By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Author of Digital SAT Math Secrets · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated October 9, 2026
Ten Maine colleges with pre-med programs, what they cost, and the SAT scores of the students they admit.
Maine has one medical school and one Maine-specific route to an MD. The early assurance route into it is open at colleges that admit 7% of applicants and colleges that admit 97%, and it uses the SAT or ACT score you took before you started college.
That last point is covered after the table, and it is the only place in this series where a high school test score is part of a medical school application.
Table of Contents
- Maine Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
- The Maine Track Uses the SAT Score You Took in High School
- Maine’s Only Medical School Is at a College That Reports No Scores
- What If Your Scores Are Below the Range You Want?
Maine Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
| College | Reading & Writing | Math | Cost of attendance | Undergraduates | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowdoin College | 730 to 770 | 740 to 780 | $85,100 | 1,873 | 7% |
| Colby College | 720 to 760 | 740 to 790 | $85,420 | 2,407 | 7% |
| Bates College | 710 to 750 | 710 to 780 | $83,532 | 1,760 | 13% |
| Maine Maritime Academy | 565 to 625 | 530 to 635 | $31,046 | 942 | 54% |
| Husson University | 535 to 650 | 530 to 625 | $35,852 | 2,618 | 81% |
| University of Southern Maine | 500 to 650 | 490 to 600 | $23,717 | 4,222 | 79% |
| University of Maine at Farmington | 485 to 605 | 510 to 640 | $25,822 | 1,140 | 97% |
| Saint Joseph’s College of Maine | 500 to 590 | 460 to 560 | $59,782 | 964 | 84% |
| University of Maine | Does not report | Does not report | $27,328 | 8,496 | 97% |
| University of New England | Does not report | Does not report | $63,245 | 2,135 | 92% |
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 deserve attention.
Three of the most selective liberal arts colleges in the country sit in one small state. Bowdoin and Colby both admit 7% of applicants and Bates admits 13%. All three cost between $83,532 and $85,420.
Below those three, the state is not competitive on admission at all. Maine Maritime at 54% is the next most selective, and the University of Maine and Maine Farmington both admit 97%.
The University of Maine is the largest institution in the state with 8,496 undergraduates and publishes no test data. So does the University of New England, which is the one Maine college with a medical school on campus.
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Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College is a liberal arts college in Brunswick with 1,873 undergraduates, and it is one of the two most selective colleges in Maine.
Reading & Writing 730 to 770, Math 740 to 780. The top quarter of admitted students scored at or above 770 and 780. Cost of attendance $85,100, with tuition and fees at $66,338 and need-based aid that meets full demonstrated need. 1,873 undergraduates, 7% admitted.
Colby College
Colby College is a liberal arts college in Waterville with 2,407 undergraduates, the largest of Maine’s three elite liberal arts colleges and the most expensive school on this page.
Reading & Writing 720 to 760, Math 740 to 790. The top quarter scored at or above 760 and 790. Cost of attendance $85,420, with tuition and fees at $68,500. 2,407 undergraduates, 7% admitted.
Bates College
Bates College is a liberal arts college in Lewiston with 1,760 undergraduates, and its pre-health advising publishes detailed guidance on early assurance routes.
Reading & Writing 710 to 750, Math 710 to 780. The top quarter scored at or above 750 and 780. Cost of attendance $83,532, with tuition and fees at $68,632. 1,760 undergraduates, 13% admitted.
Maine Maritime Academy
Maine Maritime Academy is in Castine with 942 undergraduates, the smallest school on this page, and it is a specialised institution rather than a conventional pre-med destination.
It trains students for marine engineering, maritime transportation and related fields. A student certain about medicine has better-suited options here, and a student weighing engineering against medicine may find it worth a look.
Reading & Writing 565 to 625, Math 530 to 635. The top quarter scored at or above 625 and 635. Cost of attendance $31,046, with tuition and fees at $16,345 in-state and $31,065 out-of-state. 942 undergraduates, 54% admitted.
Husson University
Husson University is a private university in Bangor with 2,618 undergraduates and a health professions emphasis.
Reading & Writing 535 to 650, Math 530 to 625. The top quarter scored at or above 650 and 625. Cost of attendance $35,852, with tuition and fees at $21,998. 2,618 undergraduates, 81% admitted.
University of Southern Maine
The University of Southern Maine has 4,222 undergraduates across campuses in Portland, Gorham and Lewiston, which puts its students in the same city as Maine Medical Center.
Reading & Writing 500 to 650, Math 490 to 600. The top quarter scored at or above 650 and 600. Cost of attendance $23,717, with tuition and fees at $9,968 in-state and $26,018 out-of-state. 4,222 undergraduates, 79% admitted.
This is the least expensive school on the page.
University of Maine at Farmington
The University of Maine at Farmington has 1,140 undergraduates and is one of the University of Maine campuses eligible for the early assurance programme described below.
Reading & Writing 485 to 605, Math 510 to 640. The top quarter scored at or above 605 and 640. Cost of attendance $25,822, with tuition and fees at $10,308 in-state and $21,606 out-of-state. 1,140 undergraduates, 97% admitted.
Saint Joseph's College of Maine
Saint Joseph’s College of Maine is a private Catholic college in Standish with 964 undergraduates.
Reading & Writing 500 to 590, Math 460 to 560. The top quarter scored at or above 590 and 560. Cost of attendance $59,782, with tuition and fees at $45,100. 964 undergraduates, 84% admitted.
