Current opinions of USC

Parents Forum
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<p>Come on. Everyone makes dozens, perhaps hundreds, of comparisons every day. Which puppy out of the litter should I buy? Well, I like that one because she seems a little spunkier than her littermates, and she has prettier markings. Which Italian restaurant should we go to for dinner, Marios's or Luigi's? Make it Mario's because they make better white clam sauce, and besides, Luigis's doesn't offer free parking.</p>

<p>And in choosing between IBM and HP, assuming you are lucky enough to get an offer from both you will definitely make comparisons to decide which to accept. Once they both meet your basic requirements, you will take a hard look at which is offering the most money, which has the best dental plan, which is located in a place where you would rather live, and on and on.</p>

<p>And back at HP you can be sure that they will make plenty of comparisons between the top job candidates before they make you an offer. Once the unqualified applicants are weeded out it definitely will come down to which one the best set of job skills and personal skills as compared to the others.</p>

<p>And more to the point, it's the same when picking a college. I like Big State U over Little Private U because it costs less and has stronger engineering. I like this school better than that school because it's nearer the mountains and I like to ski. The list of comparisons that can go into choosing a college is nearly endless. The only people not making these comparsions are applicants who for some reason literally have no choice - they can afford only the local community college, or their parents will allow them only to attend a certain school, or they get accepted at only one school, or whatever. Other than those cases, it's going to come down to a comparison.</p>

<p>Comparisons are a fact of life.</p>

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<p>lovetocamp, your post #179 is not accurate. Of course, you are going to compare different companies when looking at a job or career. You should do this. And when I worked at Bank of America many years ago, the firm did compare employees when it decided how large the raises were.</p>

<p>Everywhere I worked, employees were compared.</p>

<p>Schools are compared all the time and they should be compared. UCLA and USC can both be great schools. I think they are. As for the flags hanging, I like it and my kids like the flags too. </p>

<p>My kids are going to the Rose Bowl today. Michigan vs. USC. Two schools with huge school spirit. School spirit is important to my kids so when they compare Michigan and USC with Lacs, Michigan and USC come out on top. :)</p>

<p>Post #179, though.....</p>

<p>Coureur is right.</p>

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<p>
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the classes are larger state-size classes.

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<p>Actually, for the record UCLA and USC's classes are largely comparable size-wise. :p</p>

<p>But I have to disagree with lovetocamp. Comparisons are by no mean stupid. I'll give an example from grad school shopping.</p>

<p>I currently attend UCSD IR/PS as a master's student. I had more than a few programs to choose from, however: Johns Hopkins SAIS, London School of Economics, NYU... but I had to make a choice. It's not like I could just sit down and say, "okay, SAIS has the best reputation. LSE will be the most fun. NYU is close to great internships..." I had to compare and contrast them all in order to arrive at a realistic decision. Otherwise, how would I have decided? They were all such excellent programs that I had no choice BUT to weigh them all by various criteria.</p>

<p>Schools and companies do the same of course. For goodness' sake, the SAT is based on one giant nationwide comparison! Whenever I hired for one of my previous jobs, I had to compare all the applicants. How else would I choose 2 hires out of a pool of 20?</p>

<p>...and how should students pick schools otherwise?</p>

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<p>
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A quick saying when comparing USC to UCLA/Cal: "Twice the money and half the education"

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<p>:rolleyes:</p>

<p>This would only make sense if USC didn't actually offer excellent undergrad education and financial aid packages that oftentimes make it cheaper than the UCs for many!</p>

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<p>Just returned from wonderful Rose Bowl Parade. Must say USC has lots of spirit, as does Michgan. In all honesty, George Lucas and his Storm Troopers and Lousianna band got the most cheers.</p>

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<p>"In all honesty, George Lucas and his Storm Troopers and Lousianna band got the most cheers"</p>

<p>bookworm, it will be a little different in the stadium. :)</p>

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<p>
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In all honesty, George Lucas and his Storm Troopers and Lousianna band got the most cheers.

