By Glyn Caddell, BSME · Author of Digital SAT Math Secrets · Tutoring since 2008 — Updated October 18, 2026
Thirty-six Pennsylvania colleges with pre-med programs, what they cost, and the SAT scores of the students they admit.
Pennsylvania has four colleges that admit fewer than one applicant in eight and twelve that cost more than $80,000 a year, and every college in the state that admits fewer than half its applicants is private.
Scores are given by section rather than as a single total, because a student at 650 Reading & Writing and 540 Math is in a different position from a student at 540 and 650.
Two abbreviations matter later on this page. MD is the degree awarded by most medical schools in the United States. DO is the degree awarded by colleges of osteopathic medicine, and DO holders are licensed physicians with the same practice rights. Pennsylvania has more of both than any other state covered in this series.
Table of Contents
- Pennsylvania Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
- Which Pennsylvania Colleges Are Hardest to Get Into?
- Why Pennsylvania Costs More Than Any Other State in This Series
- Does Any Pennsylvania Scholarship Require a Test Score?
- What Medical Schools Are in Pennsylvania?
- Where the SAT and the ACT Disagree in Pennsylvania
- What If Your Scores Are Below the Range You Want?
Pennsylvania Pre-Med Colleges by SAT Score
The table below covers four-year public and non-profit institutions in Pennsylvania awarding bachelor’s degrees or higher that either enroll at least 2,500 undergraduates or admit fewer than half their applicants. Thirty-six institutions meet that description, fifteen public and twenty-one private.
That rule is wider than the one these state pages normally use, and Pennsylvania is the reason. At the usual threshold of 1,000 undergraduates the state returns eighty-one institutions, more than any reader will scan. A simple size cut would have been worse, because it would have dropped Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Franklin and Marshall, Gettysburg and Dickinson, all of which enroll fewer than 2,500 students and all of which admit fewer than half their applicants. The selectivity half of the rule exists for them.
One institution that meets the size test is left out. Penn State World Campus enrolls 7,877 undergraduates and is fully online, and pre-med requires in-person laboratory coursework, so it is not a campus a pre-med student is weighing.
Four well-known colleges fall outside the rule on both tests and are worth naming, because a reader will look for them. Muhlenberg College enrolls 1,727 undergraduates and admits 72%. Allegheny College enrolls 1,156 and admits 55%. Grove City College enrolls 2,216 and admits 72%. Moravian University enrolls 1,949 and admits 54%.
Colleges are sorted by the midpoint of the two section ranges, with ties broken on the Math 75th percentile and then on size. The four institutions reporting no SAT sections go last, ordered by size. There is no ACT column because thirty-two institutions here report SAT sections against twenty-nine reporting an ACT composite, so the SAT is the majority test in Pennsylvania. Only one institution reports the ACT without the SAT, and its range appears in its own entry.
| College | Reading & Writing | Math | Cost of attendance | Undergraduates | Admit rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Pennsylvania | 740 to 770 | 770 to 800 | $89,028 | 10,650 | 5% |
| Carnegie Mellon University | 730 to 770 | 770 to 800 | $83,654 | 7,304 | 12% |
| Swarthmore College | 740 to 770 | 750 to 790 | $84,103 | 1,613 | 7% |
| Haverford College | 720 to 770 | 740 to 780 | $90,382 | 1,430 | 12% |
| Villanova University | 685 to 740 | 710 to 770 | $84,793 | 6,938 | 27% |
| Lehigh University | 680 to 730 | 690 to 770 | $80,856 | 5,898 | 26% |
| Lafayette College | 670 to 740 | 680 to 760 | $83,133 | 2,757 | 31% |
| Bryn Mawr College | 660 to 750 | 620 to 760 | $83,250 | 1,359 | 29% |
| Bucknell University | 650 to 730 | 660 to 740 | $83,756 | 3,876 | 29% |
| Franklin and Marshall College | 660 to 730 | 650 to 733 | $85,776 | 1,799 | 28% |
| Dickinson College | 670 to 740 | 640 to 720 | $82,902 | 2,273 | 42% |
| University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus | 640 to 720 | 640 to 740 | $38,105 | 20,370 | 58% |
| Gettysburg College | 640 to 720 | 630 to 740 | $81,960 | 2,099 | 39% |
| Drexel University | 620 to 700 | 620 to 740 | $76,835 | 13,233 | 79% |
| Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus | 620 to 700 | 620 to 720 | $39,694 | 42,284 | 61% |
| Duquesne University | 600 to 670 | 580 to 670 | $67,776 | 5,350 | 84% |
| Saint Joseph’s University – Philadelphia | 590 to 680 | 580 to 670 | $67,954 | 4,948 | 89% |
| Thomas Jefferson University | 580 to 660 | 580 to 670 | $64,197 | 3,755 | 81% |
| University of Scranton | 590 to 660 | 570 to 658 | $69,552 | 3,554 | 81% |
| Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Harrisburg | 550 to 650 | 570 to 660 | $32,521 | 4,031 | 98% |
| Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Erie-Behrend College | 560 to 650 | 560 to 660 | $34,081 | 3,240 | 97% |
| Kutztown University of Pennsylvania | 570 to 670 | 550 to 640 | $29,866 | 6,180 | 91% |
| Widener University | 550 to 650 | 530 to 640 | $70,621 | 2,951 | 71% |
| West Chester University of Pennsylvania | 560 to 650 | 540 to 620 | $28,394 | 14,164 | 78% |
| Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Abington | 540 to 635 | 530 to 630 | $28,795 | 2,877 | 97% |
| York College of Pennsylvania | 520 to 640 | 500 to 630 | $37,319 | 3,265 | 74% |
| Millersville University of Pennsylvania | 520 to 620 | 500 to 590 | $26,913 | 5,728 | 86% |
| Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania | 500 to 600 | 490 to 590 | $25,161 | 9,210 | 93% |
| East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania | 500 to 590 | 500 to 590 | $27,917 | 4,814 | 92% |
| Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania | 500 to 610 | 480 to 580 | $25,537 | 6,788 | 71% |
| Indiana University of Pennsylvania | 490 to 600 | 480 to 580 | $26,898 | 6,764 | 91% |
| Pennsylvania Western University | 480 to 580 | 460 to 560 | $26,916 | 7,451 | 94% |
| Temple University | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $40,903 | 20,970 | 80% |
| Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $30,785 | 4,086 | 86% |
| Robert Morris University | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $51,621 | 2,896 | 90% |
| Saint Joseph’s University – Lancaster | Does not report SAT data | Does not report SAT data | $47,879 | 1,280 | 41% |
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. For the four colleges reporting no SAT sections, there is no published figure to compare a score against.
Five things in the table are worth saying before the entries.
Four institutions admit 12% of applicants or fewer. Those are the University of Pennsylvania at 5%, Swarthmore at 7%, Carnegie Mellon at 12% and Haverford at 12%. No other state covered in this series has more than one institution under 15%.
Thirteen institutions admit fewer than half their applicants, and every one of the thirteen is private. The most selective public university in Pennsylvania is Pitt at 58%.
Twelve institutions cost more than $80,000 a year, and Haverford’s $90,382 is the highest cost of attendance recorded on any page in this series.
The University of Pennsylvania reports a Math range of 770 to 800, the highest in this series, and Carnegie Mellon also reports a Math 75th percentile of 800. At both, the top quarter of admitted students scored at or above a perfect score.
Temple charges the highest in-state tuition of any Pennsylvania public university at $23,011, ahead of Pitt at $21,926 and Penn State’s main campus at $20,644.
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University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia with 10,650 undergraduates, and it is the most selective institution in the state at 5%.
Admitted students scored 740 to 770 in Reading & Writing and 770 to 800 in Math. The top quarter sat at or above 770 and 800. Cost of attendance is $89,028, the second highest here, with tuition and fees of $68,686.
Penn’s Math 25th percentile of 770 is the figure worth pausing on. Three quarters of its admitted class scored at or above 770 on one section.
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh with 7,304 undergraduates, and it admits 12% of applicants. Its reported Math range of 770 to 800 matches Penn’s at the top.
Reading & Writing runs 730 to 770. Cost of attendance is $83,654, with tuition and fees of $66,246.
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, outside Philadelphia, with 1,613 undergraduates. It admits 7% of applicants, which makes it the second most selective institution in Pennsylvania.
Admitted students scored 740 to 770 in Reading & Writing and 750 to 790 in Math. Cost of attendance is $84,103, with tuition and fees of $65,494.
Swarthmore is also the one institution in the state where the two reported tests agree almost exactly, and the concordance section near the end of this page explains why that is unusual.
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private liberal arts college in Haverford with 1,430 undergraduates, and its cost of attendance of $90,382 is the highest on any page in this series. Tuition and fees are $70,688.
Haverford admits 12% of applicants. Reported ranges are 720 to 770 in Reading & Writing and 740 to 780 in Math.
Villanova University
Villanova University is a private Catholic research university outside Philadelphia with 6,938 undergraduates. It admits 27% of applicants and charges $84,793 in cost of attendance, with tuition and fees of $67,776.
Admitted students scored 685 to 740 in Reading & Writing and 710 to 770 in Math, with the top quarter at or above 740 and 770.
Lehigh University
Lehigh University is a private research university in Bethlehem with 5,898 undergraduates, and it admits 26% of applicants, the fifth-lowest rate in the state. Its cost of attendance of $80,856 is the twelfth and last of the institutions here above $80,000.
