IU Dental School Interview: Kira, Dates and Questions

IU says its Dental Admissions Committee uses holistic review. It considers your academic record including your DAT score, letters of recommendation, the personal interview, shadowing experience and the Kira assessment, as well as your motivation, character, personality and ethics. The 2026-2027 bulletin adds the personal statement and exposure to dentistry to that list.

Character and ethics are named directly. Expect at least one question about a situation where the right thing to do was not obvious.

Clinic from early on

IU's annual report describes a new DDS curriculum with earlier clinical experiences and a goal of practice-ready graduates, and clinic student-to-faculty ratios of 5:1 to 7:1. Students train in the Fritts Clinical Care Center.

Service across Indiana

IU's community outreach page describes fourth-year rotations at federally qualified health centers, and monthly trips since 1996 to an Amish community clinic in rural northern Indiana to care for children. The annual report says Indiana's first Special Care Clinic was on track to finish in spring 2026.

If you have community service or experience with patients who struggle to get care, connect it to these programs when you answer "Why IU?"

1. ADEA AADSAS, open from June 2, 2026.
2. Prescreen. After AADSAS verifies your application, IU checks it for missing materials.
3. IU Grad CAS supplemental, by emailed instructions. IU's pages list the fee as $80 on the how-to-apply page and $70 on the DDS program page.
4. Email dsadmit@iu.edu to say you submitted the supplemental. IU then sends your Kira invitation.
5. Hard deadline: 4:00 p.m. EST on October 1, 2026 for the AADSAS application, the supplemental, official DAT scores and the completed Kira assessment. IU says no exceptions are made.
6. Interviews on October 3 or November 14, 2026.
7. Provisional offers by phone on December 15. ADEA's admissions guidelines set December 15 as the earliest date schools notify applicants of acceptance.

Shadowing has the same deadline. IU requires 100 hours by October 1, in general dentistry and at least two specialty practices.

• Know your application cold. IU doesn't say whether the interview is open or closed file, so prepare to tell your story from the start and to go deeper on anything in your file.
• Prepare your shadowing stories. You shadowed in general dentistry and at least two specialties. Have one specific thing you learned from each.
• Prepare for ethics. IU names ethics and character. Practice walking through a dilemma: what the problem is, who is affected, the options and what you would do.
• Have a reason for IU. Early clinic time, the community rotations and the Special Care Clinic are concrete things to mention. The school gives no preference to IU graduates, so everyone needs a real answer.
• Prepare two or three questions about the new curriculum or the fourth-year rotations.

1. Pick six questions. Record each on your laptop with a 30-second think timer and a two-minute answer timer.
2. Watch the takes. Mark any answer that didn't start with the point, and any filler that repeats.
3. Redo the three weakest the same day.
4. For the interview, run a 20-minute live session with a friend who asks one follow-up per answer.
5. Repeat both parts two days later with new questions.

Practicing alone? Confetto's dental school interview prep runs AI mock interviews that ask follow-up questions based on what you actually said and give rubric-based feedback afterward.

Is the IU dental school interview in person?

Yes. IU says a select group of qualified applicants is invited to its in-person interviews.

When are IU dental interviews?

For the 2026 cycle, Saturday, October 3 and Saturday, November 14, 2026.

Does IU School of Dentistry use Kira?

Yes. Every applicant who completes the AADSAS application and the IU Grad CAS supplemental is invited to the Kira assessment before interviews are offered.

Is the IU dental interview MMI?

IU doesn't say. Its DDS pages and 2026-2027 bulletin don't describe the interview's format as of November 2026.

When does IU send acceptances?

By phone on December 15, with an official letter by mail after.

Applying to other Midwest dental schools? See our guides to the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and UIC College of Dentistry interviews, or IU's dental school acceptance rate and class stats.

Sources: IU School of Dentistry How to apply: DDS, DDS program, annual report and community outreach pages, the 2026-2027 bulletin, and ADEA's admissions guidelines.

Confetto isn't affiliated with Indiana University. Everything here about the school comes from its public admissions pages, checked in November 2026.

Formats and dates can change between cycles, so go by your invitation email.