Many of the courses offered at OSU have some form of prerequisite that must be met before a student can enroll in the course.  Certain courses require earning a particular score on a placement exam before enrollment is allowed, or, if a student does not have national test scores (such as the ACT or SAT) on file, placement testing may be required.  Certain subject areas (English, math, reading, and science) have enrollment restrictions based on meeting remediation requirements set forth in Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education (OSRHE) policy.  This policy further requires that students who have remediation deficiencies must satisfactorily complete required remedial courses in the relevant subject area within the first 24 hours of college-level coursework at OSU (excluding repeats, pass/fail and 0-level courses). Any student who does not successfully remediate these deficiencies during this time period must attend another institution until the work is completed.

To help students and advisors navigate the course placement and remediation processes, every first-time entering OSU student (new freshman or transfer student with fewer than 24 hours) is provided an Entry Level Placement Assessment (ELPA) Report with the student’s academic data, predicted grades in four subject areas (English, math, reading, and science), and recommendations for course placement. The predicted grades in entry level courses at OSU are based on multiple regression formulas generated by the ELPA program.  Predicted Grade Index (PGI) coefficients that appear in an ELPA Report represent a student’s predicted grade in selected entry-level courses. Predictions are based on formulas using high school GPA, high school core curriculum grades, and ACT scores. A PGI coefficient of 2.0 or higher indicates that the student has a 70% chance of making a ‘C’ or better in a college course in that subject area. The PGI may be used to alert an advisor and a student to potential difficulty; the PGI serves as a reminder that OSU grades may be considerably lower than those the student received in high school.  PGI coefficients can be used to remediate academic skills deficiencies but NOT curricular deficiencies.

Course placement recommendations are limited to evaluating student preparedness for college-level coursework or the need for remedial/developmental (0-level) coursework. Recommendations for course placement follow OSU guidelines that have been approved by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.  UAT reports annually to the state regents on entry-level assessment and course placement activities as part of OSU's Institutional Student Assessment Plan.  These reports are available in the Surveys & Reports section of this website.