University of Houston 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 No citation, no source link, and possibly wrong or out of date.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	94	60.64%	87.23%	60.64%	84.04%	66.83%	PDF

Class profile — 2025 entering class

Class size

100

Applicants

not given

Interviewed

not given

Average GPA

3.61

Average science GPA

not given

Average OAT (AA)

337

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 2031)
reviewed by hand
Year established: 1952
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

Class profile

Class size: 100
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Average GPA: 3.61
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): 337
ASCO · 2025 entering class
Profile year: 2025 entering class
ASCO · 2025 entering class

Admissions

Letters of recommendation: 2 letters
OptomCAS
Interview style: Traditional
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Patient care hours required: Highly Recommended
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source
Application deadline: 2/28/27
OptomCAS
Last OAT date accepted: All documents must be to the UHCO’s Office of Student Services by 2/28/27
OptomCAS
Supplemental application: Required — fee $50, due 2/28/27
OptomCAS
Bachelor's required: Yes
OptomCAS
Other tests accepted: MCAT, DAT, PCAT and GRE are accepted.
OptomCAS

Cost

Year-1 direct cost: 28509
Resident / 48204 non-resident — UH's own published combined first-year tuition-and-fees figure, matching the derived-field definition. The resident figure is the second-lowest in the project after UMSL.
reviewed by hand
Tuition — in-state: not published
Separately from fees. UH publishes 704.55 per semester credit hour for Texas residents, described as including consolidated fees, and a first-year combined figure of 28509 for tuition, consolidated fees and University mandatory fees.
Tuition — out-of-state: not published
Separately from fees. 1209.55 per semester credit hour for non-residents; first-year combined figure 48204. See note — this figure carries no year footnote.
Cost of attendance / yr: not published
The page states that additional expenses are incurred for equipment, books, student organization dues, class dues, living expenses, parking and optional health insurance, but gives no figures for any of them.
Fees: not published
Separately from tuition. Consolidated fees are bundled into the per-credit-hour rate and University mandatory fees are bundled into the first-year total.
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: More than 100 endowed optometric…
More than 100 endowed optometric scholarships are available, administered by the College's Scholarships and Financial Aid Committee working with the university financial aid office. Emergency short-term loans for tuition and fees are also available. No dollar amounts are published.
reviewed by hand

Boards & outcomes

NBEO Part I — first-time: 60.6%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO Part II — first-time: 87.2%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO Part III — first-time: 60.6%
ASCO · 2024-2025
NBEO ultimate pass rate: 84%
ASCO · 2024-2025
Average NBEO pass rate: 69.5%
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: 2nd year, spring
Students shadow third- and fourth-year clinicians in the second-year fall, then begin their own patient care in the spring semester.
reviewed by hand
Patient volume: ~1,500 encounters per graduate
UHCO states patient encounters will approximate 1,500 per graduate across the program, rather than publishing an annual clinic total.
reviewed by hand
Specialty clinics offered: Dry eye, myopia control, VT, neuro +5 more
Specialty services: pre- and post-operative surgical care, dry eye, myopia control, vision therapy, neuro-optometric care and special populations. Rotations cover family practice, specialty paediatrics, low vision, cornea and contact lens, and medical eye care.
reviewed by hand
VA / hospital rotations: not published
Medical eye rotations and externships are described, but the page does not say whether they include VA or hospital settings.

Curriculum

Problem-based learning: not published
Not described on the program page.
Research opportunities: not published
Not described on the program page.
Dual degree options: OD/PhD, OD/MS
reviewed by hand
Faculty-to-student ratio: not published
Not stated on the program 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: Moderate
unverified — student spreadsheet, no source

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