UC Berkeley Herbert Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science

3.68 verified3.68 unverifiednot published checked, absentnot given not researchedWhat do these mean? ▾

3.68 Verified — official source: Published by ASCO or OptomCAS, the bodies that run optometry admissions and report board results. Board pass rates, class GPA and OAT averages, deadlines and letter requirements come from here. Click any underlined value to open the exact document it came from and check it yourself.
$31,746 Verified — the school’s own site: Read directly off the school’s website, then either accepted automatically because the wording was unambiguous, or approved by hand after a person read the surrounding sentence. Also clickable to the source page. These can go stale if a school updates a page and we haven’t re-crawled it yet.
Traditional Unverified estimate: Compiled by a student in a personal spreadsheet. No citation, no source link, and possibly wrong or out of date. These are a starting point for your own research, not a fact. Confirm with the school before you make any decision based on one. Where an official figure exists it always replaces these — so an unverified value means nobody has found a published source yet.
31,746 Calculated: Worked out from sourced figures rather than published as such. Year-1 direct cost is tuition plus mandatory fees, because no two schools break their costs up the same way and nothing else compares across them. The inputs are sourced; the arithmetic is ours.
not published Checked, genuinely absent: Someone opened the school’s own page and the figure is not there. This is a finding, not a gap — it means you can stop looking. Click it to open the page that was checked.
not given Not yet researched: Nobody has looked at this field for this school yet. Different from the one above: absence of research, not evidence of absence.

NBEO results — ASCO institutional report

Report year	Candidates	Part I	Part II	Part III	Ultimate	US Part I	Source
2024-2025	64	73.44%	100.00%	73.44%	92.19%	66.83%	PDF

Class profile — 2025 entering class

Class size

Applicants

not given

Interviewed

not given

Average GPA

3.76

Average science GPA

not given

Average OAT (AA)

360

Read from the school’s own page, 2 mo ago.

Program

Public / private: Public
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Accreditation status: Accredited (next ACOE site visit 2032)
reviewed by hand
Year established: 1923
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

Class profile

Class size: 69
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Average GPA: 3.76
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Average science GPA: not published
Berkeley publishes a RANGE, not an average. See note; this one matters.
Average OAT (AA): 360
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Profile year: 2025 entering class
ASCO · 2025 entering class

Admissions

Letters of recommendation: 3 letters — recommended: optometrist
OptomCAS
Interview style: Virtual, by invitation only
Virtual, by invitation only. Applicant is interviewed by a current student and faculty; held virtually to increase accessibility.
reviewed by hand
Patient care hours required: Recommended (No min)
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Application deadline: 12/11/26
OptomCAS
Last OAT date accepted: 12/11/26
OptomCAS
Supplemental application: Required — fee $66 (domestic and international applicants), due 12/11/26
OptomCAS
Bachelor's required: Yes
OptomCAS
Other tests accepted: GRE, MCAT, and DAT are accepted. Last test date accepted is 12/5/25.
OptomCAS

Cost

Year-1 direct cost: $44,186
Resident. Non-resident: $56,941. 2026-2027. Resident $22,092.75/semester and non-resident $28,470.25/semester for new students. Hand-held equipment adds $8,000-$10,000 in year one. ASCO lists $42,695 / $54,940 for 2025-2026.
reviewed by hand
Tuition — in-state: not published
As an annual figure — published per semester only. CA resident tuition is 6861 plus Professional Degree Supplemental Tuition 13128 = 19989 per semester (fall and spring). See note.
Tuition — out-of-state: not published
As an annual figure — published per semester only. Non-resident tuition is 6861 plus PDST 13383 plus Non-Resident Supplemental Tuition 6122.50 = 26366.50 per semester (fall and spring). See note.
Cost of attendance / yr: not published
As a single total. Berkeley publishes components separately: fees per semester (above), estimated personal expenses 37960 for a 9-month year off campus, and equipment 8000-10000 purchased across years 1 and 2.
Fees: not published
As an annual figure — 1953.75 per semester for residents and non-residents alike (Student Services 672, Campus Fee 904.75, Class Pass Transit 236, Instructional Resilience and Enhancement 141). New students pay a one-time 150 Document Management Fee.
Average debt at graduation: not published
No per-school figure exists. ASCO reports a national average of $209,280 for graduates with debt (2024-2025), and notes several schools report the figure as unavailable.
Scholarships available: Yes (Regents, Diversity, Clinical)
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

Boards & outcomes

NBEO Part I — first-time: 73.4%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO Part II — first-time: 100%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO Part III — first-time: 73.4%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO ultimate pass rate: 92.2%
ASCO · 2024-2025
Average NBEO pass rate: 82.3%
ASCO · 2024-2025
Residency match rate: not published
ORMatch publishes only aggregate statistics, not placement by school of graduation, and the school does not publish its own rate.
Residency programs available: Yes (Large variety)
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Employment after graduation: 98%
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

Clinical training

Clinic starts: 3rd year
Clinical content starts in year 1, but direct patient care begins in third-year clinics (Optometry 200D). Later than most programs, several of which start in year 1 or 2.
reviewed by hand
Patient volume: High
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Specialty clinics offered: Low vision, ocular disease, peds +3 more
Special Visual Assessments, Low Vision, Ocular Disease, Binocular Vision and Vision Functions, Infant and Children's Vision, and Refractive Surgery.
reviewed by hand
VA / hospital rotations: not published
Not named on the curriculum page.

Curriculum

Problem-based learning: Yes — several courses
Optometry 206C is a small-group problem-based course reviewing clinical cases; 236A/B also use PBL, and 246 and 256 use team- and problem-based approaches.
reviewed by hand
Research opportunities: OD Honors Research, NEI summer, ViSUR
OD Honors Research, NEI Summer Research, the MyOpIA Internship, the ViSUR Program and a Clinical Research Center are all listed. Eligibility is not described.
reviewed by hand
Dual degree options: OD/MS, OD/PhD
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Faculty-to-student ratio: not published
Not stated on the curriculum page.

Location & life

Cost of living: High
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Housing availability: Limited/Expensive
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Weather / climate: not given
Competitiveness vs collaboration: Collaborative
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

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