Reported ranges are 680 to 730 and 690 to 770, with tuition and fees of $64,980.
Lafayette College
Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton with 2,757 undergraduates, and it is one of the few colleges here that meets both halves of this table’s rule, on size and on selectivity. It admits 31% of applicants.
Admitted students scored 670 to 740 in Reading & Writing and 680 to 760 in Math. Cost of attendance is $83,133, with tuition and fees of $65,398.
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a private women’s liberal arts college outside Philadelphia with 1,359 undergraduates, the smallest institution in this table. It admits 29% of applicants.
Cost of attendance is $83,250, with tuition and fees of $65,920. Reported ranges are 660 to 750 in Reading & Writing and 620 to 760 in Math, and that 140-point Math range is the widest of any college in the top third of this table.
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private university in Lewisburg with 3,876 undergraduates, and it admits 29% of applicants. Cost of attendance is $83,756, with tuition and fees of $67,812.
Admitted students scored 650 to 730 in Reading & Writing and 660 to 740 in Math.
Franklin and Marshall College
Franklin and Marshall College is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster with 1,799 undergraduates, and it admits 28% of applicants. Its cost of attendance of $85,776 is the third highest in the state, with tuition and fees of $70,794.
Reported ranges are 660 to 730 in Reading & Writing and 650 to 733 in Math.
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private liberal arts college in Carlisle with 2,273 undergraduates. It admits 42% of applicants, which makes it the least selective of the thirteen colleges here that admit fewer than half.
Cost of attendance is $82,902, with tuition and fees of $65,650. Admitted students scored 670 to 740 in Reading & Writing and 640 to 720 in Math.
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus
The University of Pittsburgh’s Pittsburgh campus is a public research university with 20,370 undergraduates, and at 58% it is the most selective public university in Pennsylvania. It has a school of medicine on the same campus.
Cost of attendance is $38,105. In-state tuition and fees are $21,926 against $41,430 for non-residents, a gap of $19,504 that is the second largest in the state. Admitted students scored 640 to 720 in Reading & Writing and 640 to 740 in Math.
Pitt is the institution in this table where a Pennsylvania resident gets the most selective public admission in the state at approximately two fifths of what the private colleges above it charge.
Gettysburg College
Gettysburg College is a private liberal arts college in Gettysburg with 2,099 undergraduates, and it admits 39% of applicants. Cost of attendance is $81,960, with tuition and fees of $66,640.
Reported ranges are 640 to 720 in Reading & Writing and 630 to 740 in Math, almost identical to Pitt’s at a cost more than twice as high.
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
Penn State’s main campus at University Park is the largest institution in Pennsylvania with 42,284 undergraduates, and it admits 61% of applicants. It is the first of four Penn State campuses in this table.
Cost of attendance is $39,694. In-state tuition and fees are $20,644 against $41,790 for non-residents, and that $21,146 gap is the largest in the state. Admitted students scored 620 to 700 in Reading & Writing and 620 to 720 in Math.
The three other Penn State campuses below admit 97% or more and cost less, so a student who wants a Penn State degree has four quite different doors on this page.
Duquesne University
Duquesne University is a private Catholic university in Pittsburgh with 5,350 undergraduates. It admits 84% of applicants and charges $67,776 in cost of attendance, with tuition and fees of $48,986.
Reported ranges are 600 to 670 in Reading & Writing and 580 to 670 in Math.
Saint Joseph's University - Philadelphia
Saint Joseph’s University’s Philadelphia campus is a private Catholic university with 4,948 undergraduates, and it admits 89% of applicants. Cost of attendance is $67,954, with tuition and fees of $53,260.
Admitted students scored 590 to 680 in Reading & Writing and 580 to 670 in Math. Its two reported score sets diverge more widely than any other institution’s in Pennsylvania, and the concordance section covers it.
Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University is a private university in Philadelphia with 3,755 undergraduates, and it has a medical college on the same campus. It admits 81% of applicants.
Cost of attendance is $64,197, with tuition and fees of $47,505. Reported ranges are 580 to 660 in Reading & Writing and 580 to 670 in Math.
Jefferson is the institution on this page most readers will not know has a medical school attached, and for a pre-med student that makes it worth a closer look than its admit rate suggests.
University of Scranton
The University of Scranton is a private Jesuit university in Scranton with 3,554 undergraduates. It admits 81% of applicants and charges $69,552 in cost of attendance, with tuition and fees of $53,983.
Admitted students scored 590 to 660 in Reading & Writing and 570 to 658 in Math.
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Harrisburg
Penn State Harrisburg enrolls 4,031 undergraduates and admits 98% of applicants, the highest rate in this table and 37 points above the main campus.
