At a glance: requirements & format
Sourced from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry's ITDP admissions pages and the ADEA CAAPID program listing (last updated February 9, 2026). Confirm anything decision-critical with the ITDP admissions office before you spend money.
- Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) — awarded after passing evaluations in all ITDP coursework; the program is CODA-accredited
- 28 months, full time — an accelerated pathway that starts in January with a hybrid semester alongside second-year students before joining the third-year class
- 20 ITDP students per cohort; the program has enrolled about 20 international dentists a year since it was created in 2005
- March 5, 2026 through ADEA CAAPID
- May 30, 2026 — official TOEFL scores must be transmitted from ETS before this date, not after it
- Required for invited candidates — timed stations with one-on-one discussions across multiple interviewers, including current students, staff, faculty and Admissions Committee members
- By personal email invitation only; approximately 70 candidates interview each cycle in the summer months between July and September
- CAAPID listing records Bench Test: Yes — the school states ITDP candidates may be required to complete a practical examination on manikins in a preclinical laboratory, with details released later in the cycle
- ADAT recommended but not required; submitting scores through CAAPID earns priority review — select ADEA CAAPID as a score recipient at registration. The ADA charges the ADAT registration fee and ETS charges the TOEFL fee; Michigan itself charges no test fee
- Required and never waived — tests taken before January 21, 2026 need a minimum overall 94 (above 100 competitive, subscores 25+); tests from that date need a minimum overall 5 (5+ in every section competitive). Scores expire after two years, must arrive electronically from ETS to CAAPID, and MyBest scores are not considered
- Required — the CAAPID listing names INBDE and TOEFL as the two required standardised tests for the ITDP
- Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE) — the evaluation service Michigan designates on its CAAPID listing; the completed evaluation is filed through ADEA CAAPID
- Submitted through ADEA CAAPID — Michigan's listing directs applicants to the ITDP requirements page for the current letters instructions and publishes no fixed count of its own, so confirm the number and the required writers with the ITDP admissions office before you assign referees
- No separate supplemental application document; a supplemental fee is required on top of the CAAPID fee
- ADEA CAAPID application fee plus the required ITDP supplemental fee — the listing confirms a supplemental fee applies without publishing the amount, so get the current figure from the ITDP admissions office before you pay
- Interview invitations are issued by personal email invitation only and the programme does not publish a fixed notification date; interviews run July to September for the January 2027 start
- January 8, 2027 — the cohort begins with the ITDP hybrid semester before joining the third-year class
- ITDP Admissions Office, University of Michigan School of Dentistry, 1011 N. University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 — the school publishes a dedicated ITDP admissions email on its Contact Us page (listed as internationaldent@umich.edu) and the admissions office line is (734) 763-3316; confirm both before you send anything, and never mail or email score reports
Requirements change — verify before you spend money
Michigan is running two TOEFL scales because the test changed in January 2026, it refuses MyBest scores, and it accepts official score reports only by electronic transmission from ETS to CAAPID — a score sent the wrong way quietly costs you a cycle. Before you book the TOEFL, complete the credential evaluation, pay the supplemental fee or buy anything for a bench test, contact the admissions office at internationaldent@umich.edu or (734) 763-3316 and confirm the current requirements for your cycle in writing.
How the Michigan ITDP evaluation actually works
Michigan runs a file gate, then stations, then skills. Your CAAPID file — credential evaluation, INBDE result, TOEFL transmitted electronically from ETS, supplemental fee — decides whether you are invited at all. The MMI then samples how you reason and speak across several independent one-on-one conversations, and the manikin practical, if the program requires it that cycle, is the only place your hands are scored. Nothing in that chain can be renegotiated afterwards, so the order you prepare in matters more than the polish of any single answer.
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Stage 1: The complete-file gate — before anyone meets you
Michigan invites candidates by personal email invitation only, and the invitation lands after your file is complete in ADEA CAAPID. Four things have to be true before the summer: your credential evaluation is filed with Educational Credential Evaluators, an INBDE result is on record, an unexpired TOEFL score has been transmitted electronically from ETS directly to CAAPID, and the ITDP supplemental fee is paid. Michigan states plainly that official scores must arrive from ETS before the application deadline and must not be mailed or emailed to the Admissions Office — a score report sitting in someone's inbox is not a score on file.
This stage is a filter, not an evaluation. Roughly 70 candidates attend ITDP interviews each cycle, which means most applicants never reach a station, and what separates them is administrative rather than intellectual. Point your earliest effort at the slowest items: the credential evaluation and the ETS transmission, because those are the two things you cannot repair in the last week of May.
