Oregon State University

This review is for the campus of the university, not the academia.
We visited OSU with our son, who is a junior in high school. As long-​time Duck fans, we were prepared to not like it! WE LOVED IT!
The day we visited was a beautiful, warm, spring day, with everything starting to bloom. It was the first day of classes following spring break and everyone seemed to be in high spirits.
The campus is gorgeous, with many beautiful old buildings, as well as many new ones. Gorgeous old trees and a great ambiance on this campus.
We were especially impressed by their new science facility and by the sports faciilities. You can tell that a lot of money has been put into this school in recent years — I was surprised to hear that it has the most students out of any Oregon university. The academic achievements of the school impressed us.
The dorms that we visited were typical. We were surprised by the good food at the campus restaurants.
Needless to say, we won’t be disappointed if our son becomes a BEAVER!

I love almost everything about this school, except for the administration.
Pros:
–Beautiful campus that truly changes every season
–In-​state tuition is typical, but the student gov’t has been working to keep rates down
–Most professors are really great and inspirational, and genuinely want to help students succeed and progress in their education
–Dixon Recreation Center (the gym) is by far the best gym I have ever been a part of. They update equipment every summer, replace broken equipment quickly, provide clean towels and spray bottles in every room, and have so many different options to choose from
–The library has multiple floors with different levels of noise. If you are looking to study in complete silence, go to the top «silent» floor. If you want to work with a group, sign up for a group room or use one of the lower levels.
–Game days are always fun just because of the student atmosphere, even if you aren’t a sports person
–The MU has several new food options that are worth checking out
–There is currently a lot of construction going on around campus, which I guess is a bit of a con, but the new buildings that have been completed are absolutely gorgeous and really improve upon the older and outdated buildings that were there before.
–They have little markets that are perfect for grabbing snacks on your way to class
Cons:
–The administration is my biggest issue here. The Financial Aid office is always a stressful place to have to go. The receptionists are rude and impatient, and you leave wanting to either cry or punch a wall.
–Parking passes have been an issue at this school the entire time I’ve been here. They seem to change the prices and the way it works every year, and they still have yet to figure out a plan that works for everyone.
–UHDS is a failing aspect of this school. Living on dorms should be a go-​to option, but it’s really inconvenient here. When the school is closed (like when winter storms happen), they shut down the dining halls and have limited food choices. This means you might have to travel far to get to the one open dining hall during specific hours, or if you have food restrictions, it might mean you have to travel even further off campus to get something you can actually eat.

Gorgeous campus, beautiful grounds, organized tours, friendly people. Beavers or Ducks? Where will my boy pick? We will see in the next few days.

Everything you read about too expensive and the focus on getting your money is true. The financial aid department and the VA office are either completely incompetent or intentionally misleading. My story is too long to bore you with. I am a veteran who sent his daughter to this school. She called home crying ever couple of weeks, not because school was tough, but because the administration was creating such a stressful environment. Do not waste you money here. The education is nothing special but the bill is similar to NYU.

I just came for a conference. Parking without a permit for a visitor was kind of pain in the neck, but it was dark and I refused to ask anyone. Campus has lighted maps on the street corners so I could find my way to Milam Hall. Very impressive Inter mural fields which were well lit and full of students. If i had to choose a large university, this one would be on my list. Pretty impressed frankly.

Not a VETERAN friendly school, stay away use your VA benefits somewhere else.
If your VETERAN such as myself who has attended for four years I have to pay out of state tuition. I also live in Oregon but not for a year so I pay the higher rate.
Its bogus if I just enrolled from another state but am new to the school I would pay the in state rate.
This school does not support veterans they are after money, plan and simple!

I came to OSU for grad school after attending UC Davis. I give my rating based upon non-​academic features, as those are well documented and are major/​program specific (see US-​News and Report). The campus is beautiful, the people are very nice, and town is adorable and perfect for a college experience. Highly recommended.

Their ways have changed. Great campus, beautiful buildings, scenery and it is growing drastically. As a student, some professors care about what they teach, but most are in it for the research they get to do in addition to teaching. The few that recognize their impact go above and beyond, including hosting student dinners. However the university’s admin and morale has been lost! ASOSU (as of now) is failing the students and the president does not represent the student body or fight for student rights. Admin continues to do as they please despite the obvious votes against their choices. Smoking is no longer allowed on campus however, all of the bordering streets to the campus have become walls of smoke to get to campus.
The worst dept to deal with is the writing and English dept.(which EVERYONE has to deal with) Not just because they treat every class like high school but because even if you miss a class for surgery or lose a friend or family member they will not allow anyone to receive incomplete or make up a class as required by OSU unless you are an athlete.
It is the only school with all three grants. However, you have to know how to get your own benefit from it or it won’t matter. There are endless services offered that including the gym, CAPS, ASOSU Law, craft center etc that you pay for in «fees» and are considered free to use if you know about them.
Greek life is a huge impact on campus, not for the best but they will forever argue moot points.
Corvallis has been ranked the 5^th in the nation of college towns to live in, and there are plenty of Eco friendly and bike friendly aspects to Corvallis.
The people in Corvallis are typically more genuine and kind than the evil counter parts further south. If it were based on the campus and people alone it would be 5 stars hands down, however the school aspects average 5 out to be 2 stars.

