Schools with low out-of-state acceptance rates

[STCM]

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Since my home state has only one OT program, I've been scoping out schools in other states to apply to next year. I've noticed that many programs have low acceptance rates of out-of-state students. This is useful information for those of us who don't have endless funds for application costs. I've compiled a list here from the information about schools on the OTCAS website. The following are schools that had ten or fewer out-of-state students in their most recent entering class.

School, # of out-of-state students in most recent entering class

Alabama State, about 4

Tuskagee State (AL), about 7

University of Alabama, about 10

Florida A&M University, about 4 or 5

Brenau University, Gainesville, about 10

Brenau University, Atlanta/Norcross, about 5

Idaho State University, about 7

Governor's State University (IL), about 1

Midwestern University (IL), about 7

University of Illinois at Chicago, about 7

University of Kansas Med. Center, about 10

Towson University (MD), about 7

College of St. Scholastica (MN), about 10

St. Catherine University (MN), about 10

University of New Mexico, about 1

Long Island University, about 1

New York Institute of Tech., about 3

Stony Brook University (NY), about 2

Touro College, Bay Shore NY, about 3

Touro College, Manhattan, about 4 or 5

Utica College (NY), about 3

Winston-Salem State University (NC), about 7

Ohio State University, about 4

University of Findlay (OH), about 3

University of Toledo (OH), about 6

Duquense University (PA), about 3

University of South Dakota, about 7

University of Tennessee, about 3

University of Texas, Pan American, 0

University of Utah, about 1 or 2

James Madison University (VA), about 5 or 6

Shenandoah University (VA), about 9

Virginia Commonwealth University, about 10

Eastern Washington University, about 3

Washington University, about 6

Concordia University (WI), about 4

This information is from the OTCAS website. It's a year old, so may be a little outdated but I will try to update it when OTCAS publishes the 2012 information in the Fall. I don't mean to discourage anyone, I just think it's helpful to know where things stand.

 

[gymnastau]

Awesome STCM! This is great for next cycle's applicants!

 

[Karine]

That's very helpful! Thank you 🙂

 

[mco316]

Just wanted to throw out that CSU (Colo) seems to accept about 50/50 in state and out of state. Their cohort is 50 students.

 

[OTPanda]

When looking at these kinds of #'s it might be important to know which states are WICHE (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education). WICHE is a program where states that don't have some professional programs partner with schools from other states and allow those students to attend at a reduced tuition or in-state tuition rates.

www.wiche.edu

That is a terribly vague explanation of the program, just know that the schools in the receiving states might be more willing to accept students from states that are in this program.

 

[STCM]

When looking at these kinds of #'s it might be important to know which states are WICHE (Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education). WICHE is a program where states that don't have some professional programs partner with schools from other states and allow those students to attend at a reduced tuition or in-state tuition rates.

www.wiche.edu

That is a terribly vague explanation of the program, just know that the schools in the receiving states might be more willing to accept students from states that are in this program.

Thanks for pointing that out. What I've noticed is that the schools participating consider students from Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Washington and Wyoming to be in-state. I think those are the programs that participate in the graduate part of WICHE, which is different than the undergraduate program.

I would however, call the programs to make sure they're still participating. The admissions coordinator from Colorado State said they no longer participate, even though their website says otherwise.

Also, just wanted to note that the list I made includes only OTCAS schools. Other schools usually don't make that information too readily available but if anyone knows of non-OTCAS schools that don't accept too many out-of-state students, please let us know. 🙂

 

[lizzo76]

Too bad this info only covers OTCAS schools!

Where did you get it, though? I can't find info. about number of accepted in- and out-of-state students. I see the class size and the percent of the class who are in-state and who are out-of-state. Class size is different from number of accepted students since they accept more students than make up the final class. Is there more info. I can't find?

Edit to add - while schools usually accept more students than makes up the final class size (since not everyone accepted attends) I do see that some of the profiles use the same number for "class size" and "admitted students" (as in, "class size" of 35, with 30 "admitted students" being female, and 5 admitted students being male), so you might be right in your analysis. But I'm still not sure "admitted students" is the same as "accepted students" Does anyone know for sure?

 

[STCM]

Here's how I figured it out:

When you log into OTCAS, on the bottom left of the screen, under Help, there is a link that's labeled "Participating Programs". That brings up a pop-up window with a list of the schools that use OTCAS. If you click on a link, a file will come up that gives an information sheet for that school. I'm guessing this is some kind of template OTCAS gives schools to fill out. It gives the size of the most recently entering class and the anticipated size of this cycle's class. Next, it gives the percentages of both in-state and out-of-state students in the most recent entering class. I used that percentage to calculate a raw # of out-of-state students in the most recent entering class. I corrected my original post to make that clearer.

You're right to say that there may have been more admitted. I'm kind of guessing the number of admitted students isn't too much higher than those who actually attend.

Hope this clarifies.

 

[lizzo76]

Thanks for the clarification! I figured that's what you did but also figured that the true acceptance numbers may be quite different from the numbers within the final class, particularly for public universities. I would expect, for example, state universities to get many out of state applicants, as people try to apply to several schools to maximize chances of getting accepted somewhere. Then, they would probably reject state universities where they are not in-state (too expensive) unless the state university has a really excellent program, like say University of Wisconsin. Thus, the majority of the class at somewhat lower-ranked state universities would be in-state. (It would also be expected that the vast majority of applicants would be in-state, so if acceptances and yield are in proportion to that, most people in the class would be in-state.) I haven't analyzed the data extensively, but I suppose all bets are off when it comes to certain desirable locations like NYC and California.

Pure speculation, but I think it is safe to say that the rates of out-of-staters being accepted to public universities is probably significantly higher than the final class numbers reflect. That being said, state universities supposedly ARE supposed to have some sort of bias for in-staters, as it's their mandate to education residents of that state.

For private universities, I doubt it factors into the admissions decisions at all (if anything, if they're like some private undergrads, they'd give preference to applicants from certain other states in order to "diversify" the class geographically.)

Although I would have to take the numbers with a grain of salt, I still wish those profiles were available for non-OTCAS schools!