A score sent the wrong way is a score you do not have
Michigan accepts iBT scores only through the CAAPID application, does not consider MyBest scores, and states that scores must not be mailed or emailed to the Admissions Office. Set ETS to transmit your official report to ADEA CAAPID on the day you register, then confirm on the CAAPID portal that it posted — do this in April, not the week of the deadline.
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Stage 2: The MMI — timed stations, one-on-one, several interviewers
The Michigan interview is a Multiple Mini Interview. You rotate through a series of timed stations and hold a one-on-one discussion at each station with a different interviewer; the interviewer pool includes current students, staff, faculty members and Admissions Committee members. Every station runs to a clock, so the format rewards a judgement you can commit to in the first few seconds and a structure you can hold while a timer runs — not a monologue you rehearsed for one question.
Interviewer evidence for this program clusters around four to five separate conversations of a few minutes each rather than one long panel, with measured sessions averaging near eighteen minutes and most conversations conducted one-on-one. Recent cycles have been delivered virtually rather than on campus, so treat the delivery mode as something your invitation email confirms rather than something you can assume. What the rotation measures is whether your judgement is stable when the topic and the person in front of you change every few minutes.
Rehearse stations, not answers
Set a timer, draw a prompt you have never seen, take sixty seconds to plan and then reason out loud for two to three minutes. Rotate the topic type every rep — policy, ethics, a clinical call, your own background — so consecutive stations feel unfamiliar. If you only ever practise the question you already know how to answer, the station where you have no opinion is the one that ends your cycle.
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Stage 3: The manikin bench test — the only skills score in the chain
Michigan's CAAPID listing records the bench test as Yes, and the school's own admissions page is more precise: ITDP candidates may be required to complete a practical examination on manikins in a preclinical laboratory, with details released later in the cycle. Read the two statements together and plan for the practical rather than against it. Expect the classic preclinical set — a preparation in a typodont tooth, a restoration or a wax-up — and expect it to be graded on contacts, contour, margins and tissue handling.
This is where internationally trained dentists lose marks for habit rather than knowledge. The assessment is scored against a US preclinical standard, with US instrument conventions and a posture in a manikin head that may not be the posture you trained in, so the fastest way to drop a station is to work the way your own school taught you while the clock runs against a rubric you cannot see. Materials, instruments and location are published after the invitation, which makes the weeks between invitation and session your real preparation window.
Do not prepare a bench test you have not confirmed
The program publishes the practical as a possible assessment and releases the details later in the cycle. Until your invitation states the format, the materials you must bring and where it is held, do not buy a manikin, a typodont or an instrument kit on speculation. Confirm the current cycle's bench-test status through the ITDP admissions office, then prepare with the exact materials the school names.
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Stage 4: How the scores are used — ranking to the January start
After the stations and the practical, the committee reads the file and the scores together and fills a fixed number of seats. Michigan's ITDP starts in January with a cohort of 20 who take a hybrid semester alongside second-year students before joining the third-year class for spring, summer, fall and winter terms; roughly 70 candidates were interviewed for those seats. There is no second interview to request and no ranking you can influence after the fact — decisions are issued on the program's schedule ahead of the January 8, 2027 start.
What is worth doing in this window is administrative and easy to neglect. Keep your CAAPID application current if a new score or document arrives, respond promptly if Michigan contacts you about immigration documentation, and be ready with financial documentation, because the tuition deposit and the visa timeline close faster than a January start date suggests. This is also the point where consistency pays: your file, your interview answers and your practical performance are read as one record of the same person.
Keep the record you were interviewed on unchanged
Do not quietly add work experience or revise dates after the interview. If something material changes — a new INBDE attempt, a renewed licence, a new clinical role — report it through the ITDP admissions office and ADEA CAAPID rather than leaving the file inconsistent with what you described at the stations. Consistency across the file, the station answers and the practical is itself part of what the committee reads.
What Michigan's admissions committee is really evaluating
Michigan publishes its requirements but not a ranked rubric, so read the six criteria below as the things this evaluation chain is built to measure. Each one maps to a stage you can actually prepare for, not to generic interview advice.
A complete file is the whole gate
Invitations are issued by personal email invitation only, and the credentials, INBDE result, ETS-transmitted TOEFL score and supplemental fee are prerequisites rather than levers you can trade against a strong interview. The file has to be finished before the station rotation is even possible.
Two TOEFL scales, both hard
Tests taken before January 21, 2026 need a minimum overall 94; tests taken from that date need a minimum overall 5, with 5 or above in every section considered competitive. Scores older than two years are refused, MyBest is not considered, and the report must come electronically from ETS to CAAPID.
