At a glance: requirements & format
Sourced from the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry's own International Dental Studies admissions pages and the ADEA CAAPID program listing (last updated February 20, 2026). Confirm anything decision-critical with IDS Admissions before you spend money.
- Doctor of Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) — graduates are eligible to sit any state or regional dental board exam in the United States
- 24 months, full time, five days a week across eight quarters — clinical patient care begins in the second quarter
- 57 seats — 27 at the San Francisco campus and 30 at the Pacific Health Care Collaborative in Sacramento, CA
- March 5, 2026, through ADEA CAAPID, for the IDS Class of 2029
- June 12, 2026 at 11:59 pm Eastern — every score, document and fee must be received by then; incomplete applications are not considered
- New scoring format only: minimum overall 4.5; tests taken before January 21, 2026 are not accepted; report through ETS to ADEA, school code B451
- Pass NBDE Parts I and II (a score of 75 or a Pass result) or the INBDE with a Pass — a fail or a score of 74 or less is not considered
- Not required for the 2026-27 cycle — Dugoni lists no technical examination, though earlier cycles ran a paid mid-October technical exam, so confirm for the cycle you apply in
- Casper required of every applicant — the registration link is emailed only after the $100 supplemental fee is paid; available test dates run March through June
- ECE course-by-course only, cumulative US GPA of 2.0 or higher — WES is not accepted and an ECE Best Result GPA is not considered
- Three through ADEA CAAPID, at least two from dental professionals, hand signed — digitally signed letters are rejected; one additional optional letter from a dental professional is accepted
- No separate supplemental application document — the dental CV is collected through a Qualtrics survey sent after the supplemental fee is paid
- $100 one-time, non-refundable, credit card only (Amex, Discover, MasterCard, Visa) — pay it after your CAAPID fees, with your CAAPID ID number ready
- Authentic full-color photocopy of the school-issued degree (BDS, DDS, DMD, Odontology, Stomatology) — provisional degrees, transcripts and licence certificates are not accepted
- Required for accepted applicants through InfoMart/Advantage Students, plus an enrollment deposit and a medical examination — offers are conditional until these clear
- Interview invitations follow the committee's summer review, with interview week in the autumn ahead of the July 5, 2027 start — IDS Admissions confirms the exact date for your cycle
- July 5, 2027 — the IDS Class of 2029, with San Francisco and Sacramento cohorts starting together
- IDS Admissions, Dugoni School of Dentistry — 415.929.6491; 155 Fifth Street, Fourth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103. The program's ADEA directory entry lists ids@pacific.edu; call to confirm current requirements before sending time-sensitive documents
Requirements change — verify before you spend money
Dugoni's cutoffs make an application ineligible rather than merely uncompetitive: a TOEFL taken before January 21, 2026 will not be considered at all, digitally signed letters are rejected, an ECE cumulative GPA below 2.0 ends the application, and the $100 supplemental fee is non-refundable once paid. Before you book a TOEFL retake, a Casper sitting or a credential evaluation, call IDS Admissions at 415.929.6491 and confirm the requirement for the cycle you are applying in.
How the Dugoni IDS evaluation actually works
Dugoni screens hard before it talks to anyone. Four requirements are pass/fail gates that end a cycle rather than weaken it — the TOEFL date and score, the board pass, the ECE cumulative GPA and hand-signed letters — and a fifth instrument, the Casper assessment, scores your judgement on scenarios without an interviewer in the loop. Only after that does the file reach the admissions committee for an interview invitation. The interview itself is the opposite of a stress test: two open-file, one-on-one conversations in a conversational, low-pressure register, where the committee checks whether the dentist in the room matches the dentist on paper.
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Stage 1: The gates — TOEFL, boards, ECE and three hand-signed letters
Start with what literally happens between March 5 and June 12, 2026. You file through ADEA CAAPID, and the Dugoni School's own checklist arrives with it: TOEFL reported by ETS straight to ADEA under school code B451, NBDE Parts I and II or INBDE pass results reported by the ADA to CAAPID, an ECE course-by-course evaluation showing a cumulative US GPA of 2.0 or higher, three letters uploaded through CAAPID, and a full-color photocopy of your conferred dental diploma. Every one of those items — scores included — must be received by 11:59 pm Eastern on June 12, 2026.
These are eligibility gates, not scores to optimise. Dugoni states that incomplete applications are not considered for admission and that a fail or a score of 74 or less on the boards, a TOEFL taken before January 21, 2026, or an ECE average of 1.99 or lower makes you ineligible rather than less competitive. The order matters because the file cannot be repaired later: the committee reads a complete file once, and a missing ETS report in July cannot be added to a decision that was already made.
