<p>So, We've been here for more than a month now and I've got a pretty good feel for USC and Columbia.</p>
<p>If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.</p>
<p>And if anyone else who's a freshman/current student at USC wants to fill in... then they of course are more than welcome to.</p>
<p>Here’s one…IYO, does it seem like lots of kids commute and/or go home on the weekends?</p>
<p>Yes and no.</p>
<p>There are a lot of kids who don’t live on campus. There are only 6000 students who live on campus and there are 30,000 students in total at USC (I think about 20,000 undergrads). There are also a lot of kids from Irmo, Lexington, and Columbia who will go home on the weekends.</p>
<p>That being said, the campus feels a little more empty on the weekends just because classes aren’t bringing off-campus students in, but definitely the majority of students living on campus stay for the weekend. Something like 45% of the students are from out of state, so they can’t go home.</p>
<p>So basically… Hardly any freshmen commute. Lots of upperclassmen do (from off-campus apartments and what-not) and most people stay in Columbia on the weekends. It definitely is NOT a suitcase campus.</p>
<p>Are there any electronic bulletin boards for kids to post looking for rides to and from various places on the weekends?</p>
<p>There are like three facebook groups for the class of 2015 at USC and people are always posting on there that they need rides to concerts/home for the weekend, etc.</p>
<p>It isn’t anything official, but it’s definitely used by a large amount of students.</p>
<p>If you just need to go to Wal-Mart or Target or something, I’m sure you’ll have at least one friend who has a car. And if not, there’s a Rental Car service on campus that you can use. Or you can take a cab.</p>
<p>Do you have any insight re: the Honors College? For example, do the students in the Honors College seem satisfied with the courses? The University mentions the many opportunites that Honors College students have available. Can you describe any from the perspective of the student? Also, given you’ve only been there a short while, what is your impressive of the place that sororities/fraternities have in the overall campus environment? Thank you!</p>
<p>I’m not in the Honors College. I know the kids who live in the Honors Dorm really love it there. jmarietol would be better at answering that.</p>
<p>As far as sororities and fraternities, I chose to rush over the summer, and I went to Rush Orientation. The friends I made at USC though, weren’t rushing and I ultimately decided not to go through the Rush Process. Basically, I’ve found that if you want an amazing Greek Atmosphere, it’s definitely there, but if you’re not interested in it, the majority of students aren’t greek. None of my friends are. In my U101 class, there are about 20 students, and only about three girls are in a sorority. I don’t recall any guys being in fraternities.</p>
<p>I’m a student in the Honors College, and I really love it. The courses are interesting, with excellent professors, and I really enjoy the challenge and uniqueness that it adds to my courseload. The Honors College works hard to make sure that its students are well connected with events on campus (pre-professional advising, the office of fellowships and scholar programs, interesting lecture series, internship opportunities, volunteer opportunities, etc.), but all of those are available to any student. With regards to particular courses, in addition to the more interesting/unique courses that are available, there are service learning courses and study abroad courses. I did an Honors Maymester at the end of my freshman year and loved every minute of it- I made some incredible friends and had a wonderful time. The application is rigorous but I highly recommend going through the trouble of it; you’ll find it’s well worth your while.