Judgement under a station clock
The MMI samples your reasoning in short, independent bursts, with a different interviewer at each station and a timer in every room. The committee is reading whether your clinical and ethical judgement stays stable when the topic, the person and the clock all change mid-rotation.
Manual dexterity against a US rubric
The preclinical practical on manikins, when the program requires it, is the only place your hands are scored. It is graded to a US preclinical standard rather than to the technique you were taught abroad, so preparation means adapting instrument use, materials and posture — not performing fluency in your own system.
Patient-care experience, not observation
Michigan expects applicants to demonstrate experience in the dental field and singles out direct patient care as a licensed dentist as desirable and strongly recommended. Describe volume, procedures and the responsibility you carried; a role with clinical consequences outranks a long list of observerships.
Fit with a 20-student accelerated cohort
Twenty ITDP students take a hybrid semester with second-year students and then join the third-year class on a 28-month schedule. The committee is choosing people who can keep pace in an accelerated curriculum alongside US-trained classmates, which is why adaptability and teamwork questions are really program-model questions.
Michigan dental advanced standing interview questions (with coaching notes)
These are the prompts this evaluation is built around, grouped by what each group measures. The motivational and behavioural sets mirror the one-on-one station conversations, and the station set mirrors the timed, rotating MMI. Rehearse every one out loud against a timer — reading an answer tells you nothing about how you perform with a stranger holding a stopwatch.
Motivational & background
4 questionsWhy dentistry?
How to answer
Give the one patient or decision point that settled it, then connect it to the career you actually built: your training, your years in practice, the work you intend to keep doing in the US. The trap is a childhood story with no professional evidence after it — the station is looking for a reason you can document.
Why Michigan's Internationally Trained Dentist Program?
How to answer
Name structural specifics: the 28-month pathway, the January start, a cohort of 20, the hybrid semester with second-year students, the manikin practical, the Ann Arbor clinical base. This is the most frequently asked question in this rotation, and a reputation answer signals you never opened the ITDP admissions pages.
Tell me about yourself and how you came to dentistry.
How to answer
Build a 90-second arc: where you trained, what your clinical work has looked like, what pulled you toward US licensure, and why an advanced standing pathway is the route. Keep clinical detail inside it — a chronological CV recital burns the clock before you reach why you are here.
Tell me about where you are from and the dental school you attended.
How to answer
Two sentences on place and education, then pivot to what your school did not give you: US licensure eligibility, US patient populations, US instrument and material standards. That pivot is what the station is actually for; a travelogue answer wastes a station you could have converted.
Behavioral
5 questionsWhat personality characteristic would make you believe I am a good candidate for our program?
How to answer
Choose one trait and prove it with a clinical episode: resilience, evidenced by a busy clinic schedule you held while preparing for the INBDE. Name the trait, give the episode, state what it produced. Listing three virtues with no story behind any of them is the answer this station punishes.
Tell me about a time you had to help someone. What did you do?
How to answer
Pick a real situation with a real constraint — a frightened patient, a colleague who could not finish a case, a patient who could not pay — and narrate what you noticed, what you chose and what changed. Keep the focus on your judgement rather than the drama, and never finish with a story where nothing moved.
Is there anything that is not in your application, or cannot be described on paper?
How to answer
This is an invitation, not filler. Bring one thing the file cannot show — a language you treat patients in, a community clinic you built, a gap you want to explain in your own words. Answering that everything is on the application throws away the one station designed to let you add something.
Do you think you will specialise?
How to answer
Answer honestly and show your reasoning: general practice with a defined focus, or a specialty with a route you understand — the US residency path, the prerequisites, the timing after a 28-month D.D.S. Nobody is scoring ambition here; they are scoring whether your plan fits the program you are applying to.
What questions do you have for me?
How to answer
Have three ready and aim them at the program, not at your chances: how ITDP students are absorbed into the third-year clinic, how clinical rotations are assigned, what the manikin practical has involved in recent cycles. Asking nothing, or asking about rankings, closes a station on a weak note.
Ethical & scenario
3 questionsHave you encountered an unethical situation? Tell me what happened.
How to answer
Choose a situation with a genuine competing obligation: a record altered, treatment sold rather than diagnosed, a colleague working outside their competence. State what you observed, what you did, who you told and what followed. This station scores escalation and documentation, not outrage — and silence is a defensible answer only if you say what you did instead.
Give me an example of a specific ethical dilemma you faced in clinical practice and how you handled it.
