Pennsylvania College of Optometry — Accelerated Scholars (3-year)

Elkins Park, PA · Official site

This is an admission track, not a separate school. It leads to the same OD degree under the same accreditation as Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Drexel University, but admits a different cohort and runs on a different schedule. Figures below describe this track specifically.

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 No citation, no source link, and possibly wrong or out of date.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.

Program

Public / private: Private
reviewed by hand
Accreditation status: Accredited (next ACOE site visit 2033)
Accredited under Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Drexel University; the Scholars Program is a pathway within that accreditation, not a separate one.
reviewed by hand
Year established: not given

Class profile

Class size: 18
18 matriculants against 126 in the traditional track.
reviewed by hand
Average GPA: 3.73
Traditional track averages 3.38 — the Scholars cohort is a markedly more selective admit.
reviewed by hand
Average science GPA: not given
Average OAT (AA): 353
Academic Average. Total Science average is 358. Traditional track is 306 / 295.
reviewed by hand
Profile year: 2025 entering class
reviewed by hand

Admissions

Letters of recommendation: not given
Interview style: not given
Patient care hours required: not given
Application deadline: not given
Last OAT date accepted: not given
Supplemental application: not given
Bachelor's required: not given
Other tests accepted: not given

Cost

Year-1 direct cost: $52,302
Three-year total cost of attendance is $277,127, against $360,006 over four years for the traditional track — roughly $83,000 less, plus a year of earnings.
reviewed by hand
Tuition — in-state: $52,302
Per year over three years. Slightly higher annually than the traditional track's $51,560, but one year shorter.
reviewed by hand
Tuition — out-of-state: $52,302
Private institution — a single rate for all students.
reviewed by hand
Cost of attendance / yr: not given
Fees: not given
Average debt at graduation: not given
Scholarships available: not given

Boards & outcomes

NBEO Part I — first-time: 77.8%
18 first-time takers, 2024-25. National first-time rate that year was 62.0%. The traditional 4-year track managed 50.0%.
reviewed by hand
NBEO Part II — first-time: 100%
14 first-time takers, 2024-25, and 100% in each of the three published years. National was 86.6%; the traditional track 79.8%.
reviewed by hand
NBEO Part III — first-time: 85.7%
14 first-time takers, 2024-25. National was 69.0%; the traditional track 73.0%.
reviewed by hand
NBEO ultimate pass rate: not published
PCO does not publish an ultimate pass rate per track. It does report that 13 of 14 Scholars graduates in 2025 were licensed or passed a full exam series (92.8%), against 76.7% for the traditional track.
Average NBEO pass rate: 87.8%
Mean of the three first-time rates PCO publishes for this track.
reviewed by hand
Residency match rate: not given
Residency programs available: not given
Employment after graduation: not given

Clinical training

Clinic starts: not given
Patient volume: not given
Specialty clinics offered: not given
VA / hospital rotations: not given

Curriculum

Problem-based learning: not given
Research opportunities: not given
Dual degree options: not given
Faculty-to-student ratio: not given

Location & life

Cost of living: not given
Housing availability: not given
Weather / climate: not given
Competitiveness vs collaboration: not given

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