By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Author of Digital SAT Math Secrets · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated October 1, 2026
Eight Arkansas colleges with pre-med programs, what they cost, and the SAT scores of the students they admit.
Arkansas has three medical schools, and one of its colleges publishes something almost no school does: the percentage of its pre-med students who actually get into medical school.
Scores are given by section rather than as a single total, because a student at 680 Reading & Writing and 590 Math is in a different position from a student at 590 and 680. Every school on this page reports both.
Table of Contents
- Arkansas Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
- Arkansas Has Three Medical Schools
- One Arkansas College Publishes Its Medical School Acceptance Rate
- What If Your Scores Are Below the Range You Want?
Arkansas Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
| College | Reading & Writing | Math | Cost of attendance | Undergraduates | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hendrix College | 560 to 668 | 563 to 680 | $55,013 | 1,100 | 56% |
| John Brown University | 550 to 690 | 520 to 650 | $44,710 | 1,471 | 76% |
| Ouachita Baptist University | 540 to 650 | 530 to 630 | $47,321 | 1,602 | 68% |
| Harding University | 530 to 660 | 520 to 630 | $39,534 | 3,382 | 71% |
| University of Arkansas | 520 to 620 | 510 to 600 | $27,767 | 28,677 | 74% |
| University of Arkansas at Little Rock | 490 to 630 | 470 to 580 | $22,519 | 4,949 | 59% |
| Arkansas State University | 490 to 570 | 480 to 620 | $25,082 | 9,110 | 82% |
| University of Central Arkansas | 480 to 590 | 430 to 580 | $25,029 | 7,762 | 89% |
Each range covers the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted scores. A quarter scored below the lower number, and the top quarter scored at or above the upper one. Being under the lower number does not rule a student out, and being just above it is not as safe as it looks.
Two patterns in that table are worth naming.
The cost gap is wider than the score gap. The four private colleges run $39,534 to $55,013 for cost of attendance. The four publics run $22,519 to $27,767. That’s roughly double. The score difference between the top private and the top public is about 60 points per section, which is real but much smaller than the price difference implies.
The flagship is not the highest scorer. The University of Arkansas has 28,677 undergraduates and sits fifth on this list by score. Four private colleges with a combined enrollment smaller than one of its class years report higher ranges. That’s normal for a large public university with a broad admissions mandate, and it’s worth knowing before reading the ranking as a quality order.
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Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a small liberal arts college in Conway with the highest reported scores in Arkansas and 1,100 undergraduates. Pre-med students can major in any field while completing medical school requirements.
Reading & Writing 560 to 668, Math 563 to 680. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 668 and 680. Cost of attendance $55,013, with tuition and fees at $38,200. 1,100 undergraduates, 56% admitted.
This is also the school with the acceptance rate figure, covered below.
John Brown University
John Brown University is a private university in Siloam Springs with the widest Reading & Writing range on this page, running from 550 to 690.
Reading & Writing 550 to 690, Math 520 to 650. The top quarter scored at or above 690 and 650. Cost of attendance $44,710, with tuition and fees at $31,756. 1,471 undergraduates, 76% admitted.
Ouachita Baptist University
Ouachita Baptist University is a private liberal arts university in Arkadelphia with a long-standing pre-professional program.
Reading & Writing 540 to 650, Math 530 to 630. The top quarter scored at or above 650 and 630. Cost of attendance $47,321, with tuition and fees at $34,500. 1,602 undergraduates, 68% admitted.
Harding University
Harding’s pre-med program runs through its College of Sciences. Students can choose any major, with introductory biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics recommended, and the university provides advising through the medical school application process.
Reading & Writing 530 to 660, Math 520 to 630. The top quarter scored at or above 660 and 630. Cost of attendance $39,534, with tuition and fees at $26,262. 3,382 undergraduates, 71% admitted.
This is the least expensive of the private colleges here and the largest.
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas is the state flagship, in Fayetteville, and by far the largest school on this list.
Reading & Writing 520 to 620, Math 510 to 600. The top quarter scored at or above 620 and 600. Cost of attendance $27,767, with tuition and fees at $10,104 in-state and $29,966 out-of-state. 28,677 undergraduates, 74% admitted.
In-state tuition here is the second lowest on the page, and the in-state to out-of-state difference is approximately $20,000 a year.
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock sits in the same city as UAMS, the state’s academic medical center, and Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
Reading & Writing 490 to 630, Math 470 to 580. The top quarter scored at or above 630 and 580. Cost of attendance $22,519, with tuition and fees at $9,748 in-state and $22,158 out-of-state. 4,949 undergraduates, 59% admitted.
This is the least expensive school on the page and the most selective of the publics by admit rate.
Arkansas State University
Arkansas State University, in Jonesboro, hosts the NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine on its campus.