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<p>Hmm...and you don't think this could have to do with the novelty of Stormtroopers and Star Wars characters in the Rose Parade?</p>

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<p>USC has great sports and school pride but its undergrad education is not that great for the price</p>

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<p>There are quite a few 18 year old students in the market for a diverse, good sized university in a great city--thus the popularity of NYU and Georgetown and GWU and University of Miami and (once upon a time) Tulane--all of which are $48K a year including airfare.</p>

<p>Unlike some of the other great 'urban' choices--NYU/BU/GWU--USC offers that rah-rah-seen-it-in-the-movies 'college spirit' experience plus the university plus the interesting city plus the weather plus the surrounding landscape (beaches and mountains).</p>

<p>Interestingly, despite their increased popularity nationwide, USC prefers California students--as does Stanford. (50% (?) of freshman are Californians).</p>

<p>At 5% OOS acceptance, UCLA is a wasted app for most non-athlete OOS students.</p>

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<p>surrounding landscape (beaches and mountains). = have you been to USC.</p>

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<p>
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At 5% OOS acceptance, UCLA is a wasted app for most non-athlete OOS students.

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<p>Untrue. UCLA's OOS admit rate is actually HIGHER than its in-state admit rate.</p>

<p>CA resident admit rate: 26.08
OOS admit rate: 27.10</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof06.htm%5DSource%5B/url"&gt;http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/Prospect/Adm_fr/Frosh_Prof06.htm]Source[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

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<p>I was thinking, (as I was watching USC pound my Wolverines) here is an example of a school that enjoys the halo effect of a great football program.</p>

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<p>Ah. Happy New Year, then. Cheers, UCLA was--and still is, imho--irrelevant to the question of the merits or deficits of USC and I think a comparison of USC to UCLA is a) generally pointless and b) to that the extent that it is not, the symmetries and asymmetries make it difficult. </p>

<p>In that context, TheMom's quarter-century association with UCLA is irrelevant. Fwiw, USC has attempted to hire her upon several occasions and simply can't compete on the overall package...and she wasn't looking, people who know her work sought her out.</p>

<p>[Side note: while not wanting to get into a UCLA vs. USC comparison, there are many students I for whom I don't think UCLA (or Cal or UCSD) are a "good fit," including our own D. Indeed, our D's decision not to apply to UC exposed TheMom to some mildly raised eyebrows at the time but was utterly correct...for her.]</p>

<p>If any personal bias on my part is relevant, it is more my "conversion" to the notion of LAC's, about which I was initially skeptical. But neither are they the right "fit" for every student, making it a good thing that there are all sorts of colleges available for every type of student; I can say that for my D, the LAC she attends is a far better match than either USC or UCLA and the opportunities that have flowed, and continue to flow, in her direction, are better aligned with her interests than what she could have obtained at either school. Notwithstanding this, I am not reflexively biased against large universities per se. I hold U/Chicago in particularly high regard, along with Yale (it's good of me to include them, don't you think?), and in varying measures Brown, Tufts, U/Texas-Austin, U/VA, and even U/Washington for some programs. My biases included wariness about environments where the Greek presence is dominant (which can happen with only 20-25 percent participation), where alcohol use is lightly checked, and where the athletics tail wags the academic dog. (About UCLA again: I have had more than a few run-ins with UCLA athletic boosters who wish that UCLA would make the same academic compromises that, say, USC or Cal do. Yes, I'm an uncompromising prick in all directions.)</p>

<p>Your comfort zone for USC, your H's connection aside, makes perfect sense to me as in other discussions you have been very approving of the whole who plays golf/squash with whom or who goes drinking with whom style of business. I'm well aware that it's one model of business success, I just don't hold it in high regard. The USC undergrad who interned in my D's office earlier this year was of an undergrad species found all too often at USC: a young lady who couldn't take criticism and was offended by it, wasn't particularly competent, and seemed to have as her highest priorities how her nails matched her outfit and going drinking after work.</p>

<p>My opinion about the general undergrad academic culture and rigor at USC is akin to a cover blurb on a Tolkien knock-off fantasy novel: "People who like this sort of thing will really enjoy this." </p>

