OSU Admissions Update

This morning the Ohio State University hosted area counselors to provide us with an update about what they saw in trends last year and to give us an idea of what they are anticipating for the coming year. This is the 2nd year that I have attended this conference and while I wasn't *quite* as shocked as I was last year I still walked away shaking my head in awe.

The new freshman class at OSU (which will be moving in next week) has an average ACT score of 27. They received 22,000 applications for approximately 6,000 spots. Next year their goal is 5,800 new students to enroll as freshmen. 97% of the applicants had more than the "minimum" standards for college prep courses. For example, the average freshman took 4.8 math classes, 4.0 lab sciences, and 3.7 foreign language classes. They said that a rigorous high school curriculum is still the number one factor that they look at when considering an application.

They will be sticking with a February 1st deadline for application which means that EVERYTHING must be received in their office by that date in order to be considered - including your official test scores, transcript, and college prep form. If you want to be considered for scholarships you must apply by December 3rd - and again that means everything must be there by then to be considered.

Other news that might be interesting to you - they talked about their concerns for students that get "senioritis" and do poorly in their classes during their senior year or drop their 2nd semester classes that they had indicated they would be taking because they had already received their acceptance letters and wanted to coast for a while. Evidently, UCLA rescinded 91 college acceptances from students because of their final semester grades. Ohio State did not take it that far, but they did call the students and asked them to provide written documentation for why they had dropped the classes or done poorly in them during their final semester of high school. Wow! That must have been a shock - please don't even risk it and be certain that there are no concerns with your grades and academic rigor during your final semester!