How to answer
Frame it as obligation against obligation — a patient refusing a referral, a request for treatment you consider unnecessary, a fee error — then show the steps: how you identified the duty, who you consulted, what you documented. Improvising alone, without consulting anyone, is the version of this answer that sinks candidates.
How do you feel about the ethics of amalgam fillings?
How to answer
Take a position and defend it with both sides in play: durability, cost and longevity against mercury exposure concerns and informed consent. Land on the professional principle, which is that the patient decides after an honest conversation about risk and alternatives. Three minutes on the fence reads as having no clinical opinion at all.
MMI station prompts
4 questionsShould we tax sugar?
How to answer
Treat it as a policy station. State your position in one sentence, give the strongest argument against it, then answer that argument with dental evidence you actually know — caries burden, consumption patterns, the limits of individual behaviour change. A rant about personal freedom or a lecture with no mechanism both score poorly.
How do you feel about using live patients during board exams?
How to answer
Weigh the patient's benefit and risk against the fidelity a live patient adds to licensure testing, then name the alternatives that now exist: manikin-based and simulation-based examinations. Say what you would accept as a candidate and what you would require as the patient. Decide early — this station is timed like the rest.
List the pros and cons of using manikins in regional board exams.
How to answer
Structure by criterion, not opinion: standardisation, patient safety, cost and access on one side; limited tissue realism and limited decision-making scope on the other. Then take a position on what a manikin can and cannot certify — Michigan runs a manikin practical, so this station tests whether you understand what it can measure.
Do you think cosmetic dentists give dentistry a bad name?
How to answer
Separate the procedure from the marketing. Aesthetic treatment delivered to a diagnosis is legitimate dentistry; upselling beyond clinical need is not. Anchor your position in putting the patient's oral health first, then give one concrete example of a case you would decline or refer rather than treat.
Want feedback on your answers — not just the questions?
Practice these questions freeYour Michigan ITDP preparation timeline
Work backwards from the May 30, 2026 deadline, the July-to-September interview window and the January 8, 2027 start. The two items that most often break a Michigan cycle are a TOEFL score transmitted the wrong way and a supplemental fee or credential evaluation that lands after the file closes.
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14–16 weeks before the May 30, 2026 deadline
- Settle the TOEFL scale question: a test sat before January 21, 2026 needs a minimum overall 94, and a test sat on or after that date needs a minimum overall 5 — book the version your record requires
- Register for the INBDE if you have not already; Michigan names INBDE and TOEFL as the two required standardised tests
- Start the credential evaluation with Educational Credential Evaluators, the evaluator Michigan designates on its CAAPID listing
- Decide on the ADAT: it is recommended rather than required, and submitting scores through CAAPID earns priority review
- Check your TOEFL expiry date — Michigan accepts scores for two years after the test date and refuses anything older
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8–10 weeks before the May 30, 2026 deadline
- Build the CAAPID application around documented patient care; direct patient care as a licensed dentist is strongly recommended
- Draft the personal statement around why US licensure and why an accelerated 28-month pathway, not around your CV
- Set ETS to transmit your official TOEFL report electronically to ADEA CAAPID
- Pay the ITDP supplemental fee — the listing confirms a supplemental fee applies even though there is no supplemental application document
- Brief your referee writers early so their letters post inside CAAPID instead of sitting in someone's drafts folder
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Final four weeks before the deadline
- Re-check the CAAPID portal for posted scores, credential evaluation status and fee payment
- Do not mail or email score reports to the Admissions Office — Michigan states electronic transmission only
- Confirm the TOEFL report actually posted from ETS rather than assuming the test centre sent it
- Keep every confirmation number for the application, the supplemental fee and the credential evaluation
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Invitation window — June through early July
- Watch the email address on your CAAPID profile; invitations are issued by personal email invitation only
- Confirm the delivery mode for the MMI in the invitation rather than assuming a virtual or on-campus session
- Book your interview slot the day the invitation arrives, and note Ann Arbor's Eastern time zone if the session is remote
- If the invitation mentions a manikin practical, ask which materials and instruments you must bring
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MMI preparation — July through September
- Practise in timed stations: sixty seconds to plan, two to three minutes to deliver, with a prompt you have not seen
- Record yourself and review the footage without captions — on a virtual MMI the camera is the interviewer's view of you
- Rotate station topics each session: policy, ethics, clinical judgement, personal background, and one with no obvious right answer
- Rehearse a closing question set for What questions do you have for me? — three questions about the program, written down in advance
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Bench test preparation — after the invitation
- Wait for the program's bench-test details before buying anything; the practical is published as a possible assessment with details released later
- If a preclinical practical is confirmed, rehearse the standard set on a typodont in a manikin head: a Class II preparation, a restoration, a wax-up
- Work to a US rubric — contacts, contours, margins, tissue handling — and a posture you can hold while the clock runs
- Confirm whether instruments and materials are supplied, and build a travel buffer for Ann Arbor if the session is on campus
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After the evaluation, before the January 8, 2027 start
- Send a short thank-you note to the ITDP admissions office rather than to individual interviewers
- Respond promptly to immigration documentation; Michigan admits candidates who need F-1 status and contacts admitted candidates directly about the paperwork
- Prepare financial documentation for the tuition deposit and the visa process as soon as an offer arrives
- Keep your CAAPID file accurate if a new score or credential arrives after the interview
Michigan dental advanced standing interview — frequently asked questions
What is the Michigan dental advanced standing interview format?