<p>My eyes glazed over while reading through the irrelevant UCLA vs. USC rugby match and I probably missed any number of other points but at this juncture I have a lot of other things to catch up on, so until we meet again.</p>

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<p>
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lovetocamp writes: (Imagine, as an employee, and you are receiving your annual evaluation from your boss. Would you want him to tell you: "UCLAri, you are only getting a 2% raise this year - because you aren't as good as John, and you aren't as good as Rick, but you are better than Larry". Would that be helpful to you? More likely, he would tell you things like: "UCLAri, you are receiving a 4% raise this year. The number of projects that you completed on or before deadline improved by 5% over last year.

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I don't know where lovetocamp works (or if he is just a student and has no first-hand experience in the fulltime workforce), but in the Fortune 500 companies I've worked for his "doesn't happen" scenario is exactly what happens (minus being given the names of how others are ranked -- that is NEVER done) and the "more likely" scenario is fictitious.</p>

<p>Raises and reviews are based on merit as seen by the company, and the managers meet to rank every employee based on grade level. Usually this is done in groups of the 100 or so reporting to a 2nd--level manager. These lists are used for layoffs, too; when cuts come they come from the bottom of the list. And some companies have a "bottom 5%" policy where the bottom 5% are asked to leave the company (eg. fired). GE is even tougher, firing the bottom 10%.</p>

<p>I'm not saying I like it, just that contrary to lovestocamp this ranking IS very common in the real workforce.</p>

<p><a href="regarding%20Yahoo">quote</a> To do a better job of finding and showering top performers with the rewards necessary to keep them from jumping ship in talent-tight Silicon Valley, the company also instituted a "stack-ranking" system this year to determine how compensation increases are distributed. It asks managers to rank employees within each unit -- a group of 20 people would be ranked 1 through 20, for example -- with raises and bonuses distributed accordingly. During reviews, employees are told how their increases generally compare to those of others. (from 1/9/06 Business Week)

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<p>Mikemac - I work for a corporation that is listed in the top 50 of the official Fortune 500 companies. It is listed in the top 3 within its Industry class. It is listed in the S&P 500. It is in the top 20 of America's Most Admired Companies. It is one of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. We have over 300,000 employees. I have over 32 years with my company, and over 20 years within management. </p>

<p>Put simply, you are wrong, at least in terms of how the corporation operates that I work for. </p>

<p>If 'your' company does as you describe, than either you are so far down the food-chain that you don't have a clue as to how evaluations, rankings and ratings occur. Or, your company is poorly managed. </p>

<p>Yes, at the very end of the process, employees do get ranked. And, yes, those at the bottom often receive poor raises, no raises, or unfortunately, sometimes layoff notices. But, you and others are still missing the important details. You tell me Einstein, since you are so business savvy, what must happen before employees can be ranked, and receive those layoff notices? They must be individually evaluated. And what happens during that evaluation process? Their boss looks are their work performance. He/she considers the quantify and qualify of the work that each employee performed. If the employees are managers, then their boss considers their leadership skills. How well do they mentor newer employees. Often, how they interface with others in their own workgroup, and with others in other departments is taken into consideration. Have they met the workgroup level goals, the departmental goals, and the corporate goals. After all, or most, of these factors are considered, then the boss can derive some relative value (rating) as to how each employee performed within their own capabilities. It is only AFTER each employee is individually evaluated in a very detailed manner, that the boss can then do some relative ranking of all those employees within the workgroup. This is then carried up the food-chain. Each 2nd level manager is required to debate the merits is his/her people, with other 2nd level managers, who are trying to convince a 3rd or 4th level manager that "my top 2 managers are better than your top 2 managers". Do you think that the 3rd or 4th level manager simply takes their word for it? No, the higher level manager asks for supporting documentation. What type of projects did the top individuals manage? What was the scope and breadth of those projects? Did they come in over budget, under budget? There are a lot of details that are considered BEFORE final rankings are derived. </p>

<p>It is this level of detailed evaluation that I am interested in when evaluating a college. Maybe rankings occur down the road. To me it is lazy to be concerned only with the final ranking numbers. But then that is the way that society is heading these days. Quick and easy answers - without the effort. </p>

<p>For what it is worth, my corporation has probably bought larger companies than the ones that you have worked for. We have acquired many companies, two major acquisitions just within the last two years. The first acquisition cost us over 15 billion dollars. The second acquisition cost over 50 billion. Get a life, and stop insulting me with your quotes off the internet.</p>

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you have been very approving of the whole who plays golf/squash with whom or who goes drinking with whom style of business.

