June 12, 2025
Written By
Dr. Michael Minh Le
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So you live in Oregon and want to know what your in-state options are for medical school. Or maybe you’re out of state and heard of a program that interested you. Either way, there are few a key medical schools in Oregon that you can choose from.
In this article, we’ll cover each school and its school identity, admissions and stats, curriculum, and strategic fit. Then we’ll help you decide if any of these are worth adding to your school list.
But once you figure out if you align with these schools, you still need to figure out how to be competitive. That’s why we created an Application Database that includes 8 real AMCAS applications that earned acceptances to top medical schools. You can see real personal statements, activity descriptions, and Most meaningfuls to get the full picture on how to position yourself for whatever school you choose.
It’s completely free inside our student portal. Create a free account here.
In Oregon, there is only one MD program to choose from; the rest are DO programs. And one of those DO programs isn't even located specifically in Oregon. With only three choices, the state is no New York or California that has nearly 20 programs to apply to. That being said, there are still good options in Oregon if it’s the state you want to stay in.
Here’s all of the Oregon and Oregon-related med schools at a glance:
OHSU is a public academic medical center, and the only MD program in the state. While some med schools are either research-heavy or focused more on primary care, OHSU is strong in both. Their cancer research specifically is backed by $1 billion in gifts, but they’re also known for gene therapy, primate research, and PhD training.
Before the U.S. News rankings switched to tiers, this school was ranked 4th for primary care, and 1st in family medicine specifically. They have programs aimed at serving rural communities, but the school is also located in Portland, which means students here get experience in primary care in urban settings as well.
Most schools simply post averages of their GPA and MCAT scores, but OHSU has hard eligibility requirements. As of the current cycle, you must have a cumulative total GPA of at least 2.80 and a cumulative MCAT of 497, from an eligible MCAT taken in the last three years.
These academic requirements make sense when you see how low the acceptance rate is: 2.65% based on matriculants. That’s based on a class size of only 150 from 6,000+ applicants. Plus there’s a strong in-state preference, with about 82% of entering classes being Oregon residents and only 8% from out of state.
The curriculum is called YOUR M.D., and it's built around two phases:
Students also have several dual degree options to choose from, including:
While OHSU provides a wide variety of pathways for students, it’s not the best for everyone. Students who would thrive here are typically research-oriented applicants, Oregon residents, or students wanting an academic-medicine path. Students interested in primary care also thrive here.
If you’re an OOS applicant without strong ties to Oregon, you may want to think twice given the residency bias.
COMP-NW is a DO-granting branch campus of Western University of Health Sciences, located in Lebanon, Oregon. This school is actually Oregon's first new medical school in about 100 years, and the only osteopathic medical school in the state. It was just recently renamed in 2025 to Heatherington College of Osteopathic Medicine (HCOM), so don’t be confused if you start seeing that name instead.
The school is a primary-care and rural-medicine mission school, ranked Tier 1 for primary care by U.S. News. Research isn’t their strongest offering, represented by a low Tier 4 ranking. Humanism and community integration are also big parts of HCOM’s identity.
The average overall GPA is 3.58 (science GPA 3.57, non-science GPA 3.83). The average MCAT is 507. These are typical GPA and MCAT averages among DO programs in the U.S.
In a recent year, there were 3,356 applicants for a class size of only 95. That makes the acceptance rate about 2.8% based on matriculants for the Oregon campus specifically. This is slightly lower than OHSU, but the plus here is that there’s really no in-state preference. Only 42% of the Oregon campus's enrolled class are Oregon residents.
Osteopathic-specific training is part of the curriculum the entire time you attend HCOM. It runs on problem-based learning (PBL) principles, which just means students work through a clinical case in small groups instead of starting from a lecture.
Here’s exactly what you can expect while you’re there:
Samaritan Health Services, a nonprofit regional hospital system, is a core clinical site for third- and fourth-year medical students. The HCOM campus sits right next to Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, so students get early, close, and repeated clinical exposure. But students also rotate at hospitals further out, like in Roseburg, Medford, Bend, Portland, and even Tacoma, WA.
This is the same curriculum as WesternU's Pomona, CA campus, so it’s not a lesser program just because it’s a branch campus.
If you’re interested in going the DO route or practicing in primary care or rural medicine, this is a good school to add to your list. It’s also a great option if you prefer a smaller class environment.
