@amonistlin: you’re an internationally- educated American citizen. Therefore you don’t have residency anywhere.
You only have residency where your parents have lived and paid taxes for at least 12 months. Some states allow you to establish residency if you move there, get a job, and work there for a full year without taking more than half time in college (so, about 6 credits per semester tops), but not all states do. (It’s possible in NYS but not in CA, for instance. Utah and Missouri on the other hand encourage it.)
Email tOSU’s undergraduate admissions office and ask
- considering you don’t have any college credits and won’t have any till … (May 2016? January 2016) should you apply as a freshman or a transfer?
- you’re an internationally-educated US citizen, how do you apply so that it “fits” with the application?
- do you need to take the SAT or the ACT in addition to the TOEFL?
If you use CommonApp, it’s simple, the application adjusts to international schools.
If you’re intent on sticking to Ohio, you’re lucky because the State has LOTS of excellent universities: beside tOSU, apply to University of Miami-Ohio, Kenyon, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan, University of Cincinnati, Case Western Reserve, UDayton, UToledo, JohnCarroll, Otterbein, Wittenberg, Wooster. Email each of them with the above questions and HURRY. Some deadlines were today already (for freshmen).
Note that freshmen get the best scholarships and financial aid, so that, if you’re not full pay, you’d probably be better off applying at universities that consider you a freshman, BUT deadlines are much earlier than for transfers.