Reading & Writing 490 to 570, Math 480 to 620. The top quarter scored at or above 570 and 620. Cost of attendance $25,082, with tuition and fees at $8,090 in-state and $14,522 out-of-state. 9,110 undergraduates, 82% admitted.
Two things stand out. Its Math range runs higher than its Reading & Writing range, which is unusual on this page. And its out-of-state tuition is $14,522, which is lower than several schools’ in-state figures elsewhere.
University of Central Arkansas
The University of Central Arkansas, in Conway, offers a pre-professional track with an emphasis on the sciences.
Reading & Writing 480 to 590, Math 430 to 580. The top quarter scored at or above 590 and 580. Cost of attendance $25,029, with tuition and fees at $10,523 in-state and $18,023 out-of-state. 7,762 undergraduates, 89% admitted.
Arkansas Has Three Medical Schools
Arkansas has three medical schools. One awards an MD and two award a DO, and one of the three sits on an undergraduate campus.
- UAMS College of Medicine, Little Rock — MD, and the only MD program in the state
- NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro — DO
- Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Fort Smith — DO
Since two of the three are osteopathic, the distinction is worth a moment. Some of these award an MD and some a DO. The two degrees are treated as equivalent and the difference is a question for the medical school application rather than the college one.
Two of the undergraduate schools above have a direct connection to those medical schools, which is useful for shadowing and research rather than for admission. Medical school applications are national, so an in-state program is a convenience rather than a requirement.
Arkansas State hosts NYITCOM on its own campus. An undergraduate there is walking past a medical school every day, which makes shadowing and research access a matter of crossing a quad rather than driving to another city.
UA Little Rock is in the same city as UAMS. Little Rock is where the state’s only MD program, its academic medical center, and Arkansas Children’s Hospital all are.
UAMS itself enrolls approximately 1,571 undergraduates, though those are health professions programs rather than a conventional pre-med track.
One Arkansas College Publishes Its Medical School Acceptance Rate
Almost no college publishes this, which is why it’s worth a section of its own.
Hendrix College states that over the past decade, nearly 75% of its pre-med students have been accepted to one or more medical schools, against a national average of 45%.
That’s a different kind of number from everything else on this page. Score ranges and admit rates describe who gets in to a college. This describes what happens to them after, which is the thing a pre-med family actually wants to know and almost nobody reports.
Hendrix supports it with a few specifics. Pre-med students complete a semester-long co-op placement, with partners including Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Baptist Health Medical Center and UAMS Medical Center. And the college has no graduate assistants, so undergraduates work with faculty directly on research rather than with teaching assistants.
Read the number with one caveat. Figures like this are self-reported, and colleges define “pre-med student” differently. Many count only the students their pre-health committee agreed to endorse, which excludes students who were advised not to apply. A school with a selective endorsement process will report a higher acceptance rate than a school that counts everyone who took the prerequisites, and the two numbers are not comparable.
That doesn’t make it useless. It makes it a figure to ask about rather than a figure to rank by. If you’re touring a college, ask how they define the denominator. The answer tells you as much as the percentage does.
See the Hendrix pre-medicine pathway for their own account of it.
What If Your Scores Are Below the Range You Want?
Being below a school’s published range doesn’t disqualify anyone. A quarter of the students admitted to every school on this list scored below its lower number.
It does mean the score isn’t helping the application, and at a selective school that matters more than at a less selective one. The number worth aiming for is the upper end of a school’s range, the one the top quarter cleared, rather than the middle. The reasoning behind that is on what SAT score you need for college.
Reading the sections separately is the useful part. If your Math sits inside a school’s range and your Reading & Writing doesn’t, you know which section your hours should go to, and that’s a more specific answer than a total score gives you.
The gap is measurable and so is the work to close it. A 70 to 130 point improvement takes approximately 40 hours of effective studying, based on the students we’ve worked with since 2008, and a 130 to 250 point improvement takes approximately 80.
How to improve your SAT score covers the method, including how to work out which topics are actually costing you points. If you don’t have a recent score to compare against this list, a free diagnostic SAT gives you one, broken down by section and by topic.
How to Read These Score Ranges
Every range on this page covers the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted scores. The lower number is the 25th percentile and the upper number is the 75th, which means a quarter of admitted students scored at or above it.
Because most colleges are now test-optional, these ranges describe only the students who chose to submit. Students with strong scores submit and students with weak ones don’t, so a published range sits higher than the range for everyone who was actually admitted. More on test-optional colleges.
Pre-Med Programs in Nearby States
Students applying in this region normally look across state lines, particularly toward Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
See pre-med colleges in Missouri, pre-med colleges in Oklahoma, and pre-med colleges in Tennessee.
Pre-Med Colleges in Other States
We publish the same breakdown for pre-med programs in every state.
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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