Class of 2029 arrives from around Michigan and the country to begin four-year journey to DDS degrees16 min read
Ann Arbor, Mich., June 24, 2025 – The new entering class at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry has arrived, bringing 109 stories of their previous academic and leadership accomplishments as well as aspirations for their future in the profession.
Admitted from 1,908 applicants, the 109 new students are mostly from Michigan, with 62 in-state students and 47 from elsewhere across the country, including California, Idaho, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Florida, among others.
In his welcome on the students’ first day of orientation on June 16, Dean Jacques Nör congratulated the students on their academic track record of excellence thus far. He assured them that the dental school faculty and staff are committed to ensuring each student’s success as they move toward their DDS degree over the next four years. He pointed out that, in addition to being trained as dentists by a world-class dental school, the students will make strong connections and lifelong friends with many of those in their class.
Nör presented key facts about the university and gave an overview of the dental school, which is this year celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founding in 1875. He emphasized the school’s commitment to shaping a welcoming community and maintaining transparent communication. “From the start, know that if you have any questions, if you have any advice to give to us, please reach out to us,” Nör said. “We are always going to be ready to speak to you, listen to you and work with you toward making our school every day a little bit better.”
Senior Associate Dean Renée Duff encouraged students to take advantage of the many services the dental school and university provide, including academic and wellbeing counseling. Fourth-year students Abby Puckett and Javi Bonamego advised the new students to support each other, take advantage of school resources and find personal time for the many social and recreational opportunities in Ann Arbor and at the university.
Also during orientation week, Dr. Carlos Gonzalez, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, provided students with a summary of the students’ first semester curriculum this summer. Students were issued iPads and clinic coats, and they settled into their individual stations in the Simulation Lab to check in their hand instruments and other equipment they will use in their clinical training.
Other elements of the class background include:
• Following a national trend in the ratio of men and women applying to dental schools, the U-M DDS Class of 2029 has the highest number of women of any class in school history, with 71 women and 38 men. Both the actual number and the percentage of women – 65 percent – are the highest ever. Dentistry was a male-dominated profession until near the end of the 20th century when women began entering the field in much greater numbers, prompted in large part by the passage of the federal Title IX legislation in 1972. At U-M, women began to approach 50 percent of the entering dental class in the early 2000s. In the last 20 years, the male-female ratio has fluctuated up and down slightly, but usually has been close to an even number of men and women. That is changing over the last six years as the number of women has significantly outpaced the number of men.
• The new DDS class arrived with undergraduate degrees from 11 Michigan universities and colleges: Aquinas College, Calvin University, Grand Valley State University, Hope College, Kalamazoo College, Michigan State University, Oakland University, University of Michigan (Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses), Wayne State University and Western Michigan University.
• Out-of-state universities and colleges that class members attended include: Agnes Scott College, Arizona State University, Boston College, Brigham Young University (Idaho and Provo), Brown University, Emory University, Howard University, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, Ohio State University, Purdue University, Swarthmore College, University of Alabama-Birmingham, University of California (Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara campuses), University of Florida, University of North Dakota, University of Virginia and West Virginia University.
• The undergraduate grade point average of the class is 3.81.
• Two of the 109 students have master’s degrees.
• The average age of the class is 22.
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Following are short biographies of several students in the new class that illustrate the wide-ranging journeys of students who enroll at the U-M School of Dentistry.
• Kylie Cabana will have one of the shortest commutes to the dental school of any of her classmates. It’s a 7-mile drive from her parents’ home near Dexter, northwest of Ann Arbor. Like several of her classmates who grew up in Ann Arbor, she had long hoped she would be admitted to the dental school on the very familiar college campus just down the road from where she grew up. Her interest in a healthcare profession focused on dentistry after she had her wisdom teeth removed by her family dentist in Dexter. “After that, it was, wow, this dentistry thing is really interesting,” she said. “So I shadowed him. He became a huge mentor for me. I met other dentists and oral surgeons in the area, and I just fell in love with it.” Cabana chose to attend Ohio Northern University, where she played soccer and registered a 4.0 grade point in pre-dent coursework. She applied at a few other dental schools, but knew where she wanted to go. “When I decided on dentistry, I started researching it more,” she said. “Being in the Dexter community, there are so many people who are part of U-M, both the overall university and the dental school. You learn that Michigan is best. And the location being close, it was just kind of always my dream. I’ve heard such amazing things about our class and the relationships you build, the alumni network, it’s like a big family. Now I’m back home again.”
• Julia Chia, in sharp contrast to Kylie Cabana’s short trek to the dental school, comes to Ann Arbor from Hong Kong with a stop for her undergraduate education at Chapman University, a private research university in Orange, California. She was familiar with Chapman because her father attended there for a year before transferring to the University of Southern California. She started in communications at Chapman in part because her early interest in a healthcare career seemed to be out of reach based on the lofty status of doctors in her native culture. “I was always interested in healthcare, but it was always placed on a pedestal so I was intimidated by it,” she said. When she didn’t feel passionate about her initial communication classes, she switched her major to health sciences. One of the classes was intro to healthcare professions. “Speakers came in and talked about using their hands, which is something I really related to,” she said. “I shadowed dentists both at home in Hong Kong and in California and realized how good of a profession that would be for me. When I interacted with the patient aspect of it, I fell in love with it.” She chose U-M because there seems to be many opportunities with a big alumni base and supportive staff. “Everyone I talked to from Michigan, or knew someone who went to Michigan for undergrad or dental school, says how supportive everyone is. It seems like an interconnected family.” She said a current student jokingly described the commitment of the school’s faculty and staff this way: “They are not going to let you fail. They will drag your body through to the finish line.”
