Dentistry is of the hottest doctor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #7 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 10 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Dentistry Doctor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,628 doctor's degrees in dentistry during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Dentistry School for Your Doctor's Degree
The dentistry doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality dentistry program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on dentistry students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other dentistry students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How easy is it for dentistry to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized dentistry related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for dentistry students working on their doctor's degree.
The dentistry school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Dentistry Doctor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region.
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It's hard to beat University of Pennsylvania if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in dentistry. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, dentistry doctorate recipients usually earn around $80,541 in their early careers.
It's difficult to beat New York University if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in dentistry. Located in the large city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in dentistry from New York University
Temple University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in dentistry. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, Temple is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in dentistry from Temple University
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The dentistry doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality dentistry program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