Three absolute cutoffs that end your cycle quietly
A TOEFL taken before January 21, 2026 is not considered regardless of the score, so a strong old result means a retake. Letters that are digitally signed are rejected — tell your evaluators to sign by hand on letterhead. And Dugoni counts only the cumulative ECE average, not the Best Result figure, so verify which number your report shows before you assume you clear 2.0.
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Stage 2: The $100 supplemental fee, the dental CV and the Casper assessment
Dugoni's listing shows no separate supplemental application, but two requirements sit behind a payment. After your CAAPID application and CAAPID processing fees are submitted, you pay a $100 one-time, non-refundable supplemental fee by credit card with your CAAPID ID number to hand. That payment unlocks the email containing your dental CV Qualtrics survey and, separately, the email with your Casper registration link. Casper test dates run from March through June, and results are sent directly to the Dugoni School — you submit nothing yourself.
Read the sequence, because it is the whole mechanism. The supplemental fee triggers both downstream tasks, and the Casper sitting is a requirement of a complete application rather than a bonus, so paying late compresses the window in which you can sit a test your file is incomplete without. Casper is an online, scenario-based assessment of non-cognitive skills — communication, ethics, empathy and decision-making — which is why Dugoni uses it here: judged under a clock with no interviewer responding, it gives the committee a standardised read on your professional judgement before anyone invests an interview slot.
Pay the fee the day your CAAPID submission clears
The Casper window is fixed to March through June, not to your personal schedule. Applicants who pay the supplemental fee in the last week of May are choosing between an unrepresentative rushed sitting and an incomplete file. Pay early, register for the earliest available Casper date, and treat one practice run as mandatory if you have never answered typed or video scenarios under a timer.
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Stage 3: Interview week — two one-on-one, open-file conversations and no bench test this cycle
Once the committee's summer review closes, invited candidates are brought in for interview week in the autumn ahead of the July 5, 2027 start. Expect two interviews, each roughly 45 to 50 minutes, conducted one-on-one — a single faculty interviewer in almost every report — and open file, meaning your CAAPID application, personal statement and dental CV have already been read and annotated before you sit down. Format has varied between cycles: interviews have run both in person on the San Francisco campus and virtually, so confirm your own date when the invitation lands.
The tone is the part applicants misread. Reports describe a conversational, deliberately low-pressure exchange rather than an interrogation, which is consistent with the school's public identity as a humanistic institution — and it changes what you should prepare. Nothing here rewards performance; the committee is testing whether the motivations in your written file survive being spoken about, and whether you can hold a professional conversation about your own record. The questions follow your application, not a generic script.
The bench test is gone this cycle — do not treat that as permanent
Dugoni's CAAPID listing for 2026-27 shows no technical examination, but the school's earlier directory entries describe a personal interview and a technical examination in mid-October with a separate fee for invited applicants. Plan your preparation around the interview and Casper, then re-check the bench field on the listing for the cycle you actually apply in — a gap year can change it back.
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Stage 4: From offer to the July 5, 2027 start — conditional until everything clears
After interview week the committee issues decisions. Any offer is conditional: Dugoni does not convert it to an enrolment until the specified deposit is submitted, a background check through InfoMart/Advantage Students comes back satisfactorily, and the required medical examination is completed and filed. International candidates then work with the University's International Students and Scholars office on the immigration paperwork, and both cohorts — San Francisco and Sacramento — begin on July 5, 2027.
What follows is a 24-month, five-day-a-week, eight-quarter curriculum. Clinical patient care starts in the second quarter, and the greater part of the second year is spent in clinical practice across the Dugoni School, the Pacific Health Care Collaborative and affiliated Northern California sites. That schedule is what interview week is quietly screening you for: the program is asking whether you can carry a full-time clinical and academic load in a US system, which is a different demand from the practice you already ran at home.
Ask about campus placement in the interview
The 57-seat intake splits into 27 students in San Francisco and 30 in Sacramento. Asking how placement is decided — and answering credibly about either location — signals that you understand the program rather than a campus brochure. It is also a real question: two cohorts, two facilities, one degree, and you should know which one you are hoping for before decisions are made.
What the Dugoni admissions committee is really evaluating
Dugoni publishes requirements but not a ranked rubric, so read the six criteria below as what the staged process is built to measure — each one maps to a stage you can prepare for.
