the July 2027 start
- Watch for an acceptance notification; LSU does not send formal letters of non-acceptance
- If admitted, pay the $5,000 non-refundable deposit within 15 days of acceptance — it is applied to tuition
- Complete the criminal background check, since enrolment is not permitted until results are favourable
- Budget the published tuition of $92,287 per year plus the second-year instrument and supply fees
- Start visa and financial documentation early for the July 2027 start in New Orleans
LSU dental advanced standing interview — frequently asked questions
What is the format of the LSU IEDP interview?
LSU runs two sections over roughly one and a half days in New Orleans: a personal interview with members of the IEDP Admissions Committee and a manikin bench test in the preclinical simulation laboratory. Expect several conversations of about 25 to 35 minutes each with three or more interviewers, mostly one-on-one with at least one small-group session, all working from an open file.
Does LSU require a bench test for internationally educated dentists?
Yes. The ADEA CAAPID listing shows the bench test field as Yes, and LSU's own IEDP page describes a manikin-based bench test in the preclinical laboratory during the interview visit, graded the way predoctoral competency examinations are graded. A Bench Preparation Course and calibration session run beforehand, and registration for the interview and test process is open only to invited participants.
Is there an asynchronous video or Kira-style screen at LSU?
No. LSU publishes no video interview for the IEDP. The filter before an invitation is the written file — ECE course-by-course evaluation, TOEFL score, NBDE Part I or INBDE result and three letters of evaluation — and once you are invited, the only instruments are the in-person bench test and the committee interview.
What TOEFL score does LSU require?
LSU requires a TOEFL internet-based score of 90 or above, or 5 or above on the new scoring scale, with the score less than two years old at the point of application. Scores must be reported from ETS directly to ADEA CAAPID rather than to the school, and the Home Edition is accepted. The TOEFL is waived only if you hold a degree from a US accredited college or university; high school does not count.
Which board examinations does LSU accept?
You must pass either NBDE Part I or the INBDE to be considered, and official scores must be submitted to ADEA CAAPID. ADAT results are accepted and considered but are not required. Successful applicants enter the D.D.S. program as second-year students and complete the second, third and fourth-year curriculum, and the program states that no waiver of classes is granted.
How many letters of evaluation does LSU require?
Three. One must come from faculty at the dental school that awarded your degree; the other two may come from other faculty or any other reference. All letters must be signed, written on the letterhead of the writer's school, practice or organisation, in English, and no more than two years old at application. The authors upload them directly to ADEA CAAPID, and up to two further letters may be accepted.
What is the LSU supplemental application and its fee?
It is a printed IEDP application that LSU requests only if it decides to move you forward. You mail it with a 2x2 photograph, a copy of your passport and a copy of your green card if you hold one to the Office of Admissions in New Orleans, and pay a $75 non-refundable fee online through the LSU Health fee payment portal. Submitting CAAPID does not trigger the request automatically.
How big is the LSU IEDP class?
Five students. LSU's IEDP page lists the class size as five and the ADEA CAAPID listing carries the same figure, flagged as an estimate. You join the predoctoral program as a second-year student and complete the D2, D3 and D4 years over roughly 36 months, which is why the file gate and the bench test carry so much weight in a five-seat cycle.
What are the LSU IEDP deadline and start date?
The ADEA CAAPID application opens June 1, 2026 and closes August 15, 2026, and the program starts in July 2027. Interview dates are set by the program and posted on the IEDP admissions page closer to the cycle, so confirm them with the IEDP program office by email before you book travel to New Orleans.
When do applicants hear back after the bench test?
Acceptance notifications are sent at the completion of the selection process, and LSU does not send formal letters of non-acceptance, so silence is not a decision you can read. Admitted candidates have 15 days from the offer to pay a $5,000 non-refundable deposit, which is applied to tuition. If your cycle has passed without word, email the IEDP program office rather than waiting.
Practice the LSU interview out loud
Knowing the bench test is coming does not rehearse the answers that follow it. LSU's committee works from an open file and returns to the same broad prompts — your purpose, your commitment, what you last made with your hands — so delivery matters as much as content. Our AI interview practice scores your structure and delivery instantly, so you can run the reps before the day that counts.
Interviewing anywhere else this cycle? Our MMI preparation guide covers stations-based formats, and the AI interview practice tool lets you rehearse any program's questions with instant feedback. If you are still building your school list, our dental school interview guides break down each program's format and requirements.