Cost of attendance is $32,521. In-state tuition and fees are $15,972 against $26,958 for non-residents. Reported ranges are 550 to 650 in Reading & Writing and 570 to 660 in Math.
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Erie-Behrend College
Penn State Erie, known as Behrend College, enrolls 3,240 undergraduates and admits 97% of applicants. It charges exactly the same tuition as Penn State Harrisburg, at $15,972 for residents and $26,958 for non-residents.
Cost of attendance is $34,081. Admitted students scored 560 to 650 in Reading & Writing and 560 to 660 in
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
Kutztown University is a public university in Kutztown with 6,180 undergraduates, and it admits 91% of applicants. Cost of attendance is $29,866, with in-state tuition and fees of $11,314 against $16,068 for non-residents.
Reported ranges are 570 to 670 in Reading & Writing and 550 to 640 in Math, and that Reading & Writing range is the highest of any institution in the state’s public system apart from Pitt and Penn State.
Widener University
Widener University is a private university in Chester with 2,951 undergraduates. It admits 71% of applicants and charges $70,621 in cost of attendance, with tuition and fees of $55,730.
Admitted students scored 550 to 650 in Reading & Writing and 530 to 640 in Math.
West Chester University of Pennsylvania
West Chester University is a public university with 14,164 undergraduates, making it the largest institution in the state system and the fourth largest on this page. It admits 78% of applicants.
Cost of attendance is $28,394. In-state tuition and fees are $10,775 against $22,599 for non-residents, and that $11,824 gap is shared exactly with two other state system universities. Reported ranges are 560 to 650 and 540 to 620.
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Abington
Penn State Abington enrolls 2,877 undergraduates and admits 97% of applicants. Its in-state tuition and fees of $15,268 are the lowest of the four Penn State campuses here, against $25,664 for non-residents.
Cost of attendance is $28,795, approximately $11,000 less than the main campus. Admitted students scored 540 to 635 in Reading & Writing and 530 to 630 in Math.
York College of Pennsylvania
York College of Pennsylvania is a private college in York with 3,265 undergraduates, and its tuition and fees of $25,588 are by far the lowest of the twenty-one private institutions in this table. Cost of attendance is $37,319.
York admits 74% of applicants. Reported ranges are 520 to 640 in Reading & Writing and 500 to 630 in Math.
A private college charging less than half what most of Pennsylvania’s private sector charges is an unusual thing on this page, and it costs less in total than Penn State’s main campus.
Millersville University of Pennsylvania
Millersville University is a public university near Lancaster with 5,728 undergraduates, and it admits 86% of applicants. Cost of attendance is $26,913, with in-state tuition and fees of $11,128 against $22,952 for non-residents.
Reported ranges are 520 to 620 in Reading & Writing and 500 to 590 in Math.
Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania
Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania is a public university formed from the consolidation of several state system campuses, with 9,210 undergraduates. Its cost of attendance of $25,161 is the lowest in this table.
Commonwealth admits 93% of applicants. In-state tuition and fees are $11,046 against $22,870 for non-residents. Admitted students scored 500 to 600 in Reading & Writing and 490 to 590 in Math.
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
East Stroudsburg University is a public university with 4,814 undergraduates, and it admits 92% of applicants. Cost of attendance is $27,917, with in-state tuition and fees of $11,536 against $19,502 for non-residents.
It reports identical ranges in both sections, at 500 to 590 in Reading & Writing and 500 to 590 in Math, the only institution on this page to do so.
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Slippery Rock University is a public university with 6,788 undergraduates, and its in-state tuition and fees of $10,568 are the lowest of any institution in this table. It admits 71% of applicants, the lowest rate of any state system university here.
Cost of attendance is $25,537. Non-resident tuition is $14,676, a premium of only $4,108. Reported ranges are 500 to 610 and 480 to 580.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Indiana University of Pennsylvania is a public university in Indiana, Pennsylvania, with 6,764 undergraduates. It admits 91% of applicants and charges $26,898 in cost of attendance, with in-state tuition and fees of $11,380 against $16,297 for non-residents.
Admitted students scored 490 to 600 in Reading & Writing and 480 to 580 in Math.
Pennsylvania Western University
Pennsylvania Western University is a public university formed from the consolidation of three state system campuses, with 7,451 undergraduates. It admits 94% of applicants and reports the lowest scores on this page, at 480 to 580 in Reading & Writing and 460 to 560 in Math.
Cost of attendance is $26,916, with in-state tuition and fees of $11,436 against $16,054 for non-residents.
Temple University
Temple University is a public research university in Philadelphia with 20,970 undergraduates, making it the second-largest institution in this table, and it has a school of medicine. It admits 80% of applicants and publishes no admitted score ranges.
Cost of attendance is $40,903. In-state tuition and fees are $23,011, the highest charged to residents by any public university in Pennsylvania, against $38,958 for non-residents.