With regards to Greek life on campus, though I am not associated with any Greek organization, I do have quite a few friends in fraternities/sororities, and they all really enjoy it. The nice thing about Greek life here is that it’s there if you want to get involved, and you can really throw yourself into it, but if you find that it’s not your cup of tea, you can have a perfectly normal social life outside of the Greek system.</p>
<p>Is it hard to get accepted to?</p>
<p>Sent from my SCH-I500 using CC App</p>
<p>The Honors College is extremely competitive and students who are accepted there have stats similar to ivy league schools.</p>
<p>USC is still pretty competitive. I think this year there were 22000 applications and 12000 were accepted (Somewhere between a 54% and 60% acceptance rate). It’s probably going to be even tougher this year, because we have a pretty good football team right now and so applications will increase. Also, USC actually had more students enroll than what they planned on having room for, so no one was taken off of the waiting list. I’d imagine, they’ll be accepting a fewer number of students this coming year.</p>
<p>As always, AUGirl is correct! Our son is a freshman in the Honors College. We drove to Columbia last Friday for Parent’s Weekend. He told us that academically, the Honors College is “the real deal”; that he has to stay on top of things, and cannot “coast.” He loves the place…has made a number of wonderful, really smart friends. My wife and I are very happy with his choice of schools!</p>
<p>P.S., re. the question about how hard the Honors College is to get into, here are a couple of statistics: 1) This year’s freshman class has an average R+M SAT score of 1427. I have not seen the weighted GPA of this year’s freshman class. However, last year’s was 4.51.</p>
<p>In regards to Honors, for northerngirl12: I never had to work hard in high school to get good grades. I have to do that now with all my classes being Honors. It’s not too bad, but it is definitely a challenging experience. Living in the Honors Dorm is great. I know we also have other opportunities, like scholarships for research or study abroad, but I haven’t done anything with that yet, seeing as I’ve only been here for a little bit. If you have any other questions about Honors or coming down to SC from up north (I’m from NJ), send me a message or something.</p>
<p>jmarietol, Are you saying that you are taking ALL Honors courses? I didn’t think it was possible to do that.</p>
<p>mark- It is possible to take all Honors courses in any given semester, but most students do not. It would be very difficult/impossible to take all Honors courses for the duration of your undergraduate program, simply because nearly all majors require courses that do not offer Honors sections. If a student was a BARSC major, it would be more feasible for them to do this, although still not likely. Students generally take all or nearly all Honors courses their first semester, simply because of the way things are presented at their first advising during orientation. After that, the courseload becomes more balanced between Honors and non-honors courses.</p>
<p>Are you taking Honors Chemistry this semester?</p>
<p>Am I? No. But I did- I’m not a freshman; I’m an upperclassman just throwing my two cents out there. I took two Honors Chem courses- Honors Chem I/Chem 141- which is the Honors equivalent of Chem 111 (I believe it has a different course number because it moves slightly faster/covers more material, but I could be entirely wrong about that), and Honors Organic II. I took Chem II and Organic I as non-honors classes.</p>
<p>embers - you are right about chem. 141 was described to incoming parents this year as a course designed for students who maybe had AP chemistry but not really wanting to jump into organic (which they don’t recommend) so it’s kind of a bridge between regular 111 and organic.</p>
<p>mark - check the honors college website to see list of courses. Especially as a freshman, if they fit right, you would be in all honors since the list includes intro level english, math, history, science and some languages plus other like psych, anthro. If you come in with lots of AP, there are also a good number of the next level classes. As you get further into your major it would be harder, depending on major. You can look at the department you are interested in and then look at honors site to get a better idea.</p>
<p>I think it depends on your major if you’re able to take all Honors level classes. And if you’re coming in with a lot of AP classes, you may not be taking very many general ed classes to begin with which account for a lot of freshmen honors classes.</p>
<p>I’m not in the Honors College, but this year I’m taking U101, a general ed math course, and three major courses (French 309, Theatre 201, and Theatre 270).</p>
<p>I have a friend who is a Theatre major and she’s in my 201 course. I think most freshmen end up taking at least one non-Honors course just because you have to take major pre-reqs and what-not.</p>
<p>If you want challenging classes though, you can definitely take them, even if they’re not “Honors”. For example, I’m probably taking a 500 level French course next semester.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m taking all honors this semester. My adviser told me that it would get more and more difficult to fit honors classes into my schedule every semester (I’m a chemical engineering major), so I’m trying to get a bunch of my requirements out of the way now. For example, my ChemE class now is honors (it’s not all that much different from the regular one), but next semester the ChemE class I have to take only has 1 section, and it’s not honors.</p>
<p>I’m taking Honors Chem 141. Mostly all the people in it are Science or Engineering majors who need to honorize AP credits. They won’t let 1st semester freshmen take organic, so a lot of people take this for a refresher course (it’s pretty much AP all over again) and easy A.</p>