<p>Hi! I was wondering does USC accept schools bY individual school or overall?</p>
<p>It depends. More experienced posters might be able to give you a better answer but I will try. My D was accepted last year to USC first, then she was accepted to her school of choice. Schools that require additional material to apply, such as auditions, resumes, and portfolios take longer to make there selections. So when my D was first accepted, her acceptance read Dornsife, Undeclared. Weeks later she received notice that she was accepted to Thornton. It is also these schools that are based on talent, i.e. Thornton, SCA, etc…where your talent may outweigh you stats and the particular school will pick you first and then USC will decide. I hope this helps. One thing to remember, USC truly makes it selections holistically.</p>
<p>And some students, like my son and most others we know, find out at the same time - as in his acceptance in mid-March (he’s a junior now, so three years ago), came WITH his selected major at Thornton. </p>
<p>But we have heard of others who received their USC acceptance first (like iamjen), then the Thornton one followed.</p>
<p>I do know that if it’s a talent-specific major, the individual departments discuss the applicant with USC Admissions, and yes, a strong audition/portfolio can help a student with lower-than-usual stats gain admission.</p>
<p>Many of the Schools have an admissions committee/administrator that make the decision for their school. For some, like Thornton (Music) and School of Cinematic Arts, the various majors have different deciders, so it gets down to the Animation department choosing students for their major and the Interactive Media department choosing theirs. For some of these schools, there is a backup for highly desirable majors, so, for example, in SCA, a student may not be selected for Film and TV Production, but will then be considered for their Critical Studies major if that was listed as 2nd choice major and the additional supplement was submitted on time. Whew! And it’s not just the talent-based schools who do their own review. Viterbi (Engineering) and Marshall (Business) also select their incoming classes. Complicated, right. And if a student puts 1st choice major School of Cinematic Arts (Critical Studies) and puts 2nd choice Viterbi (EE), their application with appropriate supplemental material (if required) goes to each of those Schools simultaneously. The 2nd choice major would not have time to review the application in the entire pool if not. So Whew again.</p>
<p>Not finished. While each School is reviewing applicants, the main admissions committee (Dornsife) will also read your application completely. That’s because, even if you should not get admitted to 1st choice SCA (only about 4-6% do), or 2nd choice Thornton (another highly highly selective talent-based major), you are still in the running to be admitted as Undecided Major and most likely, your academic qualifications (rigor of classes, SATs, UW GPA, general essay, etc) will have a lot of weight and in this way, your app is really looked over by a lot of folks. :)</p>
<p>Of course, if you apply undeclared major in the first place, or to any of the Dornsife majors, you app is primarily reviewed by your USC admissions rep.</p>
<p>Clear as mud? Best of luck everyone.</p>
<p>P.S. For the record, if you are one of the lucky ones who is admitted to both your 1st and 2nd choice majors (if you listed 2 majors in 2 different Schools), the list from each School goes to main Admissions and when they prepare your admissions packet–you will only be told you are admitted to your 1st choice major.</p>
<p>Thank you for your responses!</p>
<p>My daughter received her Thornton/USC admission together in one packet. She is now a Junior so that was 3 admission years ago so things may be different now. She auditioned in Feb. and received the decision within a few weeks.</p>
<p>I mentioned that my D’s acceptance was separate because she was accepted early, at the end of January last year. So she found out that she was in at USC before, she found out about her 1st choice major (which she may change now…). Applicant who are accepted in late March/ early April will find out at the same time.</p>
<p>iamjen, we do know of Thornton early admits who found out they were IN at Thornton as well as interviewing for scholarships (end of January). They got their packets almost immediately after auditioning. So there are many variations.</p>
<p>The information on my admission to Annenberg was in the same packet as my acceptance letter. I got it yesterday</p>
<p>Son received his Thornton admission in Jan with USC admission last year, and there were others who heard about Thornton later - especially with the arts, each department within the school has to make decisions so it has no bearing on the particular student, it is just the process and how far along the department is in the selection process.</p>
<p>I am curious because I applied for SCA (Critical Studies) and Viterbi (Chemical Engineering). I loved film first, so I put SCA as my first choice, but in case I want to keep my options open, can I call the USC admissions to find out if I got into my 2nd choice?</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you can find out if you got into your second choice, but if you decide to change your major you can always apply to do so once you in undergrad. There are different requirements from school to school, so you’d have to look into that!</p>