<p>I've heard of universities comparing applicants with students that are applying from the same high schools, does anybody know if USC does this, to what extent, and what do they compare?</p>
<p>how many applied from your school?</p>
<p>Eh, nobody really knows. It's all speculation :)</p>
<p>They may use it to ascertain whether your course selection is really the "most challenging."</p>
<p>I think that probablly about 10 students have applied from my schoo, but most of them are between 1750-1900 on the SAT's except myself and one other girl. They all also seem to think they have a really good shot, and their GPA's are all comparable to mine as well (about 3.4 or so unweighted) </p>
<p>but whatever, I guess if they do look at my classmates it will hopefully partially justify my lousy unweighted GPA...</p>
<p>15 applied from my school. Most are better than me, a few are worse.</p>
<p>I'm screwed, huh?</p>
<p>dude, you must have some pretty smart applicants from your school then! at my school I feel like everyone sees USC as some sort of an "easy in" school for some reason, so mediocre applicants believe they have a really good shot</p>
<p>yeah same here. ucla and berkeley are the promised lands and when i tell people that i'm desperate to go to usc they always say, "that's it?"</p>
<p>In Pennsylvania, East Coast, where I live, </p>
<p>I think kids really wanna go to california and view USC as their only option besides the prestigious Stanford.</p>
<p>No one dares to mess with the UC's as an out of state student. </p>
<p>Somehow, USC's got a greatttt reputation here. So we have kids who were deffered from Stanford apply to USC. </p>
<p>... but my one friend who told went to USC over the summer told me that USC is actually kinda like the University of Pittsburgh... if you take out the top 5% (from the competitive Marshall school of business, for example) who belongs to the top 10 colleges in the United States, the rest of kids who are admitted to USC is actually similar to Pitt's admits. </p>
<p>Does that theory hold some truth?</p>
<p>so I guess that's why we shouldn't be intimidated by the statistical averages on USC's website because the means are probably dragged upwards by the few overacheivers?</p>
<p>viterbi actually has the most qualified applicants and admits. don't think that usc is an easy school to get into; however, it's probably one of the best schools relative to how competitive it is. there's a reason why those "overachievers" want to go to usc: because it's pretty much the best school ever.</p>
<p>haha, ya, that pretty much sums it up...best school ever</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think kids really wanna go to california and view USC as their only option besides the prestigious Stanford.</p>
<p>No one dares to mess with the UC's as an out of state student.</p>
<p>Somehow, USC's got a greatttt reputation here. So we have kids who were deffered from Stanford apply to USC.</p>
<p>... but my one friend who told went to USC over the summer told me that USC is actually kinda like the University of Pittsburgh... if you take out the top 5% (from the competitive Marshall school of business, for example) who belongs to the top 10 colleges in the United States, the rest of kids who are admitted to USC is actually similar to Pitt's admits.</p>
<p>Does that theory hold some truth?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, not at all. Marshall is slightly harder to get in. Viterbi is harder than Marshall. And film is the hardest of all, by a LARGE margin. I've heard good things about communications, too, but don't know enough about it to say anything. The average for an undecided student is still probably up there in the 2000's for the SAT and GPA very comparable. There's some stats in this thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=259774%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=259774</a></p>
<p>Lots of the NMFs from my son's HS are at USC. About 10% of his graduating class are there & most are getting merit scholarships & doing great there. Most had many other choices but selected USC because that's where they wanted to attend. None of them applied to U of Pittsburgh or would consider it in the same universe as USC.
In HI, getting in or attending USC is not considered a "sure thing" by any means.</p>
<p>By the way, I do believe they look at other students from your HS that are also applying to their school. If your HS has sent students to USC in the past, I believe they also consider how well/poorly those students have done to get a gauge about your HS. They admitted about 200 applicants from HI last year & about 1/3 of them matriculated. Not sure how many applied from HI, but I know of kids who opted to go to other schools like my niece who went to Notre Dame instead. A friend of my son's was rejected from USC but got into UPenn & Boston U (he's attending the latter with a good aid package).</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks SC is an easy school to get into is mistaken. Only 3 from my "D's" high school were admitted with 1 additional person getting a spring admit. "D's" friend with a 4.6 gpa was rejected, but offered admission to both CAL and UCLA. Many more students were offered admission to UCLA and Berkeley. Please note: I'm not dissing either of these wonderful colleges. Bottom line is you never really know what they are looking for. I do believe they "compare" you to others in your high school. That way you are comparing apples to apples versus apples to oranges (candidates from other schools).</p>
<p>usc is so underrated-it never gets the credit it deserves. anyway, only myself and one other guy (legacy) are applying to usc from my high school of 3000 in chicago. basically, out here, everyone only knows usc for their sports :(</p>