Top Students

OSU is increasingly a destination of choice for top-performing students. They are learning through research, career-building internships and interactions with diverse cultures.

National Merit Scholars, salutatorians and valedictorians choose OSU more often than any other college or university in the state. Freshmen enter OSU today with an average GPA of 3.5.

• More top achieving Portland-area high school graduates are enrolling at Oregon State than at any other college or university.
• OSU offers the state’s only degree-granting Honors College, one of only a handful in the U.S.
• Scholarship funds for top-performing students have more than doubled since 2001, when 1,039 students received $2.4 million in merit-based presidential, provost and diversity achievement scholarships. In 2009, those scholarships generated $6.2 million for 2,435 students.
• A few standouts
  • 2008 biochemistry and biophysics graduate Tari Tan is now studying neuroscience at Harvard University.
  • Senior Laura Magaña won a coveted Gates Millennium Scholarship for minority students in 2009 and majored in bioresource research.
  • In 2010 sophomore Daniel Fridley maintains a 4.0 in music and the University Honors College while serving on the ASOSU Government Affairs Team, performing in charity fundraisers and directing Outspoken, OSU’s premier men’s a cappella choral group.