By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Author of Digital SAT Math Secrets · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated October 3, 2026
Ten Georgia colleges with pre-med programs, what they cost, and the SAT scores of the students they admit.
Georgia also has a full-tuition state scholarship that requires a 1200 SAT, and it will not accept a superscore. That rule is covered after the table and it changes how a Georgia student should plan his test dates.
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.
Table of Contents
- Georgia Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
- Georgia’s Full-Tuition Scholarship Needs 1200 on One Test Date
- Georgia Has Five Medical Schools
- What If Your Scores Are Below the Range You Want?
Georgia Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
| College | Reading & Writing | Math | Cost of attendance | Undergraduates | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emory University | 720 to 760 | 750 to 790 | $83,622 | 7,298 | 11% |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | 680 to 750 | 690 to 790 | $28,167 | 18,785 | 14% |
| University of Georgia | 640 to 730 | 630 to 750 | $27,993 | 32,137 | 38% |
| Mercer University | 590 to 680 | 570 to 670 | $58,204 | 4,500 | 69% |
| Spelman College | 590 to 680 | 518 to 640 | $50,952 | 3,414 | 25% |
| Berry College | 580 to 680 | 545 to 650 | $56,697 | 2,245 | 64% |
| Georgia College & State University | 550 to 630 | 520 to 600 | $30,258 | 5,947 | 78% |
| Kennesaw State University | 510 to 620 | 490 to 600 | $24,008 | 41,254 | 69% |
| Augusta University | 500 to 590 | 470 to 550 | $23,524 | 5,613 | 86% |
| Georgia State University | 480 to 590 | 460 to 590 | $28,241 | 26,623 | 55% |
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.
Three things in that table are worth naming.
Georgia Tech’s Math range is the highest on the page, running 690 to 790, and it sits a full 40 points above its own Reading & Writing range at the top end. That gap is what a technology institute’s applicant pool looks like, and a single total score would hide it.
A sorted score table is not a selectivity ranking. Spelman admits 25% of applicants and sits fifth on this list by score. The University of Georgia admits 38% and sits third. Admit rate measures how many applied relative to places. Score range measures who enrolled.
The public and private gap is wide. Emory is $83,622 for cost of attendance against Georgia Tech at $28,167, with Georgia Tech’s in-state tuition at $12,058.
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Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta with 7,298 undergraduates and its own School of Medicine.
Reading & Writing 720 to 760, Math 750 to 790. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 760 and 790. Cost of attendance $83,622, with tuition and fees at $64,280. 7,298 undergraduates, 11% admitted.
Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology is in Atlanta with 18,785 undergraduates and the strongest Math range in the state.
Reading & Writing 680 to 750, Math 690 to 790. The top quarter scored at or above 750 and 790. Cost of attendance $28,167, with tuition and fees at $12,058 in-state and $34,484 out-of-state. 18,785 undergraduates, 14% admitted.
A student considering Georgia Tech for pre-med should read those two ranges separately. The Math expectation is a long way above the Reading & Writing one.
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is the state flagship, in Athens, with 32,137 undergraduates.
Reading & Writing 640 to 730, Math 630 to 750. The top quarter scored at or above 730 and 750. Cost of attendance $27,993, with tuition and fees at $11,450 in-state and $31,688 out-of-state. 32,137 undergraduates, 38% admitted.
Mercer University
Mercer University is a private university in Macon with 4,500 undergraduates and its own School of Medicine.
Reading & Writing 590 to 680, Math 570 to 670. The top quarter scored at or above 680 and 670. Cost of attendance $58,204, with tuition and fees at $42,312. 4,500 undergraduates, 69% admitted.
Spelman College
Spelman College is a historically Black liberal arts college for women in Atlanta, and it admits a smaller share of applicants than any school on this page except Emory and Georgia Tech.
Reading & Writing 590 to 680, Math 518 to 640. The top quarter scored at or above 680 and 640. Cost of attendance $50,952, with tuition and fees at $31,556. 3,414 undergraduates, 25% admitted.
Berry College
Berry College is a private liberal arts college in Mount Berry with 2,245 undergraduates, the smallest school on this page.
Reading & Writing 580 to 680, Math 545 to 650. The top quarter scored at or above 680 and 650. Cost of attendance $56,697, with tuition and fees at $41,686. 2,245 undergraduates, 64% admitted.
Georgia College & State University
Georgia College & State University is the state’s designated public liberal arts university, in Milledgeville, with 5,947 undergraduates.
Reading & Writing 550 to 630, Math 520 to 600. The top quarter scored at or above 630 and 600. Cost of attendance $30,258, with tuition and fees at $9,186 in-state and $29,512 out-of-state. 5,947 undergraduates, 78% admitted.
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw State University is in Kennesaw with 41,254 undergraduates, the largest school on this page, and the lowest in-state tuition at $5,808.
Reading & Writing 510 to 620, Math 490 to 600. The top quarter scored at or above 620 and 600. Cost of attendance $24,008, with tuition and fees at $5,808 in-state and $17,736 out-of-state. 41,254 undergraduates, 69% admitted.