Temple’s absence from the score columns matters more than most, because it is a large urban research university with a medical school and no published figure for a student to measure himself against.
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
Shippensburg University is a public university with 4,086 undergraduates, and it is the only institution in this table that reports an ACT composite without reporting SAT sections. It admits 86% of applicants.
Cost of attendance is $30,785. In-state tuition and fees are $13,720 against $15,974 for non-residents, a premium of just $2,254 that is the smallest in this entire series.
Its reported ACT range runs 16 to 28, a twelve-point spread that is far wider than any other institution’s in the state. A range that wide describes a very mixed group rather than a standard, and a student should treat it with care.
Robert Morris University
Robert Morris University is a private university near Pittsburgh with 2,896 undergraduates. It admits 90% of applicants and publishes no admitted score ranges.
Cost of attendance is $51,621, with tuition and fees of $35,970.
Saint Joseph's University - Lancaster
Saint Joseph’s University’s Lancaster campus is a separate entry in this table from its Philadelphia campus, with 1,280 undergraduates. It admits 41% of applicants, which makes it one of the thirteen institutions here admitting fewer than half, and it publishes no admitted score ranges.
Cost of attendance is $47,879, with tuition and fees of $32,933. A college that admits fewer than half its applicants while publishing nothing about the students it admits is difficult to plan around, and this is the clearest case of it on this page.
Which Pennsylvania Colleges Are Hardest to Get Into?
The University of Pennsylvania admits 5% of applicants, Swarthmore 7%, Carnegie Mellon 12% and Haverford 12%. No other state covered in this series has more than one institution admitting fewer than 15%.
Below those four comes a band of nine more. Lehigh admits 26%, Villanova 27%, Franklin and Marshall 28%, Bucknell 29%, Bryn Mawr 29%, Lafayette 31%, Gettysburg 39%, Saint Joseph’s Lancaster 41% and Dickinson 42%.
In-article image 1 Shows: all thirty-six institutions ordered by admit rate, with the thirteen below 50% marked as private and Pitt marked as the most selective public Alt text: Pennsylvania colleges ordered by admit rate with the private colleges below fifty per cent marked File name: pennsylvania-selectivity-private-public-split Size: 2760×1440
Set out in order, every college in the state that admits fewer than half its applicants is private. That is thirteen institutions, and the public sector does not appear until Pitt at 58%, followed by Penn State’s main campus at 61%. The remaining thirteen public universities here admit between 71% and 98%.
What follows for a Pennsylvania student is that the question of whether a score decides admission is really a question about which sector he is applying to. At the top of this table it decides a great deal. Across the public system it is normally one input among several.
The four Penn State campuses make the same point inside one university. The main campus admits 61%, while Harrisburg admits 98%, Erie 97% and Abington 97%, and all three branches cost between $5,000 and $11,000 less.
Why Pennsylvania Costs More Than Any Other State in This Series
Twelve of the thirty-six institutions on this page cost more than $80,000 a year, and Haverford College’s $90,382 is the highest cost of attendance recorded on any page in this series.
The twelve are Haverford at $90,382, Penn at $89,028, Franklin and Marshall at $85,776, Villanova at $84,793, Swarthmore at $84,103, Bucknell at $83,756, Carnegie Mellon at $83,654, Bryn Mawr at $83,250, Lafayette at $83,133, Dickinson at $82,902, Gettysburg at $81,960 and Lehigh at $80,856.
In-article image 2 Shows: the thirty-six institutions by cost of attendance, with the twelve above $80,000 and the public band between $25,000 and $40,000 grouped Alt text: Pennsylvania colleges by annual cost of attendance showing the gap between the private and public bands File name: pennsylvania-cost-of-attendance-bands Size: 2760×1440
Laid out by cost, twelve colleges here cost more than $80,000 and the cheapest costs a quarter of that. Commonwealth University at $25,161, Slippery Rock at $25,537 and Indiana University of Pennsylvania at $26,898 sit at the bottom, and the spread across the table is approximately 3.6 to one. The public universities cluster between $25,000 and $40,000 and the selective private colleges above $80,000, with very little in between.
One caveat matters more on this page than on any other in the series. Cost of attendance is a published figure before financial aid, and at colleges with endowments the size of those at the top of this list what a family actually pays can be very different from the published number. No net price is estimated here, because the only figure specific to a family is the one that family’s own inputs produce. Each college runs a net price calculator and that is where this comparison should end up.
Two tuition patterns in the public sector are worth knowing. Temple charges residents $23,011, more than any other public university in Pennsylvania and more than both Pitt and Penn State’s main campus. And at the other end, Shippensburg charges non-residents only $2,254 more than residents, the smallest premium in this series, with Slippery Rock at $4,108 and Pennsylvania Western at $4,618.
