The Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio · Founded 1870
Create a free account and we'll score this university against your grades, budget, intended major and location — and explain the reasoning.
Get your matchTesting policy
SAT / ACT required
Ohio State requires the SAT or ACT from first-year applicants to its Columbus campus: it reinstated the requirement in March 2025, starting with the 2026 admissions cycle, after a test-optional pilot. Applicants who will have been out of high school for two or more years are exempt. The university superscores both tests, combining your highest section scores across test dates, and the ACT science section is not needed. Top-5% students admitted through Ohio Guaranteed Admission must still send scores, though the scores are not used in their decision. The class that entered in fall 2025 applied under the test-optional policy: 25% of enrolled first-year students submitted an SAT score and 42% an ACT. In its own Common Data Set, rigor of the high school record, class rank, academic GPA and test scores are all rated Very Important. Transfer applicants who have earned graded college credit after high school do not need scores. Source: undergrad.osu.edu - Application information and Who gets in; news.osu.edu, March 12, 2025; Ohio State Common Data Set 2025-2026, sections C7-C9 (verified September 2026).
About
Ohio's land-grant university, with about 46,600 undergraduates on its main campus in Columbus, the state capital. Business and engineering are its two largest fields, together more than a third of bachelor's degrees, and students are admitted to the university first and then considered for the college of their intended major. Most students are Ohioans; a little over a quarter of first-year students come from other states.
History
Ohio State was founded on March 22, 1870, when the Ohio Legislature passed the Cannon Act creating the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, a land-grant school. Classes began on September 17, 1873, with 24 students, and on May 1, 1878, the legislature renamed it The Ohio State University. That spring a committee of three students chose scarlet and gray as the school colors, after finding that orange and black already belonged to Princeton.
What stands out
- Requires standardized test scores from first-year applicants to the Columbus campus, and combines your best section scores across test dates
- Students in the top 5% of their Ohio high school class are guaranteed admission to the main campus under state law
- Nonbinding early action by November 1 is the route to engineering majors, direct admission to nursing and the honors and scholars programs
- Admitted students are then considered for the college of their intended major, and some majors set their own requirements
- 93 percent of first-year students come back for a second year
Popular majors
Campus life
Students are Buckeyes, the mascot is Brutus Buckeye and the school colors are scarlet and gray. There are more than 1,400 student organizations, and about 105,000 fans fill Ohio Stadium, the 'Shoe, for football. The marching band's Script Ohio, first performed in 1936, ends with a senior sousaphone player dotting the i, and "Carmen Ohio," the alma mater, was first sung in 1903.