Indiana University School of Optometry: Admissions, Tuition and Program Facts

Indiana University School of Optometry (IUSO) is the Doctor of Optometry program of Indiana University, and ASCO classes it among the nine public OD schools in the US — the others are Ferris State, NSU Oklahoma, Ohio State, SUNY, UAB, UC Berkeley, Houston and UMSL.

Accreditation is current: ACOE's directory of OD programs dated August 17, 2026 lists IUSO's professional OD program as "Accredited", with the next site visit scheduled for 2030.

ACOE is the recognized accreditor for OD degree programs, residency programs and optometric technician programs in the US and Canada.

The school's 2025 entering class was 92 first-year matriculants against 92 first-year slots — every seat filled — per ASCO's Profile of the 2025 Entering Class.

The degree runs four years, per BLS, after at least three years of undergraduate education — and applicants typically hold a bachelor's.

One shortcut is Advanced Placement: Indiana offers it to graduates of accredited international optometry programs or international medical degrees, who could finish in as little as three years.

None of the national sources we checked carries a street address.

ACOE's directory entry lists the program's website as www.opt.indiana.edu, and that site is where location, visit and contact details live.

For the 2025 entering class, IUSO had 575 verified OptomCAS applicants and admitted 163 — 30 in-state, 130 out-of-state and 3 foreign — per ASCO's Profile of Applicants.

ASCO's profiles give applicant and admission counts, not a school-by-school acceptance rate — a percentage would be our arithmetic — and OptomCAS's national report gives slightly different applicant counts for some schools.

On grades: applicants averaged a 3.58 overall GPA, admitted applicants averaged 3.78, and 95% of the entering class held a bachelor's degree.

The test story is the one to watch, because it changed between cycles.

For the 2025 entering class, no OAT average was reported and all 92 matriculants entered with no admission test at all.

For the 2026-27 OptomCAS cycle, the school's listing reads differently: 'OAT is strongly preferred.

MCAT and DAT are accepted', with March 1, 2027 as the last OAT date accepted.

If you do sit the exam, it runs on national rules of its own — how the OAT works covers format, scoring and retakes.

On coursework, ASCO's general prerequisites for most optometry programs are at least one year each of biology or zoology, general chemistry, general physics, English and college math.

On AP and online credit, each school sets its own rules, and ASCO tells applicants to check with each school.

OptomCAS lists IUSO's bachelor's requirement as 'Preferred; offer Early Admission to qualified candidates who meet certain criteria'.

Deadlines and fees for the 2026-27 cycle: OptomCAS opened June 25, 2026 and closes to all submissions May 20, 2027.

IUSO's OptomCAS deadline is January 31, 2027, with a $70 supplemental fee due by February 15, 2027, on top of OptomCAS's $190 first-school and $85-per-additional-school charges.

IUSO reported first-year OD tuition for 2025-26 of $35,278 for Indiana residents and $47,814 for non-residents, in ASCO's Annual Student Data Report.

The figures exclude fees, books and instruments and are subject to change.

Against the same report's averages, the resident price sits above the $31,531 average first-year resident tuition at public optometry schools.

The non-resident price sits just under the $48,158 public-school non-resident average.

Not every student pays the sticker.

Under state contract agreements, Kentucky paid $15,000 per student per year toward tuition at IU in 2025-26, as it also does at Pikeville.

Debt is the other half of the ledger.

Among IUSO's 2024-25 graduates, 79.2% had optometric educational debt, averaging $199,527 per graduate with debt, or $158,067 averaged across all graduates.

Undergraduate debt is excluded.

The national comparison from the same report: 78.6% of 2024-25 graduates had debt and averaged $209,280 per graduate with debt.

Federal loan rules changed for new students.

Since July 1, 2026, a professional student — a category that includes the OD, which federal regulation 34 CFR 668.2 lists as a professional degree — can borrow at most $50,000 per academic year in federal Direct Unsubsidized loans.

The aggregate federal unsubsidized limit for professional study is $200,000 — beyond undergraduate borrowing, and reduced by any amount borrowed as a graduate (non-professional) student.

