Become a student member of the AOA.
When you’re a member of the American Optometric Student Association (AOSA), you’re automatically a member of the AOA. Learn more about why you should join today, and get access to scholarship information, discounts and national board exam support.
Financial Aid
The AOA offers students and doctors of optometry tools for obtaining financial aid and also paying back loans, managing finances, finding scholarship opportunities and creating a budget so you can focus on what matters.
Residency Programs
The AOA provides members with a list of accredited optometric residency programs from the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education (ACOE). Openings also include technician programs and optometric degree programs at schools and colleges of optometry.
Academic Checklist
Your education calendar must be firm but flexible when it comes to your optometry education requirements. Through it all—applying to a program, meeting optometry school prerequisites, going to grad school, taking the board exams and graduating—members of the AOA and its affiliate the AOSA are supported as students, recent graduates, optometric residents and, finally, as new doctors of optometry.
Leadership Society
The AOA+ Leadership Society is a program for students who want to build leadership skills, advance their careers through networking, personal and professional development and gain specialized education outside of the classroom. Enhance your resume by adding this academic achievement—membership in the 2020 AOA+ Leadership Society!
Optometry's Meeting
Optometry’s Meeting®—the annual meeting of the AOA and AOSA—is where all of optometry joins together for engaging discussions, peerless education and valuable networking. Doctors, optometric professionals, students and industry come together to further optometry and the business of the association at the House of Delegates; to provide quality and engaging education for doctors and optometry professionals; to showcase exhibits of the latest ophthalmic goods and services; and bring together colleagues to build and continue relationships.
Local Meetings
Connect with doctors of optometry, optometric students and optometric staff and expand your knowledge and gain new certifications at these upcoming events.
EyeLearn
AOA’s member-exclusive centralized education portal, EyeLearn, offers an expanding online catalog of educational modules, webinars and resources to help advance clinical proficiencies, the practice of contemporary optometry, and practice management for doctors of optometry, future doctors of optometry, and paraoptometric staff.
AOA MORE, optometry’s data registry, takes yearlong pause
The AOA will use the time to evaluate its collection efforts and create a registry for the future that is most useful to improving eye health and vision care. The AOA launched the registry in 2015.
Who are you? AOA is letting America know
AOA’s public health observance calls out the bait-and-switch of online vision tests with a campaign emphasizing why there is no substitute for in-person eye health care with a doctor of optometry.
Developing a new generation of optometric leaders
In a virtual kick-off, the AOA launches Leadership Institute with 130 doctors of optometry from across the country. A project of the AOA Leadership Development Committee, the Institute is a yearlong program designed to grow and support the next generation of leaders in the profession.