Amazing college. Not just good for education, but for social life. But it’s getting quite expensive to live here. My suggestion is to go to the near community college (like LBCC or WOSC) for the first two years. Take all your electives and freshman/​sophomore classes. Then transfer here for your junior/​senior. You won’t miss a thing.

The campus is beautiful and offers that «college» feeling. They are constantly upgrading the campus, providing students with amazing buildings and learning environments. Most of the faculty are nice and helpful. Getting a ticket for football games is difficult if you’re not a freshmen or sophomore, they seem to have all the time in the world to camp out and grab tickets.

This college is amazing. I turned in my paper work a little bit late and I was amazed at how fast they proccessed and excepted my application. The staff is so supportive and on it, if you know what I mean. I have recieved calls the same day a I place them and there staff is so nice. The cost is a little high but normal for a university it cost about 24 000 annual and I think it is definately worth it. Thank you OSU!

OSU was great. I graduated in 1999. I definitely got what I paid for, as far as education goes. As for my degree helping me get a really nice-​paying job… that’s another story. If you graduate from OSU, you should probably think about packing up and moving south, or to the east coast, if you want a really good job. The offers I got in Oregon were, in a word, terrible. I worked in Portland for 3 years after graduating and then actually went back to OSU for more school for a year or so before moving to Los Angeles.
The instructional faculty at OSU was generally ‘very good to excellent’. There was only one instructor I had who was downright bad (Biochemistry instructor who was indeed so bad that they did not let him teach again after he wrecked our course), and another few who had the ‘weed-​out’ mentality. The lady who handled the undergrad Biology program for awhile in the late 90s and early 2000s set up the 200-​level biology courses so that only about 5% of students got A’s in the courses.
I thought that was terrible. They later fired her I think.
The campus was great. They were remodeling the library in 1996 – 97 and I remember that very well. I was disappointed in the finished product though. It just seemed ‘cheaply done’. The study rooms were not soundproofed and they set up some really strict rules about returning the keycards (if you forgot to return it and brought it back the next day, it still cost you $ 10…BOOOO) I stayed in Poling Hall for a year before moving off campus the next year to my own apartment. That was right before they started doing renovations of the dorms and Poling was definitely a dive. But whaddya expect, freshmen and sophomores are the ones who live on campus and they’re still basically «kids». But it didn’t help that I had over $ 100 worth of Levi’s stolen from the laundry room that year.
OSU did not ever seem to be short on money. The courses I took for my major program (lab courses) had all the required equipment and most of the departments clearly had very nice budgets that allowed them to do whatever they needed.
Places to eat on campus — hopefully it’s better nowadays. It wasn’t real good when I was there and I usually ate off campus. They had BK (yuck), Taco Bell (yuck) which was later replaced by Woodstocks (GREAT!!), Panda Express (yuck), Blimpies (mehhh), a pricey sit-​down restaurant called Pangea (not sure if it’s still there or not), plus the dining halls (the food they served was not really edible but hopefully they’ve improved it.) Plenty of great places to go eat off campus though. My favorites were the East Ocean Buffet and also the Crazy Bun and Bagel Sphere on Monroe Ave. (all are gone now).
If I had it to do over again, I’d definitely choose OSU. But I’d have taken more of a variety of courses. I just concentrated on my major program and that was it. I started my education at Portland State University (bad school) and transferred to OSU. That was a good decision.

Firstly, I’ll apologize to all the duck hating, school spirit folks out there. I’m neutral on the «Which state school is better» thing. I dislike OSU for one reason, the administration. From the time I was accepted to now (2 years later) they have done nothing but incorrectly handle my financial and academic accounts. I have had to call financial aid every single term to remind them to do math properly when calculating my scholarships, loans, and grants. It is flat out ridiculous. I asked to talk with the head of financial aid and he actually told me that they have 5 personnel for all the students at OSU. That’s for nearly 24,000 students! Seriously?! The campus is beautiful, the instructors have been for the most part good, but the administration has been more than awful for me. They even admitted me as an out of state student when I told them that I was born, raised, and had never lived outside of Oregon. Why? Because they wanted to charge out of state tuition whenever they could and I had «questionable» residency because my father was in the military twenty years before I was born. Stupid!

