. . . In 1979 all you needed was a diploma from an accredited Ohio high school to get into OU. As a dorm director for 225 freshman boys, we had several that were of questionable academic character at best.
That's still the state law that applies to all state-assisted universities in the Buckeye State; the clever ways that schools get around that law would make an interesting case study at one of the state's law schools. The most common practice is to say you can't come in the fall, but you can come in the second semester, or you have to start at a branch campus.
When I got my master's at OSU, it was commonly thought there -- incorrectly -- that that law only applied to OSU and that that was why they admitted anyone with a pulse. I know times have changed, but that law is still actually in place the last I looked, just a few years ago.
OCF is correct. Every state university is technically still open admissions, but they get around it by designating their branch campuses as the open admission areas.
The notion that Miami spins that they were somehow designated as selective admissions or, even worse, the honors branch of the system is pure myth making at its Fiami worst. They were able to circumvent the rules in the 60s by simply not building enough dorm space for the burgeoning baby boomer enrollment. Their former President who was Chair of the Regents (Millet) essentially cut a deal with Jim Rhodes to allow Miami to backdoor their way into selective admissions provided that he would carry water for Rhodes on the rest of his higher education agenda--community colleges, open admissions and a 4-year university in every corner of the state.
Alden made a gross error of judgement in initially siding with Miami over OSU thinking that Ohio would also get the benefits that Miami did, but Millet screwed him over and Ohio was treated the same as the rest of the system. Had Ohio sided with OSU and was able to put a system in place that let all the public universities compete for students equally (a system that OSU achieved anyways within a couple years of Rhodes and Millet leaving the scene), I truly believe that Ohio would be a much more selective university today.