Michigan uses the Multiple Mini Interview. You rotate through a series of timed stations and hold a one-on-one discussion at each station with a different interviewer, drawn from current students, staff, faculty members and Admissions Committee members. Candidates may additionally be required to complete a practical examination on manikins in a preclinical laboratory.
How long is the Michigan ITDP interview, and how many interviewers will I meet?
Expect a rotation rather than one long sitting, because the school describes a series of timed stations with one-on-one discussions and multiple interviewers. Interviewer evidence for this program clusters around four to five separate conversations, with sessions averaging near eighteen minutes and most conversations conducted one-on-one. Your invitation email is the authoritative schedule.
Is the Michigan ITDP interview in person or virtual?
The program does not publish a fixed answer, and recent cycles have been delivered virtually rather than on campus. Your invitation email states the format along with the scheduling instructions. If the MMI is remote, test your camera, microphone and connection in advance, and confirm the start time in Ann Arbor's Eastern time zone before you clear your calendar.
Does Michigan require a bench test for ITDP applicants?
The CAAPID listing records Bench Test: Yes for the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, and the school's admissions page states that ITDP candidates may be required to complete a practical examination on manikins in a preclinical laboratory, with details released later in the cycle. Prepare for it, but wait for your invitation before buying instruments or a typodont.
What TOEFL score does Michigan accept?
Two scales are in play because the test changed. Tests taken before January 21, 2026 need a minimum overall score of 94, with above 100 and subscores of 25 or more considered competitive. Tests taken on or after that date need a minimum overall score of 5, with 5 or above in every section considered competitive. Scores must arrive from ETS before the deadline.
How do I send my TOEFL scores to Michigan?
You do not send them — ETS does. Select ADEA CAAPID as the score recipient so the official report transmits electronically, then confirm it posted to your application. Michigan does not consider MyBest scores, accepts the TOEFL Home Edition, requires unexpired scores no older than two years, and states that scores must not be mailed or emailed to the Admissions Office.
Is the INBDE required for the Michigan ITDP?
Yes. The CAAPID listing names INBDE and TOEFL as the required standardised tests for the Internationally Trained Dentist Program, and both have to be on record for your file to be complete. The ADAT is separate: Michigan recommends it but does not require it, and applicants who submit ADAT scores through CAAPID receive priority review.
How many students does Michigan admit to the ITDP each year?
Twenty. The ITDP cohort starts in January with about 20 students, who take a hybrid semester alongside second-year students before joining the third-year class for the spring, summer, fall and winter terms. Around 70 candidates attend ITDP interviews each cycle for those seats, and admission is offered to US citizens, permanent residents and candidates who need F-1 status.
When are Michigan ITDP finalists notified?
Invitations are issued by personal email invitation only, and the interviews take place in the summer months between July and September. The program publishes no fixed notification date, so keep the email address on your CAAPID application current and monitor it through the summer rather than waiting for a posted date that does not exist.
What is the deadline for the Michigan ITDP application?
The ADEA CAAPID application opened March 5, 2026 and closes May 30, 2026, and the program starts January 8, 2027. Official TOEFL scores must reach CAAPID electronically from ETS before the deadline, and the credential evaluation has to be complete, so build your plan backwards from May 30 rather than from your test date.
Practice the Michigan interview out loud
Michigan's MMI gives you a few minutes to reason in front of a stranger and a clock, then moves you to a different interviewer with a different topic. Reading about the rotation is not the same skill as surviving it. Our AI interview practice runs timed stations and scores your structure and delivery instantly, so the station where you have no opinion is not the first time you meet it.
Rehearsing for a station rotation? Our MMI preparation guide breaks down how multiple mini interviews are scored, and the AI interview practice tool lets you run timed stations with instant feedback. If you are still building your school list, our dental school interview guides cover each program's format and requirements.