My childhood friend, as an international student, came here to get his Masters degree, so I and my gf stopped by here to help him settle in. The university is what Corvallis is all about. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but that’s good for study. All of the people we met in town were extremely friendly! I couldn’t believe it. The campus was very beautiful and looked very new.

My aunt is a professor here, so I have a bias.
This campus was not as cool as UO. I remember walking around in her building and seeing a class watching a movie, and I thought to myself, «They watch TV in college at Oregon State»? I was sold!
I would love to visit again, and actually remember more of it!

On my recent trip up to see the gf, I finally got to check out campus and a few different buildings. This place is HUGE!!! Since i go to school in SF the colleges are not as big and OSU really has that college feel to it. The MU (student union area) is very nice and has a gun club or country club feel to it. When you first enter and walk up those stairs it reminds me of entering City Hall because of the wide space and the huge stairs! There are alot of trees and grassy areas and when it is sunny you can see alot of people out chillin on the grass, climbing trees and playing Frisbee
This next part of my review is for Dixon recreational center. This is OSU’s gym per say. This place is amazing! We we walked in the first thing i saw was that they had indoor rock climbing! :D I still need to try this!!! Since i went with Marie it was 6 bucks to get in. Considering I go to YMCA in the city, Dixon was like 5 or 6 times bigger! :O They had two weight rooms which were filled with many machines and weight equipment, they have two cardio areas!, many basketball courts, a yoga/​studio area and many specialized rooms for other different sports. They even have a heavy bag!!! F@#K yes! sadly i wasn’t able to use the heavy bag because they were having a class in there :(BIG SAD FACE. A plus is that they have several of the same weight equipment. No slacking dudes!
I was impressed that they had their own little smoothie shop that also sold power bars and other workout drinks. After working out hard I just had to get a smoothie. Got me a Hawaiian Passion smoothie adding in a scoop of Whey Protein! This was a good shake for 4 bucks + 1 for the scoop of protein, althought by adding in the protein, i think it altered the taste of the smoothie but oh well it was still delicious. The only issue i had was that i had a good amount of white dudes kinda muggin at me! wth man never seeen an Asian guy workout hard! DAyum! Don’t hate! I I am hardcore, working out even when i was technically up here to chillax.
One thing i don’t get is their slogan: Powered by Orange. Imma sorry but it really sounds like a rip off of a Gatorade commercial. lols
Awesome campus! Go Beavers!!!

We took our high school students to the UW OSU game and did a tour of the campus.
The people at the gym gave us an impromptu tour and were totally accommodating. We did the self tour for the rest of the campus… which is beautiful. The gym is seriously impressive. the climbing wall puts planet granite back home to shame… the gym also employs over 300 students (work study anyone) and has a judo club which won over one of my juniors.
Funny note: A grandmother mean mugging one of my high school students for wearing Ducks attire *waits for angry mob* People are serious about their football (aka tailgating and drinking before most raider fans are out of bed. yes such a thing exists in the world).
At the tail end of our Northwest tour our students thoroughly enjoyed the game (and the dad doing the kung fu fighting dance)…
I wish I had explored more out of state options during high school. there are actually a bunch of norcalers hanging out in Oregon… I highly recommended checking out the schools up north!

Yeah!

I’m entering my 5^th year here and I haven’t hated it here since I moved into the Finley dorms, 5 years ago. I love this school. Pac-​10. Good education and the people as a whole are great. I LOVE the campus scenery. Combination of the modern and the classical feel makes this campus even more comfortable. Although it does have stereotypical feel with the Greek life and NCAA student athletes but you end up either worshipping them or blowing them off. Whichever you’d like. I tend to think these athletes are given a privilege we normal students probably won’t ever experience. Oh well.
This school is more diverse than those on the outside would think. Yes the Caucasian population is dominant but you see a lot of different people from different backgrounds roaming the campus, labs, lecture halls, and in the MU.
Football games are insane here. Well it could be worse I guess. Our mens basketball coach is President Obama’s brother-​in-​law. Our gymnastics team is almost always nationally ranked. Our baseball team is the BackToBack National Champs. Overall this is a great school for the full on college experience. :)
Corvallis is a small town but it has quite a bit to offer for a little college town but when you find the right group of people you will always want to be around you’ll be good to go :)

Did the tour today & the school grounds & surrounding property are just gorgous…
Seems like an excellent place to get an education.
The tour guides are very energetic, informative & enthuastic