The success of students in health professions training programs depends on the selection process, teaching and curriculum, motivation, and student support services. However, most of the factors considered as predictors of student success in medicine and nursing include those involved exclusively in the selection process, such as grade point average (GPA), standardized entrance and aptitude test results. Similar factors have been found to predict the GPA and graduation of students in optometry programs. However, we are unaware of any systematic evaluation in an optometry training program of student aspects beyond selection factors.In this study, we propose to widen the scope of the factors involved in academic success in optometry school to include demographic aspects (like gender and race), psychological aspects (like learning style), and exam platform. We also examined the classic academic aspects like GPA and standardized entrance test (Optometry Admission Test [OAT]) scores. As the fourth year in our curriculum is exclusively clinic and includes rotations outside of the optometry school, we chose GPA at the end of their in‐house curriculum as the index measure of academic success. To this end, we recruited sixty‐five students from the second‐year class at the University of Incarnate Word Rosenberg School of Optometry and recorded the following: scores from two exams in two concomitant pathophysiological courses during their third semester in the in‐house curriculum, demographic data (gender, race, and ethnicity), undergraduate GPA, OAT scores, and optometry GPAs at the mid‐point and at the end of their in‐house curriculum. We also determined learning styles via surveys.We found that race and ethnicity were predictors of student success at the mid‐point but not at the end of the in‐house curriculum. The effect of undergraduate GPA and OAT scores was negligible. However, student performance in the pathophysiological courses during their third semester and the GPA at mid‐point of their in‐house curriculum predicted academic success (r=0.662, p<0.001; r= 0.659, p<0.001, respectively). Apart from academic factors, learning style—specifically the “read‐write” index—significantly and positively correlated with academic success (r=0.328, p<0.08). These data suggest that additional attention to student success during the first half of the in‐house curriculum may be worthwhile and bolster academic success overall. In addition, it may be useful for optometry faculty to have knowledge of student learning styles, as students' preferred method of learning played a role in their success.Support or Funding InformationAmerican Optometric Foundation (AOF)This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.