Eligibility before merit
The TOEFL window, the board pass and the ECE cumulative average are disqualifiers, not scores. Nothing in your interview can repair a file that was ineligible on June 12, which is why the earliest work in your cycle is a paperwork audit against Dugoni's own checklist.
Judgement without a human prompt
Casper is the only standardised instrument in the process. It scores how you reason through communication, ethics, empathy and decision-making scenarios under a clock, giving the committee a comparable read on professional judgement before it spends an interview slot on you.
Consistency with your own file
The interview runs on an open file, so every claim you made in your CAAPID application is available to the interviewer, annotated. The committee is testing whether the spoken version of your record matches the written one — a detail you cannot expand on reads as someone else's application.
Humanistic communication
Applicants describe the interview tone as conversational and low-pressure, which mirrors the school's humanistic model of care. Interviewers are listening for whether you treat a disagreement as a conversation with a person, not a contest of authority — the same instinct that later decides difficult-patient scenarios.
Readiness for the accelerated load
A 24-month, five-day-a-week program with eight quarters and patient care beginning in the second quarter is dense by design. Your answer to how you handle pressure and a heavy academic load is read against a schedule the program has already published, so vague optimism is easy to see through.
Flexibility across two campuses
The intake is split between San Francisco and the Pacific Health Care Collaborative in Sacramento. The committee is choosing people who will function in either setting, and candidates who are only interested in one location without a reason should expect the placement question to surface.
Pacific Dugoni dental advanced standing interview questions (with coaching notes)
These are the prompts the Dugoni evaluation is built around, grouped by the four things the process measures: your motivation, your behaviour, your ethics, and the scenario judgement the Casper assessment scores. Practise them out loud and at length — the interview runs on an open file for 45 to 50 minutes per conversation, and reading answers is not the same skill as delivering them.
Motivational & background
4 questionsWhy dentistry?
How to answer
Answer with a specific origin, not a virtue: name the moment you decided — a patient you treated, a specialty you watched, a problem in your home country's system — then connect it to why you are moving into the US system now. Answers that open with 'I want to help people' are the ones that get forgotten.
Why the Dugoni School's International Dental Studies program?
How to answer
Give structural facts: 57 seats across two Northern California campuses, 24 months with patient care from the second quarter, and a D.D.S. that qualifies you for any state or regional board. Then say what you want from that specific model. 'It is a great school' proves you never read the page.
Tell me about your dental work in your home country, and what you have done since you arrived in the US.
How to answer
Sequence it: the clinical scope you practised, the volume and procedures you actually owned, then the US-specific work — assisting, research, teaching, observerships, board study. Interviewers are checking that your application maps to a real career, so quantify chairs, patients and procedures rather than describing your degree.
Do you see yourself living and practising in Northern California?
How to answer
This is a placement and retention question, not a geography quiz. Say plainly whether you would accept the San Francisco or the Sacramento cohort and ground the reason in patient population or your practice plans. A dismissive answer about either campus signals you are not flexible where the program needs it.
Behavioral
4 questionsWhat are your weaknesses?
How to answer
Pick one real constraint that does not threaten clinical competence — delegation, asking for help, time management in a busy clinic — and spend most of the answer on the system you built to manage it, plus how you know it works. A disguised strength such as perfectionism reads as evasive to an interviewer holding your open file.
Explain a time you struggled in school and how you overcame it.
How to answer
Choose a course, exam or clinical rotation with an objective difficulty, then give the mechanism: what you changed in how you studied, who you asked for help, what the second attempt produced. The committee is testing whether you can diagnose your own performance. Effort with no measurable outcome is the trap.
Describe a specific experience where your leadership skills were tested.
How to answer
Use one situation with a named role: a clinic team you coordinated, a class you organised, a crisis involving a patient or colleague. Give the decision you made, the resistance you met, and the result. Leadership stories fail when they describe being in charge rather than what changed for other people.
How do you perform under pressure? Give an example.
How to answer
Name a genuinely high-pressure clinical or academic event and walk through your sequence: triage, communicate, escalate, document. The interviewer wants a method that does not depend on staying calm. Answering with a claim of composure and no example is the failure mode they hear most.
Ethical & scenario
4 questionsA classmate is caught cheating, or asks you to cover for them. What do you do?
How to answer
Separate the obligations out loud. Loyalty to a colleague never outranks patient safety or academic integrity, so state that first, then describe the least destructive intervention available: refuse to lie, tell the person why, escalate only when you must, and document. Promising to keep quiet fails outright; reporting without a conversation looks naive.
How do ethics play a role in dentistry?
