The Ohio State University College of Optometry

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 No citation, no source link, and possibly wrong or out of date.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	60	95.00%	100.00%	86.67%	98.33%	66.83%	PDF

Class profile — 2025 entering class

Class size

Applicants

not given

Interviewed

not given

Average GPA

3.86

Average science GPA

not given

Average OAT (AA)

358

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 2028)
reviewed by hand
Year established: 1914
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

Class profile

Class size: 69
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Average GPA: 3.86
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Average science GPA: not published
ASCO's entering-class profile reports cumulative GPA and OAT only — it does not collect science GPA — and the school does not publish one.
Average OAT (AA): 358
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Profile year: 2025 entering class
ASCO · 2025 entering class

Admissions

Letters of recommendation: 3 letters — required: optometrist, general faculty — not accepted: teaching assistant
OptomCAS
Interview style: Traditional
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Patient care hours required: Recommended
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Application deadline: 3/1/27
OptomCAS
Last OAT date accepted: 3/1/27
OptomCAS
Supplemental application: Required — fee $60 domestic and $70 international, due 3/15/27
OptomCAS
Bachelor's required: Completion of three or more years of undergraduate coursework (90+ semester hours) is required. Bachelor’s degree is strongly recommended and preferred.
OptomCAS
Other tests accepted: GRE, MCAT, DAT and PCAT are accepted.
OptomCAS

Cost

Year-1 direct cost: 31746
Resident / 52802 non-resident — this is OSU's own published combined tuition-and-fees line, matching the derived-field definition exactly.
reviewed by hand
Tuition — in-state: not published
Separately from fees. OSU publishes a combined "Direct Costs: Tuition and Fees" line of 31746 for resident year 1. By year: 31746 (Y1), 31746 (Y2), 41870 (Y3), 41870 (Y4).
Tuition — out-of-state: not published
Separately from fees. Combined direct costs of 52802 for non-resident year 1, then 31756 (Y2), 41885 (Y3), 41885 (Y4) — see the note, this is the most important cost fact at this school.
Cost of attendance / yr: 60325
Resident / 82009 non-resident for year 1. PUBLISHED as a total — the fourth school to do so. By year, resident: 60325, 55160, 74436, 70906. Non-resident: 82009, 55798, 75236, 71706.
reviewed by hand
Fees: not published
Separately from tuition, with one exception: the non-resident fee is stated as 10528 per semester for first-year students and 5 per semester for second through fourth-year students.
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: All applicants, domestic and international,…
All applicants, domestic and international, are automatically considered for admissions scholarships based on their application and interview. No separate application is required and no dollar amounts are published on this page.
reviewed by hand

Boards & outcomes

NBEO Part I — first-time: 95%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO Part II — first-time: 100%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO Part III — first-time: 86.7%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO ultimate pass rate: 98.3%
ASCO · 2024-2025
Average NBEO pass rate: 93.9%
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
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Employment after graduation: 99%
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

Clinical training

Clinic starts: 1st year
reviewed by hand
Patient volume: High
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Specialty clinics offered: Binocular vision, peds, low vision +3 more
Primary vision care, binocular vision, pediatrics, advanced ocular care, adult and pediatric contact lenses, low vision rehabilitation, and an Eyewear Gallery.
reviewed by hand
VA / hospital rotations: Yes — VA externship, 4th year
Fourth-year Ocular Disease Externship sites include Veterans Administration Medical Center optometry clinics. Ophthalmology practices and surgical co-management centres are also available as Advanced Practice Externships.
reviewed by hand

Curriculum

Problem-based learning: Yes — Keystone courses
Keystone courses use a problem-based learning format built around optometric cases.
reviewed by hand
Research opportunities: not published
Not described on the curriculum page.
Dual degree options: OD/MS
reviewed by hand
Faculty-to-student ratio: not published
Not stated on the curriculum page.

Location & life

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

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