Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics - General

General

Of approximately 300 applicants each year, 125 are selected for interviews and about 75 high school sophomores from across the state are admitted. The whole application process consists of six short essays, submission of high school transcripts and standardized test scores (such as the ACT), recommendations from teachers and counselors, personal questionnaires of the student, a statement from the student's parents, and an on-campus interview. However, about 30% of admitted students do not go on to graduate from OSSM.

Students are accepted from all over the State of Oklahoma, and students from each of Oklahoma's 77 counties have been selected to attend. Because students hail from across the state, all are required to live on campus during the week, though students living nearby often go home on weekends. Classes are held five days a week, with the earliest classes starting at 8am and the latest ending at 5:30pm, although some classes are held at night. Most students have breaks throughout the day depending on their individual, college-style schedule, but on some occasions a student has no gaps in their schedule and is given a sack lunch of their choice. Students are not allowed in the dorm during their breaks in the academic day, but are to stay academically engaged during these periods. Required physical education classes are held in the afternoon with each student participating in 45 minutes of supervised physical activity twice a week. Fine arts classes (two semesters are required for graduation) are also held in the evenings. On alternate Saturday mornings, students are required to take a three-hour test in math, physics, literature, history, or a national standardized test (ACT, SAT, or PSAT). One weekend a month is called an open weekend, with the students allowed to either go home or stay in the dorms, and the other Saturday is an extended weekend with everyone required to go home with an extra day of rest.

To study at OSSM, students have to give up some luxuries of the outside world, such as cell phones, in-room television, DVDs, and video games; students are also not allowed to keep appliances in their rooms. Two hours of study are required each weeknight from 8-10pm, with students on academic probation (resulting from unsatisfactory grades) required to study for an additional hour each night, beginning at 7pm. On Fridays there is no early study, only regular study. Lights out is at 11pm every night of the week.

OSSM fulfills its educational mission at no charge to its students; tuition, as well as room and board, is provided by the State of Oklahoma. It is also listed as one of the best public high schools by Newsweek, in a list of schools which weren't included in their list of Best High Schools because the average OSSM ACT score put it in a completely different category that could not be fairly compared.

Many OSSM graduates earn distinction that allows them a greater choice of potential colleges to attend. Nearly 100% of OSSM graduates are college-bound, and approximately 60% of OSSM graduates choose to remain in-state for college. Of the 1,211 (as of May 2011) graduates since the school's inception, 323 students have been named National Merit Scholars, and an additional 167 students have been selected as National Merit Commended Scholars. Graduates also show exemplary performance in other national scholarship programs, with 227 graduates selected as Robert C. Byrd Scholars, and 124 students nominated for the Presidential Scholars Program, of whom thirteen were named semifinalists and five selected as Presidential Scholars. Graduates excel in statewide scholarship programs, with 553 students receiving Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Scholarships and 92 students named Academic All-Staters by the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence. Twice, in 1998 and again in 2000, the school had the highest ACT composite scores of any high school in the United States. In its 2006 "Advanced Placement Report to the Nation", released 2006-02-06, the College Board named the OSSM's Physics C - Electricity and Magnetism course "the strongest of its kind in the world". This was based on OSSM's Spring 2005 AP Physics-C exam performance, in which 20 OSSM students scored three or higher. In no other high school in the world did a greater percentage of students succeed at such a high level of excellence. (It should be noted that strictly speaking OSSM does not offer AP courses).