If practicing in urban areas captures more of your interest, you prefer bigger class sizes, or want to be part of and serve a more diverse population, then the parent location, Western University of Health Sciences, may be a better option. It’s the same school as COMP-NW/HCOM but located in the LA metropolitan area.
This is a DO-granting medical school that’s not located in Oregon. But it’s on the list because Oregon is included in the five states that PNWU targets for recruitment, clinical training, and graduate outcomes.
Its mission is clear: train physicians for rural and medically underserved communities in states like Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. They refer to it as a "Recruit-Educate-Return" model.
For the 2025 entering class, the average cumulative GPA was 3.6, the average science GPA was 3.5, and the average MCAT was 503. These are pretty typical stats for an osteopathic program.
In the same year, there were 145 matriculants out of 1,925 applicants. That makes PNWU’s acceptance rate about 7.5%. There is some in-state preference here, with the largest chunk (47.6%) of matriculants coming from Washington, with additional preference for applicants in the Pacific Northwest, including 8.3% from Oregon, 4.8% from Idaho, 2.8% from Montana, and 2.1% from Alaska.
Students spend the first two years on the Yakima campus. Two parallel tracks run simultaneously. There’s a "clinical practice thread" that covers Osteopathic Principles and Practice (OPP), Clinical Skills, and a course specifically called Community Doctoring. The other thread is biomedical science, so picture Gross Anatomy, Scientific Foundations of Medicine, Fundamentals of Pharmacology, then organ-systems coursework starting Week 13.
Years 3–4 is when regional dispersal happens. Students live at a single regional clinical site for up to two years, and don’t rotate between sites every few weeks like most schools.
Most students also complete a dedicated four-week rural family medicine rotation, often as the only medical student at that site. That means significantly more hands-on responsibility than a rotation shared with other students.
If you’re an Oregon applicant who is committed to rural/primary care, especially those with ties to underserved communities, then PNWU is definitely a school to consider.
But if you don’t have ties to the Pacific Northwest or interest in rural medicine, you likely won’t thrive in this program. If you’re more interested in research, then you’ll find better opportunities elsewhere.
You know the lay of the land in Oregon, but when it comes to putting medical schools on your school list, it can feel more complicated than mere stats. Sure, you have a general idea of who would thrive where, but how much should you weigh each factor?
The first place to start in evaluating schools for your list is exactly where AdComs will start with your application: GPA and MCAT. Compare your stats against each school's median/range. Depending on how you compare, you’ll want to categorize each school as reach vs. target vs. safety.
Here’s how each school compares on GPA and MCAT:
MD vs. DO is very different. You can become a fully licensed physician with either, but their training philosophies are quite different.
MD programs follow the traditional "allopathic" model, treating disease with medications, surgery, and other conventional interventions. DO programs teach the same core medical curriculum but add osteopathic philosophy on top. It’s a "whole-person" approach that treats the body as an interconnected system (mind, body, and musculoskeletal structure all affecting each other) rather than just addressing isolated symptoms.
Just because your stats match or you know you want the degree that’s offered doesn’t mean you should blindly apply to the school. You also want to evaluate whether you align with the school’s mission. It’s not only four years of your life, but it’s what’s going to form you into a physician.
Here’s how each school compares on mission:
There are other more surface level logistics you’ll want to evaluate as well. One is whether you’re an in-state vs. out-of-state applicant. When schools give heavy favor to in-state applicants, it makes it a golden opportunity to apply if you’re a resident, but you may want to think twice if you’re out-of-state. It’s not impossible if you are; you’ll just need to ensure the above factors are really rock solid.
Beyond just residency preference, you’ll want to ensure you’ll thrive in the location. Your choices are urban Portland vs. small-town Lebanon vs. small-city Yakima, and each has its own lifestyle, cost of living, activities, and associated personal logistics.
Another way to know whether one of these schools is right for you is whether you align with the clinical training model. The clinical training model is really a proxy for what your day-to-day life looks like for two full years, and for what kind of doctor the training pushes you toward becoming.
Knowing what each school has to offer and what academic stats they require is only part of the puzzle. We talked about mission alignment, but how do you show that in your application?
We created an Application Database that gives you access to 8 real AMCAS applications that earned acceptances to top medical schools. You’ll see real personal statements, activity descriptions, and most meaningfuls so you can get the full picture of how you truly show mission alignment for whatever schools you’re interested in.
It’s completely free inside our student portal. Create a free account here.
