Admissions & selectivity
Ohio State University-Main Campus Acceptance Rate & Admissions
What is the acceptance rate at Ohio State?
Ohio State’s reported acceptance rate is 60.6%.
- Acceptance rate · Fall 2024
- 60.6%
Source: College Scorecard · Fall 2024 admissions. Acceptance rates can change from year to year; this figure does not predict the current or next admission cycle.
How to interpret the acceptance rate
Ohio State University-Main Campus admits 60.6% of applicants, a rate that sits below the median of 78.1% for comparable institutions (same type and size).
What SAT and ACT scores do Ohio State students report?
Enrolled students who submitted SAT scores posted a middle range from 1,310 to 1,480. ACT submitters fell between 28 and 32.
Those ranges describe the twenty-fifth through seventy-fifth percentiles of recent enrolled submitters, not a floor for admission. An applicant weighing Ohio State can set their own score beside the university's 1,310–1,480 SAT window.
They can also compare against the 28–32 ACT window. Those numbers reflect enrolled students who chose to send scores.
The ranges below describe enrolled students who submitted test scores at Ohio State. Use them as academic context, then check the university’s current testing policy for your application cycle.
- Approximate lower endpoint
- 1310
- Approximate upper endpoint
- 1480
Enrolled students who submitted scores. This range is not an admission cutoff. The endpoints add section percentiles; they are not verified composite-score percentiles. A separate SAT-equivalent average is not plotted as a median. Source: College Scorecard; sum of section 25th/75th percentiles; enrolled score-submitters.
- 25th percentile
- 28
- 75th percentile
- 32
Enrolled students who submitted scores. This range is not an admission cutoff.
Figures cover fall 2024.
Who enrolls at Ohio State?
- Pell Grant recipients
- 20.2%
- Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group
- 26.5%
- First-year retention
- 94.2%
Retention source: College Scorecard; full-time first-year retention.
About these student measures
The entering-student group includes part-time entrants as well as other attendance patterns.
Ohio State University-Main Campus enrolls 45,638 undergraduates. An estimated 26.5% of all undergraduates entered as transfers or part-time students, and 20.2% of the undergraduate population receives Pell Grants.
These figures point to a large public university that draws significantly from transfer pathways and serves a notable share of Pell-eligible undergraduates. The undergraduate body includes both recent high-school graduates and students continuing from other colleges, a mixed-entry population in Columbus, Ohio.
Pell-eligible and transfer applicants should submit complete applications that clearly document their prior academic performance and any transferable credits.
Ohio State University-Main Campus retains 94.2% of its first-year students, above the peer median of 83.1% for comparable institutions. The six-year graduation rate reaches 87.7%, also above the peer median of 65.0%.
The six-year completion rate for Pell Grant recipients is 60.4%, which sits below the overall rate by 27.3 percentage points. Students who enter with a Pell Grant should plan to engage early with academic support and advising resources to stay on track.
Enrolled students can expect a university where most peers return after the first year and graduate within six years, but where Pell recipients graduate at a lower rate. Connecting with campus resources early can help students stay on track.
Data & methodology
Sources and reporting periods: methodology.
Analysis and methodology by Daniel Rogers, founder of College Azimuth.
Explanatory text is AI-assisted drafting checked against those figures; it is not an additional data source.
Admission rates describe past applicants, not an individual’s chance of admission; confirm requirements and deadlines with the institution.
Figure notes link to sources and limitations. About College Azimuth.