All of a sudden,
choosing a school is this huge thing in your life.

Listen:
I can’t give you one good reason to go to college.

But I can give you 21,174 amazing reasons to come to Oregon State.

Who am I?
It doesn’t really matter.
What matters is who you are.
And what you want, what you think, what you need, what you hope.

See if you agree:
College isn’t someplace you go because you think you should, or because you think it will get you a cool job, or because your parents or your teachers or your friends say it’s a good idea.

College is someplace you go because you can. Because it’s an incredible opportunity. Six billion people on the planet, and maybe one in a thousand gets the chance to go to college. You have the rare chance to learn, to grow, to discover and to achieve at the highest level.

And since you have that chance, I believe you should make the absolute wring-it-dry most of it. You should use college to open your mind and open the doors to who you want to be.

That’s why you should think long and hard about Oregon State. Because your future is a wonderful thing and this is a wonderful place. A place where you bring your talent and your opportunity and you put it the hands of a world-renowned university with exceptional teachers and extraordinary facilities. A place where you get the programs, power and possibilities of a major public university, plus the personal attention, mentoring and intimate campus of a small, private college. A place of 16,777 diverse, interesting students; 2,831 committed faculty; 220 inspiring academic programs; 300 student organizations; 1,000 cool things to see and do in Oregon; 30 intramural sports programs and 16 PAC-10 varsity teams (that’s 21,174 reasons, to start). A place of open minds and open doors.

Now I’m not asking you to believe that every professor is a saint and the campus is like a movie set and the weather is always sunny and every class will make you a genius and every student has whiter teeth and fresher breath.

College is what you make it. So is life.

But there really is something very special going on at Oregon State—and you’ll feel it the first time you visit the campus. I’m convinced that there aren’t five other colleges in the entire country with Oregon State University’s mix of big-time academic programs, international reputation, talented people, classic college-town environment and manageable, comfortable campus size.

Here’s what I ask: Your future is long, this booklet is short—let me show you around Oregon State. I promise I won’t waste your time…