Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa · Founded 1858
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Test-optional
Iowa State does not require the SAT or ACT. A score you send goes into its Regent Admission Index (SAT scores are converted to the ACT scale); without one, you are admitted on your high school GPA and core courses. For the class that entered in fall 2025, 12% of enrolled first-year students submitted an SAT score and 45% an ACT. In its Common Data Set the rigor of the high school record and academic GPA are rated Very Important, test scores Important, and class rank, the essay and recommendations Considered. Transfer applicants with fewer than 24 transferable credits are asked for ACT or SAT scores. Source: iastate.edu - First-year Students and Transfer Requirements; Iowa State University Common Data Set 2025-2026, sections C7-C9 (verified October 2026).
About
Iowa's land-grant university, with about 26,000 undergraduates among more than 31,000 students in Ames. It opened as one of a new generation of American colleges built on the idea that practical subjects like agriculture, science and engineering belong beside a classical education, and its inventions include the first binary computer, the round hay baler and Maytag blue cheese. Engineering is its largest field, followed by business and agriculture.
History
The Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm was established in 1858, and in 1864 it received Iowa's land grant under the Morrill Act. It opened in 1869 with 136 men and 37 women in its first class, founded the nation's first state veterinary medicine school in 1879, and took the name Iowa State University of Science and Technology in 1959. George Washington Carver earned his bachelor's degree here in 1894 and became the university's first African American faculty member.
What stands out
- Test scores are optional; applicants who do not send one are reviewed on their high school grades and core courses
- Applicants who reach the Regent Admission Index and complete the required high school courses are admitted automatically
- There is no application deadline: decisions are made on a rolling basis
- More than 80 learning communities, residential and nonresidential, give first-year students a small group inside a big university
Popular majors
Campus life
Students cheer for the Cyclones in the Big 12 Conference; the nickname dates to an 1895 football win, and the mascot, Cy, is a cardinal, chosen in 1954 because a cyclone was hard to put in a costume. Iowa State counts more than 800 student clubs and organizations, and tradition says a student becomes a true Iowa Stater when kissed under the Campanile at the stroke of midnight.