If you pursue a degree in dentistry, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #119 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Dentistry Schools in California ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 775 degrees in dentistry to qualified students.
Your choice of dentistry school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for dentistry schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Dentistry Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
You can also filter this list by location to find schools closer to you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the dentistry degree levels they offer.
It's hard to beat University of Southern California if you want to pursue a degree in dentistry. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #13 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were roughly 169 dentistry students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
It is hard to beat Loma Linda University if you wish to pursue a degree in dentistry. Loma Linda University is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Loma Linda.
There were roughly 131 dentistry students who graduated with this degree at Loma Linda University in the most recent year we have data available.
University of California - Los Angeles is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in dentistry. UCLA is a fairly large public university located in the city of Los Angeles. This university ranks 4th out of 161 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were about 105 dentistry students who graduated with this degree at UCLA in the most recent year we have data available.
University of the Pacific is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a degree in dentistry. Located in the large city of Stockton, Pacific is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population. This university ranks 43rd out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were roughly 168 dentistry students who graduated with this degree at Pacific in the most recent data year.
Dentistry is one of 0 different types of Dentistry programs to choose from.
Notes and References
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).
Your choice of dentistry school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for dentistry schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
