OSU Admissions Update

Ohio State has been on lots of people's minds over the long weekend with the football game against Notre Dame on Saturday night.  But it has also likely been on the minds of lots of seniors who are hoping to apply to OSU for admissions.

Last week I attended a meeting at OSU to learn from their admissions staff about the latest requirements and updates.  To give you the short version - OSU continues to grow more and more competitive to be accepted directly to main campus, but there are still opportunities for every student graduating from WKHS who wants to be a Buckeye to start at a branch campus.  I normally will not highlight updates from every college, but because so many students plan on applying to OSU each year I wanted to pass along some of the information I learned.

- November 1st is the Early Action deadline for admissions.  It is also their deadline to be considered for their automatic scholarships.  Students who plan on applying for the Honors and Scholars program, major in the college of Engineering, major in Nursing, or who want to apply for the Morrill Scholarship program are strongly encouraged to submit their applications by this date as well.  The November 1st deadline includes having all of your supplemental materials received by the admissions office in addition to your application (such as test scores and transcript).  If you apply by the November 1st deadline, you can expect to hear back on your admissions decision on either December 9th or on January 20th.

-  OSU does NOT require a letter of recommendation.  They will accept one if you send it and it can be from anyone who knows you well - a teacher, coach, counselor, boss, etc.  Can you imagine reading 60,000 recommendation letters?!?  Yikes.  Please, be sure that if you're sending them a letter that it is highlighting something about you that the rest of your application isn't covering.

-  OSU had over 65,000 applications last year (a record by 13%!) and will have about 8,000 new freshmen on the Columbus campus.  For those admitted to the Columbus campus, the average ACT composite score was a 29.6 and 98% of the students were in the Top 25% of their class (72% were in the top 10%).  Needless to say it is very competitive to gain admission onto main campus, but they pointed out the opportunities available for admission to OSU at the branch campuses with open enrollment.

-  Students who begin their college career at a branch campus have the opportunity to stay and complete their degree in some majors if they want, but they can also change campuses and move from the branch to main campus after completing 30 credit hours (1 year of full time classes) and earning a 2.0 GPA.  This is not a transfer application, it is an automatic change of location form to be completed with your academic adviser at OSU.  Please note that if you are anticipating starting at a branch campus, you may want to apply directly to the branch instead of applying to main campus because that will qualify you for the branch campus scholarships.

-  There are no set numbers for being admitted or for being deferred to a branch campus.  Representatives from the regional branch campuses also talked and shared about some of the opportunities and experiences on their campus and they are still academically strong.  Additionally, by indicating your back-up branch campus on your OSU application, it does not make you more likely to be admitted to a branch campus rather than main campus.  OSU will automatically assume you want the Marion branch if you don't indicate a back-up option.

- They are test optional again this year.  Students who indicate they want to be considered with test scores MUST submit their test scores before the deadline date or else you need to change your application to that you want to be considered without test scores.  OSU won't automatically switch you to test optional.  You have through the October test dates to submit your scores - just be sure that you have requested OSU as one of your score recipients so that they are sent your scores directly from ACT/ SAT immediately when your scores are released.

- For those students who are sumitting test scores their middle 50% of the ACT was a 27-32.  and a 1290-1420 SAT. Last year, 56.5% of applicants didn't use test scores in their applications.  Those who didn't submit test scores were often non-Ohio residents, international students, underrepresented minorities, and First Generation applicants.  45.6% of those students admitted had not used test scores as a part of their applications.

-  They are major blind in acceptance to the university and then you would be considered for acceptance into your particular major or preferred program.  (So for those students who hope to "game the system" by picking some obscure major that you really are not interested in, that won't actually matter for admissions to the university.)

-  Their FAFSA Priority Deadline is February 1st.  The Financial Aid Officer reminded us to encourage all students to complete the FAFSA even if you know that your family will not qualify for need-based financial aid.  This is because there are some merit based scholarships that are not dependent upon financial need, but that have a pre-requisite that students have completed the FAFSA to make sure that they had already received any need based aid the student would qualify for before the scholarship could be awarded.  

Over the next few weeks I will be attending more informational meetings to get additional information about other colleges in Ohio and beyond so that I have the latest information to be able to share with you as you are working on your applications.