DAT Score Conversion: Old 1-30 Academic Average to the New 200-600 Scale (Full Table)

What Changed

Beginning March 1, 2025, the American Dental Association's Department of Testing Services reports every DAT result on a 200 to 600 scale in steps of 10. The old 1 to 30 scale is retired for new results; scores from earlier administrations stay available in their original format. The two ranges do not overlap, so you can always tell which scale a number is on: a 20 is an old score and a 420 is a new one.

Schools and applicants will mix the two for years. A dental school's published median usually describes a class that sat the test before March 2025, so it is on the old scale, while an applicant who tested after that date holds a new-scale score. The ADA's concordance table is how the two are compared.

The Academic Average Concordance

The table converts an old Academic Average to its approximate new equivalent and shows the percentile rank of that new score. The ADA built the concordance from more than 30,000 DAT attempts from a recent two-year period, each scored under both systems; a score on one scale is treated as approximately equivalent to a score on the other if the two sit at a similar relative position in their distributions. The percentile rank is the share of candidates in the ADA's national normative sample who scored at or below that new score.

Source: ADA Department of Testing Services, Understanding the New DAT Score Reporting Scale, Table 1 (concordance, Academic Average column) and Table 2 (percentile ranks), updated January 29, 2025. Old scores of 9 and below map to 9 → 250, 8 → 240, 7 → 240, 6 → 230, 5 → 220, 4 → 220, 3 → 210, 2 → 200, 1 → 200.

How to Use It

• Comparing an applicant with a school's median. Convert one of them. If a school reports a median Academic Average of 21 and an applicant holds a 440, the school's 21 is also 440 on the new scale, so the applicant is at the median.
• Comparing two attempts. A candidate whose first attempt is on the old scale and second on the new can convert the first with the table and compare directly, as the ADA's own guide shows.
• Reading a minimum score. The ADA gives this example: a program that required an Academic Average of 18 can require 390 on the new scale to keep essentially the same standard.
• Use the right column. This table is the Academic Average column. The seven subtests each have their own conversion in the ADA's Table 1 and do not match it.

Where the Conversion Is Approximate

• Steps of 10. Several old scores map to the same new score (old 1 and 2 are both 200; old 4 and 5 are both 220), so converting down and back up does not always return the starting number.
• A normative sample, not the applicant pool. The percentile ranks describe the ADA's national sample. They are not the percentile among accepted dental students.
• Small differences are noise. A ten-point difference on the new scale is the smallest step, not a meaningful gap on its own.

Calculators That Handle Both Scales

AdmitBase's dental school chances calculator accepts a score on either scale and converts a post-March-2025 score to the 1 to 30 scale its stored school medians use, so applicants and advisors do not have to convert by hand. For benchmarks on the old scale, see what is a good DAT score and GPA and dental school admissions; for the other admissions tests, see our reference to every professional-school test.