<p>Next year I am looking to apply to the Thornton School of Music. I go to one of the most highly ranked and acclaimed high schools in the country, except unfortunately do not have the most incredible grades in the world. I do, however, believe that I have a tremendous amount to offer.</p>
<p>Freshman Year:
Math: C
Global: B+
Earth Science: B
English: B
Music Tech: A
Multimedia: A</p>
<p>Sophomore Year:
Italian: B
Math: B-
Global: A
English: B
Bio: B+
Photography: A</p>
<p>Extra Curriculars:
4 years of Summer music College Prep program
4 years of private guitar lessons
2 years performing band at music school- traveled around and played gigs
2 years of band with friends- played gigs, charity events, and recorded album
Co-founder and president of Music club at school- 3 years
1 year film club
2 years Alzheimers awareness club
Wrote articles for underground school newspaper
2 years environmental club
2 years played guitar in school musical
2 years Jazz band at school</p>
<p>What chance do you believe I have at USC, given that I increase my grades for the next two years to nearly straight A's, get a 2000+ SAT score, write a great essay, and get great recommendations? Will my freshman grades harm me? Also, how do I go about possibly applying for a cross-school double major?</p>
<p>The above link shows that the average admit at SC had a 3.8/2130 last year. By my guess you have somewhere around a 3.1 unweighted GPA. Adding a full year of 4.0 and you’ll jump to the 3.4ish level. On a purely statistical basis that puts you in a big hole.</p>
<p>You want to apply to Thornton. Is it for one of the performance majors? If so then your audition is going to be the key hurdle. Assuming an audition worthy of being offered admission, then a 3.4/2000 should be “enough”. If it’s for a non-performance major (e.g., Music Industry), then I think you’re in for a rough road. The cross-school special majors (e.g., Business & Music Industry, Business & Cinematic Arts) tend to be even more competitive to get into.</p>
<p>At this point all you can do is get the best grades you can and do as well as possible on the SAT or ACT. Strong recommendations and compelling essays will help, but realize that your up against tough competition.</p>
<p>tripsounds, students applying for audition based majors (as well as portfolio ones) are judged differently than academic majors at USC. With a fantastic audition, Thornton will push for you. Your grades/stats will only then need to be “good enough” to show you can succeed academically at USC. A 3.5 UW would seem respectable enough. A 3.1, and you’d probably need a ridiculous top-of-the-list audition (and maybe then, it would still be hard.) </p>
<p>Practicing for that audition (and unless it’s changed, the sight reading portion is huge as well) is at least as important as bringing up an SAT or ACT, perhaps more.</p>
<p>Awesome- thank you! Can you elaborate a little more on the sight reading- what level of difficulty would you say it is? Is it on the spot, solo sight reading?</p>
<p>I will have to ask my son, or you can call Thornton admissions (probably better). It wasn’t “huge” in size, but we were told, at least for guitar, it was important to the faculty that students could read. And I know this was not as true w/ all jazz programs. Some didn’t even have a sight-reading component (New School, NYU, for example. Berklee gave the sheet about 20 minutes in advance, which kind of defeats the “sight” in sight reading.)</p>
<p>tripsounds, my son is a guitarist who auditioned for the studio/jazz guitar faculty. It makes much more sense for you to get specific audition information from Thornton about your instrument and the jazz program (which is a different department, technically).</p>