How to answer
Move from principle to practice: informed consent, honest treatment planning, correct billing, infection control, and treating only what you are competent to treat. Anchor it in one case from your own practice so it is not a lecture. Treating ethics as an exam topic rather than daily chairside decisions is what sinks the answer.
How would you deal with a patient who was difficult to work with?
How to answer
Diagnose the difficulty first — clinical, financial, communication or unmet expectation — and say how you would tell which. Then give the sequence: listen without defending, restate the plan in plain language, offer real options with boundaries, and schedule follow-up. Blaming the patient and granting every demand both fail this one.
How do you keep patients coming back to your practice?
How to answer
Answer with continuity of care, not marketing: clear communication, comfortable and complete treatment, follow-up after complex procedures, and a plan the patient understands. Dugoni's model pairs students with patients over time, so describe how you would use that relationship. Discounts and social media miss what is being asked.
Casper-style scenario prompts
4 questionsScenario: you are in clinic and a patient's blood pressure reads high, but they insist on starting treatment now. What do you do, and why?
How to answer
Casper scores reasoning, not one right answer. State the safety principle, then the immediate action — recheck, defer the invasive step, arrange medical follow-up — and the conversation that keeps the patient engaged in care. Show that you hold clinical safety and the patient's frustration at the same time. Practise to a two-to-three-minute limit.
Scenario: a patient's family asks you to limit what you tell the patient about their diagnosis. What do you do?
How to answer
Calibrate two duties: the patient's right to their own information and the family's wish to protect them. Say what you would ask first, what you would explain about consent and confidentiality, and how you would bring the patient into the decision. Casper is measuring whether your process is ethical and specific, not how strongly you feel about it.
Scenario: you are on a five-day-a-week schedule and your patient develops a complication the day before a major examination. What do you do?
How to answer
Rank the obligations out loud: patient safety first, documentation second, then the exam — and name who you involve, which faculty member or clinic director you notify, and how you would recover the academic work. Casper penalises heroics that put a patient at risk and silence that leaves a complication unowned.
Scenario: on a group project, a teammate is not delivering what they promised. What do you do?
How to answer
Give the steps in order: ask what is blocking them before assuming indifference, restate the shared deadline, redistribute what you can, and escalate to faculty only when the academic or patient-facing outcome is genuinely at risk. Say how you would keep the relationship workable. Casper readers look for the conversation you try first.
Want feedback on your answers — not just the questions?
Practice these questions freeYour Pacific Dugoni preparation timeline
Work backwards from the June 12, 2026 deadline and the July 5, 2027 program start. The two things that wreck a Dugoni cycle are a TOEFL score that predates January 21, 2026 and a supplemental fee paid so late that the Casper window closes around you.
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16-20 weeks before the June 12, 2026 deadline
- Confirm your TOEFL was taken on the new scoring format on or after January 21, 2026 — if not, book the retake before anything else
- Order the ECE course-by-course evaluation and verify the cumulative US GPA clears 2.0 (the Best Result average is ignored)
- Request NBDE Parts I and II or INBDE pass results from the ADA, reported directly to ADEA CAAPID
- Ask three evaluators for hand-signed letters on letterhead, at least two from dental professionals
- Upload a full-color photocopy of your conferred dental diploma — provisional degrees and licence certificates are rejected
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6-8 weeks before the June 12, 2026 deadline
- Submit the ADEA CAAPID application and pay all CAAPID processing fees before anything else
- Pay the $100 non-refundable supplemental fee with your CAAPID ID ready — this payment triggers everything downstream
- Complete the dental CV Qualtrics survey as soon as it arrives in your inbox
- Verify every item on Dugoni's checklist has been received, not merely uploaded, before June 12
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Casper window (March to June 2026)
- Watch for the Casper registration email, which is sent only after the supplemental fee clears
- Register for the earliest available date — sitting slots run March through June and the deadline does not move
- Do at least one full timed practice run in the same format you are offered, typed or video
- Remember that Casper results go straight to the Dugoni School; there is nothing for you to submit
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Summer 2026 — review to interview invitation
- Expect silence while the committee reviews; verify status by calling IDS Admissions at 415.929.6491 rather than guessing
- Re-read your CAAPID application, personal statement and dental CV, and build a two-sentence expansion for every entry
- Run two full-length mock interviews — 45 minutes, open file, no notes — and record at least one
- Confirm whether your interview will be in San Francisco or virtual before booking travel
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Interview week (autumn 2026)
- Re-read the invitation for arrival details and confirm what the program asks you to bring or send in advance
- Prepare three genuine questions about the eight-quarter curriculum, clinical rotations and the two-campus model
- Rehearse why dentistry, why Dugoni and your home-country clinical story until each fits 90 seconds
- Book refundable travel with a Bay Area traffic buffer if your interview is in person
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After the interview, before the July 5, 2027 start
- Send a short thank-you note through IDS Admissions rather than to an interviewer's private address
- Clear the conditional offer items: enrollment deposit, background check through InfoMart/Advantage Students, medical examination
- Work with the International Students and Scholars office on your I-20 and visa timeline
- Confirm campus placement — 27 students in San Francisco, 30 at the Pacific Health Care Collaborative in Sacramento
Pacific Dugoni advanced standing interview — frequently asked questions
What is the Dugoni IDS advanced standing interview format?
