By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Author of Digital SAT Math Secrets · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated September 30, 2026
There is no medical school in Alaska.
There is one in-state pathway to an MD, and it’s reserved for Alaska residents. That makes it an advantage rather than a limitation, and it’s the most useful thing an Alaska pre-med student can know.
This page covers how that pathway works, where to do your undergraduate degree, and what the SAT actually affects in a state where the universities are open admission.
Table of Contents
- How Does an Alaska Student Become a Doctor?
- Where Should You Do Your Undergraduate Degree?
- Why Are There No SAT Ranges on This Page?
- Does the SAT Matter for Alaska Students at All?
- What If You’re Looking Outside Alaska?
How Does an Alaska Student Become a Doctor?
Through WWAMI, which is the only route to a medical degree that starts in Alaska.
WWAMI is a partnership between the University of Washington School of Medicine and universities across five states: Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. Alaska’s seats are administered through the University of Alaska Anchorage.
An Alaska student admitted to WWAMI spends approximately the first 18 months at UAA, then moves to the University of Washington and to clinical sites across the five-state region. Clinical training can be completed in Alaska or at other WWAMI sites, and students spend a period at the University of Washington hospitals in Seattle.
The part that matters most: applying through Alaska’s seats requires Alaska residency.
A student from Alaska has access to a route into a highly regarded medical school that a student from anywhere else does not. Out-of-state applicants compete for the University of Washington’s general seats. Alaska residents compete against a much smaller field for seats set aside for them.
That’s a genuine advantage and it doesn’t appear on any ranking list.
The scale is small, and you should know the number. Thirty students entered the Alaska WWAMI cohort in 2025, which the University of Alaska and University of Washington described as the largest ever. So the in-state route exists, it’s real, and it’s narrow.
The programme started in 1971 with nine students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and moved to Anchorage in 1989.
Knowing the pathway exists raises the next question, which is where to spend the four years before it.
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Where Should You Do Your Undergraduate Degree?
Alaska has four institutions a pre-med student would realistically consider.
| Institution | Undergraduates | Cost of attendance | In-state tuition | Out-of-state tuition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Alaska Anchorage | 7,212 | $24,096 | $7,738 | $21,322 |
| University of Alaska Fairbanks | 4,207 | $22,407 | $8,736 | $22,320 |
| University of Alaska Southeast | 907 | $21,043 | $7,056 | $20,640 |
| Alaska Pacific University | 457 | $34,026 | $20,760 | $20,760 |
Cost of attendance is the full figure including tuition, fees, room and board, before financial aid.
University of Alaska Anchorage
UAA is where the WWAMI School of Medical Education sits, which makes it the obvious choice for a student planning that route. The medical programme, the pre-med advising, and the undergraduate degree are on the same campus.
It also runs a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Pre-Medical Studies for students who already hold a degree and need the prerequisite coursework, and it hosts a PreMed Summit covering medical school requirements and the application process.
7,212 undergraduates. Cost of attendance $24,096, with tuition and fees at $7,738 in-state and $21,322 out-of-state.
University of Alaska Fairbanks
UAF is where Alaska’s medical education partnership began in 1971, before it moved to Anchorage. It has a strong science faculty and a research emphasis, particularly in Arctic and biological sciences.
4,207 undergraduates. Cost of attendance $22,407, with tuition and fees at $8,736 in-state and $22,320 out-of-state.
University of Alaska Southeast
The smallest of the three University of Alaska campuses, in Juneau, and the least expensive on this list.
907 undergraduates. Cost of attendance $21,043, with tuition and fees at $7,056 in-state and $20,640 out-of-state.
Alaska Pacific University
The only private option, and the smallest institution here by some distance. Tuition is the same for in-state and out-of-state students, which makes it relatively more competitive for students from outside Alaska than the public universities are.
457 undergraduates. Cost of attendance $34,026, with tuition and fees at $20,760.
Why Are There No SAT Ranges on This Page?
you’ve looked at our pages for other states, you’ll have noticed those have score ranges for every school and this one doesn’t.
Two reasons, and both are worth knowing.
No Alaska institution reports SAT data to the Department of Education. Not UAA, not UAF, not any of them. There’s no published range because there’s no published figure.
The two largest universities are open admission. UAA and UAF admit applicants without a competitive review. There’s no range to clear because there’s no gate.
We sell SAT preparation, so it’s worth being direct about that rather than leaving it vague. In Alaska, the SAT does not decide whether a student gets into the state’s universities.
That raises an obvious question.
Does the SAT Matter for Alaska Students at All?
Less than in most states, and not nothing.
It doesn’t affect admission to UAA or UAF. Open admission means open admission.
It does affect scholarships. Merit awards commonly use test scores as part of their criteria, and that’s true of institutional awards and state programs. Check the specific requirements for any award you’re considering, since criteria change from year to year.
And it affects applications outside Alaska, which is the bigger point. With four undergraduate institutions in the state, a lot of Alaska students look elsewhere. Every school outside Alaska has its own admissions process, and at most of them a score still does work.
So the honest position is this. If you’re planning to do your undergraduate degree at UAA and apply to WWAMI, the SAT is not what stands between you and medical school. Your GPA, your prerequisite coursework, your MCAT and your clinical experience are.
If you’re considering schools outside Alaska, the calculation changes, and that’s what the rest of this site is about.
What If You're Looking Outside Alaska?
With four institutions in the state, plenty of Alaska students do.
Once you’re applying out of state, published score ranges start to matter, and reading them correctly matters as much as the score itself.
The Other WWAMI States
Washington, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho share the same partnership and the same medical school at the end of it.
A student weighing an undergraduate degree elsewhere in the WWAMI region is choosing between routes that lead to the same place, which makes those four states worth looking at together rather than separately.
See pre-med colleges in Washington, pre-med colleges in Montana, and pre-med colleges in Idaho.
What SAT Score You Need for College
Outside Alaska, a published score range is the first thing to look at, and it’s commonly misread.
A range covers the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted scores, not the minimum. A quarter scored below the lower number, and the top quarter scored at or above the upper one, which is the figure worth aiming for.
See what SAT score you need for college for how to turn a score into a realistic list of schools.
Take a Free Diagnostic SAT
If you’re applying outside Alaska or going after scholarships that use scores, the place to start is knowing where you actually stand.
A free diagnostic SAT gives an accurate score based on College Board scoring, plus a breakdown of which topics are costing you the most points.
Pre-Med Colleges in Other States
We publish the same breakdown for pre-med programs in every state, including score ranges where schools report them.
See pre-med colleges by state for the full list.
Glyn Caddell
Glyn Caddell holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from NJIT and has been tutoring New York City students since 2008. He founded Caddell Prep in 2012 and is the author of Digital SAT Math Secrets: Lessons & Tricks to Quickly Improve to a Perfect 800 on the Math Test, which contains over 900 practice problems and is used in Caddell Prep’s SAT math classes. He is founding president of the Staten Island Technical High School alumni association and teaches every lesson on this site personally.
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