Millersville, Commonwealth and West Chester share an identical non-resident premium of $11,824. Penn State Harrisburg and Penn State Erie charge identical tuition at both rates. Figures that match to the dollar across separate campuses are normally set at system level rather than arrived at independently, though what sets them is not established here.
Does Any Pennsylvania Scholarship Require a Test Score?
The Pennsylvania State Grant is need-based and its published criteria include no test score. A student must be a Pennsylvania resident, enrolled in a program at least two full years and sixty credits long, taking at least six credits a semester with at least half of them regular rather than developmental coursework, and meeting satisfactory academic progress as the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency defines it. Full-time support runs up to eight semesters for a bachelor’s degree.
The maximum award is set annually by the agency and varies, and no figure is given here. The agency’s own program pages did not load during the research for this page, so the current maximum should come from PHEAA directly rather than from a second-hand figure.
The agency also runs a Grow PA Scholarship Grant Program whose terms could not be established for the same reason. If it attaches a field-of-study condition or an in-state work obligation it would matter to a pre-med reader, and that is a question worth putting to PHEAA alongside the first.
Set against the states covered immediately before this one, Pennsylvania sits at one end of a clear range. West Virginia makes a test score the condition for its merit scholarship. Wyoming sorts students into four priced tiers by ACT score. Tennessee makes a score one of three qualifying routes. Pennsylvania attaches no score to state aid at all.
Pennsylvania Does Not Give Its Juniors the SAT
Pennsylvania tests its high school students on the Keystone Exams, which the Department of Education describes as end-of-course assessments in Algebra I, Literature and Biology. Public school students take them for federal accountability, and proficiency on all three was originally intended to become a graduation requirement until legislative moratoriums delayed it.
The Department states there are five pathways to graduation. A student who does not reach proficiency or a minimum composite score on the Keystones can demonstrate it through locally set grade-based requirements, combined with student work or performance in another program, course or assessment, and a chief school administrator may waive pathway-specific requirements.
The Department’s graduation requirements page does not mention the SAT or the ACT, so nothing is claimed here about whether a score can satisfy a pathway. A student who wants that answered should ask a school counselor, or work through the Department’s own graduation requirements toolkit.
What is established is the comparison, and it is a sharp one. Pennsylvania does not administer a college entrance test to every junior. The four states covered immediately before this page all do, West Virginia on the SAT and Wisconsin, Wyoming and Alabama on the ACT.
That has a practical consequence a Pennsylvania family should understand. A Pennsylvania student has to register for the SAT himself and pay for it, and nothing in his school’s testing program will hand him a score. A student across the border in West Virginia sits the SAT at school and can spend the result on a state scholarship. Same test, two neighboring states, and a different amount of effort before a student even has a number to work with.
What Medical Schools Are in Pennsylvania?
Pennsylvania has more medical schools than any other state covered in this series, and counting them exactly is harder than it should be.
The schools attached to universities in the table above are the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple, the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, and the Drexel University College of Medicine. The Penn State College of Medicine sits at Hershey rather than at University Park.
Three further medical schools appear in the federal data as institutions in their own right rather than as parts of a parent university, and all three are private. Those are the Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Published lists disagree on the total, giving Pennsylvania either seven or nine medical schools, and the disagreement appears to turn on how the osteopathic institutions and their multiple campuses are counted. No total is asserted here. A student working out where to apply is better served by the list of named schools above than by a number that two reputable sources cannot agree on, and each school’s own admissions office is where its current class and requirements should come from.
What is clear is the concentration. Five of the institutions in the table above have a medical school on or attached to the same university, more than any other state in this series, and most of Pennsylvania’s medical schools are private.
Thomas Jefferson University deserves a second mention here. At 3,755 undergraduates, an 81% admit rate and $64,197 in cost of attendance, it is not an institution most readers would identify as a medical campus, and it is one.
The standard caution applies. Attending the undergraduate campus attached to a medical school helps with shadowing, research access and knowing the faculty, and it does not improve admission odds by itself.
Fourteen States, Fourteen Different Residency Rules
Pennsylvania is the fourteenth state examined this way in this series, and its position on residency is unlike the others because most of its medical schools are private and a private school has no in-state obligation to publish.
Alabama’s two public schools publish no resident share in their own admissions materials. Wyoming has no medical school at all and buys twenty seats at the University of Washington with a three-year practice contract attached to each. Wisconsin publishes almost nothing. West Virginia has two public MD schools running opposite rules, with Marshall stating that other non-residents are not considered. Washington reserves approximately 95% of 280 seats for five states and admits out-of-region applicants at a three-year average of 0.5%. Texas caps non-residents at 10% of every public class by statute. Utah publishes a 132-seat table reserving 90 for residents. North Carolina’s Brody School of Medicine bars applicants who are neither residents nor recent UNC System graduates. Tennessee’s UTHSC caps out-of-state admissions at approximately 10%. Oregon’s OHSU writes four criteria into a numbered policy. South Dakota’s Sanford grants residents an interview. North Dakota’s UND ranks a state degree inside a preference order. Vermont’s published policy governs tuition rather than admission.