Invited candidates typically complete two one-on-one interviews of roughly 45 to 50 minutes each, on an open file, so the interviewer has already read and annotated your CAAPID application, personal statement and dental CV. Interviews have been held both in person on the San Francisco campus and virtually, depending on the cycle, so confirm the format for your own date when the invitation arrives.
Does the Dugoni School require a bench test for IDS applicants?
No. The ADEA CAAPID listing for the 2026-27 cycle shows no bench test and no technical examination for the International Dental Studies program. Earlier cycles did run a mid-October technical examination with a separate fee for invited applicants, so treat the current position as cycle-specific and re-check the listing before you plan any typodont preparation.
Is the Casper assessment required for every Dugoni IDS applicant?
Yes. Every applicant must complete the Casper assessment, an online scenario-based test of communication, ethics, empathy and decision-making. The registration link is emailed only after the $100 supplemental application fee has been paid, test dates run March through June, and results are sent directly to the Dugoni School. An application without Casper is not complete and will not be reviewed.
What TOEFL score does Dugoni require, and which test dates count?
Dugoni requires the TOEFL under the new scoring format effective January 21, 2026, with a minimum overall score of 4.5. Scores from tests taken before January 21, 2026 are not accepted regardless of how high they were, and the requirement is not waived. Request ETS to report your score directly to ADEA under school code B451.
How many letters of evaluation does the IDS program require?
Three letters, submitted through your ADEA CAAPID application, with at least two written by US or international dental professionals such as dentists or dental school faculty. A dean's letter is not required. Letters must be on letterhead and hand signed — digitally signed letters will not be accepted — and the Office of Admissions also accepts one additional optional letter from a dental professional, uploaded in the CAAPID program materials documents section.
How large is the Dugoni IDS class and where do students study?
The program enrolls 57 students each year. Twenty-seven are selected for the San Francisco campus at the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry and thirty for the Pacific Health Care Collaborative program in Sacramento, California. Both cohorts follow the same full-time, five-day-a-week, eight-quarter curriculum and graduate with a D.D.S. that qualifies them for any state or regional dental board.
What are the IDS application deadline and start date?
ADEA CAAPID opens March 5, 2026 for the IDS Class of 2029, and the deadline is Friday, June 12, 2026 at 11:59 pm Eastern. Every score, document and fee — including the $100 supplemental fee and your Casper result — must be received by that moment, because incomplete applications are not considered for admission. The program starts July 5, 2027.
When do applicants hear about interviews and final decisions?
Interviews follow the admissions committee's summer review, with interview week held in the autumn ahead of the July 5, 2027 start, and decisions are issued after that week. Dugoni publishes its notification date for each cycle rather than a standing calendar, so confirm timing with IDS Admissions at 415.929.6491 and keep your CAAPID contact details current so nothing is missed.
Which credential evaluation does Dugoni accept?
ECE only, on a course-by-course basis, showing a cumulative US grade point average of 2.0 or higher. World Education Services evaluations are not accepted, and if your report carries two averages, only the comprehensive figure is considered — applicants at 1.99 or lower are not eligible to apply. Advanced degrees earned abroad also need an ECE course-by-course report.
Practice the Dugoni interview out loud
Reading about the file gates and interview week covers half of it. The other half is sitting in a 45-minute open-file conversation about your own application, or answering a scenario under a Casper clock, without freezing. Our AI interview practice scores your structure, content and delivery instantly so you can run the reps before the conversation that counts.
Preparing for more than one program this cycle? Our MMI preparation guide covers the multiple-mini-interview format used by several dental schools, and the AI interview practice tool lets you rehearse open-file and scenario questions with instant feedback. If you are still building your list, our dental school interview guides break down each program's format and requirements.