• Darius Sammons has always known he wanted to be a dentist, so it was just a matter of how to go about it as he grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and attended Wayne State University in Detroit. Two U-M dental school alumni, the father-son team of Dr. Darnell Kaigler, Sr., and Dr. Darnell Kaigler, Jr., who is a faculty member at the dental school, provided shadowing opportunities at their Detroit dental office. “That was really good experience because I got to see procedures that I had never seen done before. … cleft palate, a lot of extractions, a lot of implants.” Sammons also learned about endodontics by spending time at Renaissance Endodontics in Detroit, where two of the endodontists are U-M dental school alumni, including Dr. Todd Ester, the school’s Associate Dean of Well-being and People. “I’m interested in general dentistry because it gives me the opportunity to do a lot of different procedures,” Sammons said. “But I’m open-ended ultimately. Whatever catches my eye, or what I feel most connected to, is probably what I will end up trying to do.” He has received a wide range of advice about dental school from his mentors and older students. “I expect it to be challenging. I expect it to be rigorous. But I don’t expect it to be anything I can’t handle. I expect it to be fun, I expect it to be engaging. I expect a lot of things out of dental school.”
• Julia Jardina likes to explore new horizons. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, then chose to follow her athletic skills to play lacrosse at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Now she’s set to spend four years in Ann Arbor. “It felt like another adventure, just like my undergrad when I went somewhere, in the Northeast, where I had never been before. I’d also never been to Michigan until I got accepted and decided to come visit. It felt like an opportunity for a really great adventure, as well as it is an amazing school, obviously. Every person I talked to could not speak more highly about their experience.” She was introduced to the idea of dentistry as a career when a pediatric dentist in Louisville asked her to work in the dental practice. “I fell in love with it all from there, and then I got more experience during school. She was an awesome mentor and had such a feel for the profession. I decided I want to love my job as much as this woman loves her job.” As for expectations, she says her lacrosse coach in college didn’t like the word “expectation.” “But my hope is that I work hard but I enjoy it and I find balance,” she said. “I’m assuming it is going to be difficult, but I’m very excited to get into the schedule. I just hope I fall in love with the profession even more every day, and I hope that I take time to meet new people and enjoy this experience.”
• Edward Frey already knows a lot about dentistry because his father, Dr. John Frey, is a dentist in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a 1996 alumnus of the U-M school. “I’ve always been around dentistry, exposed to it my whole life,” Edward said. “My dad never forced me to be a dentist. He allowed me to explore it myself and make the decision myself on whether to pursue it. At some point in college when I was exploring career options, I thought dentistry would make a good fit for me and make for a fulfilling career for me in the long run. I’ve always been someone who enjoys a challenge, both academically and in life. Just the whole problem-solving aspect and the working-with-people aspect of dentistry, I found very appealing. I was able to confirm all that with my shadowing experiences.” His dental school expectations on his first day? “I recognize that is going to be a hard time. It is going to be difficult to keep up with all the studying and all the classes, but I’m ready for the challenge. I’m excited that now this is my life for the next four years. I’m excited to be here and starting what we will do for the rest of our lives.”
• Natalie Huttner said her mother’s career as a pediatrician influenced her interest in healthcare, leading her to decide on dentistry as far back as age 4. It also helped that she had a running dialogue at each appointment with her childhood dentist in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Scott Smith is a U-M dental school alumnus (DDS 1986, MS in pediatric dentistry 1988) who has long maintained his ties to the school by traveling back to Ann Arbor almost monthly to be an adjunct professor. “At every appointment, Dr. Scott would come in and say, ‘What’s the best dental school out there?’ and I’d say ‘Michigan.’ That would start off all of our appointments.” Over time, attending the U-M dental school became Huttner’s dream. She kept exploring the field and shadowed various dentists, including pediatric offices where she watched kids, often in pain and scared, receive excellent care and leave with a smile. “Dentistry has such a power to instill confidence,” she said. “Being able to give people confidence in their smile and leave them feeling empowered suits me.” After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, she applied to several dental schools beyond her favorite, U-M. “I applied all over the map,” she said. “I knew I wanted to get out of Colorado for a bit, but I hopefully want to return home because that’s where my parents are. But I wanted to explore another city. And how can you say no to Michigan?” Her dental school expectation, she said, is that “it will be hard, but as they said today (at orientation), it is not a problem, it is a challenge. Working with my peers, we’re all in this together.”
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The University of Michigan School of Dentistry is one of the nation’s leading dental schools engaged in oral healthcare education, research, patient care and community service. General dental care clinics and specialty clinics providing advanced treatment enable the school to offer dental services and programs to patients throughout Michigan. Classroom and clinic instruction prepare future dentists, dental specialists and dental hygienists for practice in private offices, hospitals, academia and public agencies. Research seeks to discover and apply new knowledge that can help patients worldwide. For more information about the School of Dentistry, visit us on the Web at: www.dent.umich.edu. Email: [email protected], or (734) 615-1971.