Across fourteen states, two findings hold. Residency matters more than almost anything a student controls, and no two states express it the same way. What makes Pennsylvania different is the sheer number of schools, which gives a resident more in-state options than anywhere else in this series, and the fact that most of them are private, which means residency is likely to carry less weight here than in the states above. A student should put that question to each school rather than assume it either way.
Where the SAT and the ACT Disagree in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania has twenty-eight institutions reporting both tests, the largest set in this series, and at twenty-seven of them the SAT figures sit below their ACT equivalent.
One correction applies first. Adding two SAT section percentiles together overstates a real composite by approximately 20 points at each end, because no single student sits at the same percentile in both sections, and every figure below carries that adjustment.
The pattern this series established is that the minority test in a state reads higher, because the smaller group who sit it are self-selected rather than a cross-section. The SAT is the majority test in Pennsylvania, so the pattern predicts the ACT will read higher, and at twenty-seven of twenty-eight institutions it does.
The single exception is not really an exception. Swarthmore’s adjusted SAT range of 1470 to 1540 sits 10 points above its ACT equivalent at the lower end and exactly level at the upper, and that is agreement rather than a reversal. Pennsylvania produces twenty-seven institutions reading low, one reading level, and none genuinely reading high.
In-article image 3 Shows: five states as a scoreboard with the share of both-reporting institutions where the SAT read below its ACT equivalent, grouped by which test dominates Alt text: Five states compared by how often admitted SAT and ACT ranges agree, grouped by which test dominates File name: sat-act-agreement-by-state Size: 2760×1440
Put beside the other states examined this way, the rule holds where the SAT is the common test and breaks where it is not. Pennsylvania reads low at 27 of 28, West Virginia at 10 of 10 and Washington at 7 of 9, and all three are states where the SAT is the majority test. Wisconsin manages 2 of 5 and Alabama 4 of 12, and in both the ACT is the test nearly every student takes.
So the rule is not symmetric, and Pennsylvania is the state that settles it, because it has by far the largest sample.
There is a likely reason and it is a hypothesis rather than a finding. Where almost everyone sits one test, the few who add the other are choosing it deliberately, normally for particular colleges, and a deliberate choice selects more strongly than a statewide testing program does. This page does not claim to have settled it.
Two rows diverge widely enough to flag. Saint Joseph’s Philadelphia campus reports SAT sections that sit approximately 160 points below its ACT equivalent at the lower end, the widest gap in the state. East Stroudsburg sits approximately 130 points below at the lower end while reading 20 points above at the upper, a wide swing within one institution. Both figures stay on this page in each case and neither is reconciled, and a student considering either should ask its admissions office which number describes the class he would be joining.
For a Pennsylvania student the practical reading is simple enough. He is measured against a broad pool on the SAT and a small self-selected one on the ACT, so an ACT score that looks strong against a published range here may be less impressive than it appears.
What If Your Score Is Below the Range You Want?
A Pennsylvania student whose score sits below the range he wants is looking at a table that splits cleanly in two, and the answer differs completely across it. Thirteen institutions here admit fewer than half their applicants and every one is private. The other twenty-three admit between 58% and 98%.
At the top of the table the score does a great deal, and the distances are specific.
The University of Pennsylvania at 5% reports an admitted range of 740 to 770 in Reading & Writing and 770 to 800 in Math. A Math 25th percentile of 770 means three quarters of its admitted class scored at or above that figure. Swarthmore at 7%, Carnegie Mellon at 12% and Haverford at 12% all report ranges in the 700s in both sections. Those four are a different exercise from everything below them.
The band from Lehigh at 26% through to Dickinson at 42% is where a score moves the decision most for the largest number of students, and those nine colleges report ranges between 620 and 750.
Pitt at 58% and Penn State’s main campus at 61% are the two public universities where the number still matters, at 640 to 720 and 640 to 740 for Pitt and 620 to 700 and 620 to 720 for Penn State.
Across the rest of the public system the picture changes. The ten state system universities and the three Penn State branches admit between 71% and 98%, and for those a score is one input among several rather than a gate.
Our students since 2008 have normally needed approximately 40 hours of focused work to move a score meaningfully and approximately 80 hours for a larger jump. An ACT point is worth approximately 25 to 30 SAT points, so those hours convert between the tests.