New graduate and professional students can no longer take out Grad PLUS loans.

The exception is students already enrolled in their program as of June 30, 2026 who had a Direct Loan for it — they keep their prior limits for their expected time to credential.

Note that the $200,000 cap sits below the $209,280 average debt of 2024-25 graduates with debt.

That comparison is ours, not a prediction about any aid package — the school's financial aid office is where a funding plan gets checked.

Our research works from what schools report to national bodies, and it did not surface an IUSO-specific list of clinics or externship sites.

The school's own pages carry the current site list.

What the national data shows: in 2024-25, US optometry schools reported 1,962 affiliated externship sites and 5,480 completed externships, and fourth-year OD students rotate through settings such as VA facilities, private practices, co-management centers, community health centers and military and IHS sites.

The VA carries much of that training by its own count: about 70% of the 1,500-1,600 annual graduates of US ACOE-accredited optometry schools train at VHA facilities, with student clinical training at more than 125 VA medical facilities.

On residencies, ASCO reports 18 residents in 2025-26 in optometry residency programs affiliated with IUSO.

A residency is a one-year, post-graduate experiential program that advances patient-care skills beyond entry-level practice, and ASCO's directory data show a mean stipend of $50,539 and a median of $49,000 in 2025-26 across programs.

If a residency year is on your list, how optometry residencies work — applications, the Match and what programs pay — is its own page.

In NBEO's institutional report for October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025, IUSO's 77 graduates who attempted all three parts posted first-time pass rates of 51.95% on Part I (ABS) and 83.12% on Part II (PAM).

Part III (PEPS) came in at 58.44%, and 72.73% ultimately passed all three exams.

The national US figures in the same report were 66.83%, 87.96%, 70.09% and 82.49% — same window, same counting rules.

Read the metric as NBEO defines it.

Institutional rates count only candidates who graduated in the period and attempted all three parts at least once, and the ultimate rate is the share who passed all three exams.

One more caution when comparing schools: only 7 of 25 US OD programs require students to take an NBEO (or OEBC) exam to graduate, and only 3 require passing one, so school pass rates are not measured on identical populations.

Either way, the degree alone does not license anyone.

Every state requires a license to practice, and what each state demands beyond the degree is that state's call — how OD licensing works and what each NBEO part covers are the pages for that.

On jobs, our research did not surface IUSO-specific placement figures.

Nationally, BLS puts the median annual wage for optometrists (SOC 29-1041) at $136,570 in May 2025 — a payroll figure that excludes practice owners and other self-employed ODs.

What optometrists earn is the pay page's question.

For the first rung after the degree, first associate jobs after graduation are profiled on the associate optometrist guide.

Our research found no official ranking of optometry schools — no ranking by ACOE or ASCO appears in the sources we checked.

So the comparison below runs on the data schools report to the same national series: ASCO's 2025-26 tuition report, ASCO's 2025 entering-class profiles and NBEO's October 2024 to September 2025 institutional report.

The table compares IUSO with nearby public OD programs from the same ASCO series — Ohio State, UMSL in Missouri and the Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State — plus the nearby private Illinois College of Optometry (ICO).

Read the columns as each school reported them: first-year tuition excluding fees, books and instruments; each school's own 2025 entering class; and ultimate pass rates — the share who passed all three exams — from NBEO's report for October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.

That report covers one year of test takers, not a trend.

One exception to the tuition column: UMSL bundles standard university fees into its tuition, so its row is not a fees-excluded figure like the others.

Two more quirks matter when you price these rows.

Ferris State reports one tuition for all students, and Ohio State cuts its non-resident fee to $5 per semester for years 2-4 — so an Ohio State non-resident's tuition bill drops after year one.

For the full 25-program list with each school's ACOE status and stats, all optometry schools are compared on one page.

Career information for applicants and students, not medical, licensing, billing or legal advice. Confirm admissions and cost details with Indiana University School of Optometry and OptomCAS, accreditation with ACOE, and licensing requirements with the board of optometry in the state where you plan to practice.