Augusta University
Augusta University is in Augusta and is home to the Medical College of Georgia, which is the state’s public medical school.
Reading & Writing 500 to 590, Math 470 to 550. The top quarter scored at or above 590 and 550. Cost of attendance $23,524, with tuition and fees at $8,414 in-state and $24,734 out-of-state. 5,613 undergraduates, 86% admitted.
This is the least expensive cost of attendance on the page.
Georgia State University
Georgia State University is in downtown Atlanta with 26,623 undergraduates.
Reading & Writing 480 to 590, Math 460 to 590. The top quarter scored at or above 590 in both sections. Cost of attendance $28,241, with tuition and fees at $8,664 in-state and $24,840 out-of-state. 26,623 undergraduates, 55% admitted.
Georgia's Full-Tuition Scholarship Needs 1200 on One Test Date
Georgia runs two state scholarships, and only one of them involves the SAT at all.
The HOPE Scholarship requires no test score. A 3.0 HOPE GPA and four rigor credits, and that’s it. It covers a share of tuition at eligible Georgia institutions.
The Zell Miller Scholarship is the upgrade, and it covers 100% of tuition at a public institution. It needs a 3.7 HOPE GPA, four rigor credits, and a 1200 SAT.
We sell SAT preparation, so it’s worth saying the first part plainly. If HOPE is what you’re after, the SAT does nothing for you.
If Zell Miller is what you’re after, there’s a rule that catches students out every year.
The 1200 Has to Come From One Test Date
Zell Miller requires the 1200 from a single national administration of the SAT. It does not superscore.
That matters because almost everything else does. Colleges superscore. The College Board encourages students to think in terms of their best sections across dates. A student who has spent a year being told that his highest Reading & Writing and his highest Math are what counts will assume the same rule applies here.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
| Reading & Writing | Math | That date’s total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| March test | 620 | 560 | 1180 |
| May test | 590 | 600 | 1190 |
| Superscore | 620 | 600 | 1220 |
That student’s superscore is 1220. His best single sitting is 1190. For colleges he has a 1220. For Zell Miller he has nothing, and there is nothing on his score report that says so.
What to do about it. A Georgia student aiming at Zell Miller needs both sections to land on the same day, which is a different goal from maximising a superscore. It means not treating one test as the Math attempt and another as the Reading & Writing attempt, and it means leaving enough test dates to get one clean sitting.
What Zell Miller Is Worth
Average in-state tuition and fees across the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, Georgia Southern and Augusta works out at approximately $8,736 a year, which is approximately $34,944 over four years. Zell Miller covers all of it at a public institution. At private institutions it pays a fixed amount instead.
HOPE covers a share rather than all of tuition, and the percentage is set by the state. Check the current figure before comparing the two awards.
Two Things That Catch People Out
Two rules trip students up every year, and neither is obvious from a score report or a transcript.
The HOPE GPA is not the GPA on your transcript. It’s calculated by the Georgia Student Finance Commission from core courses on a 4.0 scale, and high school courses taken in middle school don’t count. Students check their transcript, see a different number, and plan around the wrong one.
Valedictorians and salutatorians qualify automatically. A student named valedictorian or salutatorian of an eligible Georgia high school receives Zell Miller without needing the SAT score at all.
Requirements change by legislation, so confirm the current thresholds at GAfutures, which is the Georgia Student Finance Commission’s own site, rather than relying on any third party including this page.
More on closing a gap like that on how to improve your SAT score.
Georgia Has Five Medical Schools
Georgia has four MD programs and one DO program.
- Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta
- Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, which is the state’s public medical school
- Mercer University School of Medicine, Macon
- Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, one of four historically Black medical schools in the United States
- Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Georgia, Suwanee, which is the DO program
Three of those sit at universities in the table above.
What that’s worth to an undergraduate, and what it isn’t. A medical school on campus means shadowing and research are available without driving somewhere else, which matters during a degree. And public medical schools normally give preference to in-state applicants, which matters when you apply.
It does not decide where to do an undergraduate degree. Medical school applications are national, and a student at a Georgia college with no medical school attached is not at a disadvantage applying to one.
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.
A Georgia student has two targets that behave differently, which is unusual. Colleges normally superscore, so section-by-section progress counts there, and a student can improve Math in March and Reading & Writing in May and have both count. Zell Miller doesn’t work that way. It needs one strong day.
That means a Georgia student can be comfortably inside a college’s range and still miss the scholarship threshold, and the two goals ask for different test strategies.
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 either target, 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.
Zell Miller works differently. Its threshold is not a percentile or an estimate of anything. It’s a fixed number from one test date, and you either have it or you don’t.
Pre-Med Programs in Nearby States
Plenty of Georgia students apply across state lines, and Zell Miller doesn’t travel. The scholarship pays at eligible Georgia institutions only, which is worth factoring into an out-of-state application.
See pre-med colleges in Florida, pre-med colleges in Alabama, and pre-med colleges in South Carolina.
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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