One thing is true in Pennsylvania that is not true in the four states covered before it. A Pennsylvania student is not handed a score by his school, because the state tests on the Keystone Exams instead. So the first decision is not how high to aim but whether to register at all, and for anyone considering the top half of this table the answer is plainly yes.
The honest close for Pennsylvania runs opposite to most pages in this series. A score here does not buy state money, because no Pennsylvania program asks for one. What it buys is access to the most competitive private sector on any page in this grid, and for a student aiming there that is reason enough on its own.
A student who wants to know where he stands before committing those hours should sit a full timed test first. Take a free diagnostic and work from a real score rather than an impression of one. Our guide on how to improve your SAT score sets out the method, and the conversion above makes it apply to the ACT.
Should a Pennsylvania Student Take the SAT or the ACT?
A Pennsylvania student should plan around the SAT.
Thirty-two of the thirty-six institutions on this page report SAT sections and twenty-nine report an ACT composite. Four report the SAT with no ACT, and only Shippensburg reports the ACT with no SAT. Pennsylvania sits in SAT territory and its colleges report accordingly.
The state administers neither test, so a Pennsylvania student is choosing and paying for one either way. That makes this a real decision rather than a default, and that is not the case in the states covered immediately before this page.
The concordance pattern points the same way. At twenty-seven of twenty-eight institutions here the reported ACT range reads higher than the reported SAT range, which means a student comparing himself against an ACT range is measuring against a smaller and more self-selected group. He will see his own position more accurately on the SAT.
That is also why the table above carries no ACT column. The column order follows what these colleges publish.
The case for adding the ACT is narrow. An application to a college in a state where the ACT dominates is the clearest one, and timed practice tests of both showing a real format preference is the other.
How to Read These Score Ranges
Every range on this page covers the middle 50% of admitted students who submitted that score. A quarter of admitted students scored below the lower figure, and the top quarter scored at or above the upper one.
That phrasing matters more here than on most pages. Penn and Carnegie Mellon both report a Math 75th percentile of 800, so there is no scoring above it. The top quarter at those two scored at or above a perfect section score, and any page claiming otherwise is describing something impossible.
Two things follow that students regularly get wrong. A score below the lower number does not rule a student out, because a quarter of the admitted class was there. And a score just above the lower number is weaker than it looks, because it sits at the bottom of the middle half rather than in the middle of it.
Three cautions apply to this page in particular.
Narrow ranges at the top of the table mean something different from narrow ranges elsewhere. Penn and Swarthmore both report a 30-point Reading & Writing range because their admitted students sit near the ceiling of the scale, not because the data is thin.
Four institutions publish no SAT figures. For Temple, Robert Morris and Saint Joseph’s Lancaster there is nothing to compare against at all, and Shippensburg publishes only an ACT range, which runs a very wide twelve points. Temple is the second-largest institution on this page, so that absence affects a great many applicants.
At the open-admission end a range stops describing a standard. Penn State Harrisburg admits 98%, Erie and Abington 97% each, Pennsylvania Western 94% and Commonwealth 93%, so those published ranges describe the students who enrolled rather than a bar anyone had to clear.
And every range here describes students who chose to submit a score. That caution applies with full force in Pennsylvania, because the state tests nobody and every figure on this page came from a student who decided to sit the test and decided to send the result. Our guides on what SAT score you need for college and test-optional colleges cover what that means for a particular application.
Pre-Med Programs in Nearby States
Pennsylvania borders New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio. That is six states, more than almost any other state in this series.
West Virginia makes the sharpest comparison, and it runs directly against Pennsylvania. West Virginia gives every junior the SAT free as its state assessment and makes a score the condition for its merit scholarship. Pennsylvania administers no college entrance test and attaches no score to state aid. Two neighboring states, the same test, and opposite amounts of effort and reward attached to getting a number.
Leaving Pennsylvania has a cost attached. The Pennsylvania State Grant is usable only at eligible institutions and does not follow a student out of the state, so a student who enrolls elsewhere forfeits it.
The medical school concentration cuts the other way. A Pennsylvania student weighing medicine has more in-state options than a student in any other state covered here, which changes the calculation about leaving rather more than the undergraduate figures do.
Our pages for West Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Maryland cover the colleges, costs and medical school rules in each.
How to Read a College's SAT Range
Every range on this page is the middle 50% of admitted students. The lower number is the 25th percentile and the upper number is the 75th.
That means a score at the bottom of a range is not a typical admitted score, it’s a bottom-quarter one. And the bottom quarter includes recruited athletes and legacy applicants, so a regular applicant sitting there is in a weaker position than the number suggests.
See what SAT score you need for college for how to turn a score into a realistic list.
Pre-Med Colleges in Other States
Every state page in this series follows the same format, with admitted score ranges, costs, admit rates and each state’s own medical school and scholarship rules. Our pre-med colleges by state index lists all fifty.
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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