<p>Sorry, don't mean to seem like a spammer, but I guess I'm kind of clueless on how USC admissions works.</p>
<p>There are a ton of kids from my high school applying to USC. Pretty much more than ever from my school. It would be safe to say like 50 out of a class of 500 are applying, and we are in suburban Illinois.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what the word is, but does USC have regional quotas? In other words, will they only want to take the top x applicants from my school? Or do they even care that we're all from the same school?</p>
<p>In our (geographically closer) experience, a TON of kids were accepted from our zip code which largely consists of one public and two private schools. USC prides itself in geographic diversity and I’m sure the yield from suburban Ill. is smaller than Southern California and Adcoms will fairly consider each applicant.</p>
<p>The current freshman profile (from USC admissions page) has the info below, which might help answer your question. Keep in mind, these are students who are attending, probably twice as many were admitted. So I don’t think there are quotas.</p>
<p>Most Represented Public Schools
Arcadia HS; Arcadia, CA 30
Palos Verdes Peninsula HS; Rolling Hills, CA 23
Palos Verdes HS; Palos Verdes Estates, CA 18
Troy HS; Fullerton, CA 18
Whitney HS; Cerritos, CA 17
Torrey Pines HS; Encinitas, CA 17</p>
<p>Most Represented Independent Schools
Harvard-Westlake; North Hollywood, CA 37
The Harker School; San Jose, CA 25
Loyola HS; Los Angeles, CA 23
Punahou School; Honolulu, HI 21
‘Iolani School; Honolulu, HI 17</p>
<p>I think they want the best applicants, regardless of where they live or how many people from their high school are applying. Even if they do have quotas, and I do not think they do, they would happily exceed them if it meant they could admit a student they really wanted. Don’t worry about quotas. Your high school guidance office probably has a good idea of how many kids from your school got admitted last year.</p>
<p>jax90291: which suburb of Chicago? My son is a freshman at USC and we are from Buffalo Grove. I would see if your school has Naviance. You can look at the history of your school to see how many applied to various colleges, how many got accepted, and what their SAT/ACT scores are and their GPA to get a feel for acceptance. After California, Hawaii, New York, I think Illinois is number 4 or 5 in supplying students to USC.</p>
<p>But yes, Illinois is one of the highest represented states at USC. In order, they are: California, Texas, Washington, New York, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, then New Jersey.</p>
<p>Top represented countries outside of the US are: China (including Hong Kong), South Korea, Canada, India, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Taiwan.</p>
<p>Thanks guys. I don’t want to give out my exact location in illinois, but yes my school has Naviance and I am in the right spot on the scattergram to get accepted, even though there are some X’s on the graph that look a bit strange. The reason I’m worried is that this year we have more kids applying to USC than ever before.</p>
<p>But my question has for the most part been answered, as I know there really is no definite answer. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Just know that occasionally there will be some “odd X’s”. For example, if a person is applying to say UPenn, the acceptance rates for the College versus Wharton will be vastly different. Same thing with NYU Stern. And the same can very much be applied to the USC School of Cinematic Arts or Thorton Music School. Though, they generally should be accepted as an undeclared (at USC, at least) if they would have gotten into the College but not the program they were applying for.</p>
<p>I can definitely relate to where you’re coming from having applied from a suburban public high school in Illinois last year. I was worried about the fact that my school only had a few kids apply to USC from 2006-2008, but that 7 kids applied last year. Based on the general acceptance rate I was worried that only 2 kids max would be accepted because they wouldn’t want to take a bunch of kids from my school or region. However, it was definitely something that I shouldn’t of worried about because USC is out to accept the best students, regardless of geographic location or the amount of kids applying from a given high school. As USC becomes even more competitive of a university than it already is, I’d imagine it’s going to look to accept the best students from across the globe. While a previous poster posted the facts on the most respresented high schools, no one has posted the facts on the high schools and states with the most applicants (obviously many from California). Also, like akalboy said, your chances of getting in are always going to depend on which school you apply to. The acceptance rates for LAS and Marshall are higher than those for Viterbi and the SCA. The scattergrams are good as a general estimate, but if you don’t have too many X’s I wouldn’t trust it. There are always exceptions to the rule and you’ll find people who got in with a 27 ACT, along with people with a 32 ACT who didn’t get in. Finally, you can also consider the prestige of your specific high school. It’s unfortunate but true that certain suburban high schools in Illinois carry more weight than others in the college admission process. It’s not something to be encouraged or discouraged about, but it’s a factor that can be considered. To summarize, I think the best way to go about the admission process to USC is to worry about yourself and not the other 50 people applying. If you gave your application your all and are an impressive student and human being, USC will want you there no matter how many people from your school applied or were accepted.</p>