Students entered MSU-Bozeman in fall of 1996 from all 56 counties in Montana, all states except West Virginia, and 76 foreign countries. For further information on the distribution of students by geographic origin, see Montana students by county , US students by state , and foreign students by country under Historical Trend Data. Past distributions of the student population by ethnicity are also available under Historical Trend Data. The average age of traditional freshmen was 18.3 years, and the average age of nontraditional freshmen was 25.6 years. The following averages were achieved by the traditional freshmen.
Historical averages are also available.
A third of the freshmen entered as General Studies majors, a program which gives them up to two years to take core curriculum courses and explore career alternatives before declaring a major. Retention and graduation rates for recent entering freshmen classes are also available. Approximately 450 graduate students received teaching and research assistantships. A breakdown of awards by source is also available. A more detailed report of the survey results is also available.