University of Maine
The University of Maine is the state flagship, in Orono, with 8,496 undergraduates, twice the size of any other school on this page.
The university does not report SAT score data. Cost of attendance $27,328, with tuition and fees at $12,968 in-state and $35,288 out-of-state. 8,496 undergraduates, 97% admitted.
It is eligible for the early assurance programme below, which matters more than its missing score data.
University of New England
The University of New England has 2,135 undergraduates in Biddeford and Portland, and it is the only Maine college with a medical school on campus.
The university does not report SAT score data. Cost of attendance $63,245, with tuition and fees at $43,310. 2,135 undergraduates, 92% admitted.
The Maine Track Uses the SAT Score You Took in High School
Maine has no state medical school. What it has instead is the Maine Track, a partnership between Tufts University School of Medicine and MaineHealth that began in 2008.
Maine Track students spend their first year at Tufts in Boston and the remaining three in Maine, training at Maine Medical Center in Portland and at community and rural sites across the state. They receive a combined diploma from Tufts and Maine Medical Center. Maine Medical Center guarantees at least 20 Maine students in each class.
The Early Assurance Route, and Who Can Use It
Tufts runs a Maine Track Early Assurance Program for sophomores at four sets of institutions: Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, and all University of Maine campuses.
Look at what that list spans. Bowdoin and Colby admit 7% of applicants. Bates admits 13%. The University of Maine admits 97%, and Farmington admits 97% as well.
The same route into the same medical programme is open from either end. A Maine student does not need to get into one of the three elite colleges to reach this pathway, and that is worth knowing before anyone narrows a college list on the assumption that he does.
Students from Maine who attend college elsewhere are also eligible, according to Bates College’s own pre-health guidance.
What It Requires
Applicants apply in sophomore year, through the pre-medical advisor at their own college. The deadline reported by Bates is 1 February.
- Two semesters of biology, two semesters of general chemistry, and one semester of organic chemistry completed by the end of sophomore year
- Demonstrated academic excellence, particularly in the pre-medical sciences
- Coursework completed at your home school rather than transferred in
- A valid SAT or ACT score report, taken before you started college
That last requirement is the reason this page is written the way it is.
Tufts states that applicants to its Early Assurance Program must submit a valid ACT or SAT score report taken prior to undergraduate matriculation. The score you earn as a high school student is read, two years later, as part of an application to medical school.
Nothing else in this series does that. Every other test score on this site affects where you go to college. This one follows you into a medical school file.
We sell SAT preparation, so treat that observation with the appropriate suspicion and check it yourself on Tufts’ Early Assurance page. It is their published requirement, not our interpretation of one.
Two more things worth knowing. Meeting the eligibility criteria does not guarantee an interview, and Tufts reports that of the students who are interviewed, approximately half are admitted. And the MCAT requirement has been changing, so confirm the current position rather than assuming the programme waives it.
How Many Maine Students Get Through
Testimony to the Maine legislature in 2024 reported that 429 physicians across eleven classes had graduated from the Maine Track, of whom 278 were from Maine.
The same testimony reported that the acceptance rate for Maine applicants into the Maine Track that year was 47%, and that 74% of Maine Track students who completed their residency in Maine are now practising in Maine.
Read that last figure with its condition attached. It counts students who did their residency in Maine, not everyone who graduated from the programme.
Maine's Only Medical School Is at a College That Reports No Scores
The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Biddeford is the only medical school located in Maine.
The University of New England is also an undergraduate university, and it publishes no SAT or ACT data at all. So the one Maine college with a medical school on campus gives a prospective student no published figure to measure himself against.
What proximity to a medical school does for an undergraduate is make shadowing, research and clinical volunteering easier to arrange. It does not improve anyone’s odds of admission, since medical school applications are national. A student at the University of Maine in Orono is not disadvantaged against a student at the University of New England when both apply.
Maine also runs Doctors for Maine’s Future, a public-private scholarship partnership between the state, the Maine Track and the University of New England’s osteopathic college. Check its current status directly, since state scholarship programmes change.
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 that reports a range scored below its lower number.
Maine splits harder than almost any state. Bowdoin, Colby and Bates admit 7%, 7% and 13%. Everything else here admits at least 54%, and three colleges admit 97%. Your score decides which of those two worlds is in play.
What it does not decide is access to the Maine Track early assurance route, which is open at colleges on both sides of that line. That is the most useful thing on this page and it is worth repeating here.
There is one place where the score follows you further than usual. The early assurance application requires a test score from before you started college, so for a Maine student aiming at that route, the SAT taken in high school is doing work three or four years later than it would anywhere else.
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.
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.
Five Maine colleges over 700 undergraduates report neither SAT nor ACT data, including the flagship and the college with the medical school. For those schools there is no published figure of any kind to compare against.
Because most colleges are now test-optional, the ranges that are published describe only the students who chose to submit at all. 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
Maine borders only New Hampshire, but Boston is within reach and Maine students apply across New England in numbers.
See pre-med colleges in New Hampshire, pre-med colleges in Vermont, and pre-med colleges in Massachusetts.
Worth noting before you go: students from Maine attending college elsewhere remain eligible for the Maine Track Early Assurance Program, according to Bates College’s pre-health guidance. Confirm that with Tufts directly if it affects your plans.
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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