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<p>Say what? I don't play squash or golf. I bike, I run (NYC marathon in '99), I get jiggy with it in hip hop class and I begrudgingly lift weights. H just started playing golf seriously this year to entertain himself now that we are empty nesters. He's also into surfing and (recently) jujitsu. We don't live in suburbia. We live in town, next to an independent house for mentally ill adults. </p>

<p>Most of our clients were developed through friends of family and friends of primary school parents. None were USC connections. Some of the best clients were developed through sheer cold-calling. We do not casually socialize with clients as a matter of company policy. However, many of our past clients have gone on to become great friends. Recently, we've had a big uptake of Asian clients via word of mouth in the Korean, Malaysian and Singaporean communities. We are not Asian.</p>

<p>Two of H's best friends, USC frat brothers, were co-founders of well known entertainment and investment advice companies/divisions in California-- another guy formed his own telecommunication company--jobs/companies they founded in their mid-twenties. No time for golf or squash--although the telecommunication guy did say that the atmosphere at the fraternity closely resembled the atmosphere at high level telecommunication meetings with the industry giants. </p>

<p>The USC architecture classmates have been successful too--though not as financially successful as the frat brothers. That's the nature of archtiecture more than anything else--and the nature of architecture in California (yuck). Frank Gehry will probably be the most outstanding grad of USC arch school --or any California architecture school--until kingdom come. So says me.</p>

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<p>momofteen:</p>

<p>My daughter is a freshman at USC so I can offer you my impressions from her first semester as well as my knowledge of USC from friends and business associates who've attended over the years. I put my thoughts in to the three areas you are concerned about. With some general thoughts at the end.</p>

<p>"plethora of negative comments"</p>

<p>the negative comments primarily come from 2 groups: UCLA and Cal. oddly the more vicious and mean spirited comments come from Cal alumni. And it's not a rivalry it's hatred. Even odder the really negative comments are coming from parents not currently enrolled students. It’s basically class struggle hatred. USC is perceived as rich and privileged and therefore bad. A way to test this is try and find a negative comment from other wealthy and privileged institutions such as Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard or any alum from any school other than UCLA and Cal. Also now that USC has used their endowment to attract smart kids (higher SAT scores than UCLA and same as Cal this years) Cal is really feeling threatened. USC is emerging as the Stanford of the south academically but with better sports and that really upsets the Cal community that thinks about this kind of stuff. And remember that mean comments tell more about the person (or college culture) that's saying it than who it's directed towards.</p>

<p>"party School"</p>

<p>compared to the "70" when I was in college it's tame! but don't tell my daughter that:) she goes out "partying" probably 3 to 4 nights a week from what I can divine from calls and conversations. Mainly over on the Row or at the off campus apartments. But as other people have posted there are plenty of groups that don't party...it's no different than the social scenes at high school. One advantage that USC has over other university party scenes is the reality of being in south central. Since they live and party in the "bubble" (as many of them call it) they're more aware of their personal safety and responsibilities which translates to somewhat less risky behavior. Also, because of the policy that all female students be with someone when going off campus at night there's actually a kind of chivalry and informal escort service provide by USC men...and of course a good way to meet or spend more time with USC girls which I'm sure has a lot to do with it. The party scene from what I’ve read is more tame than it used to be and Steven Sample is the main reason for that. My daughter was at a frat party her first month at school and Sample was there too. He was walking around and talking to all of the students and keeping an eye on them all. I like a president who isn’t afraid to walk in to a frat party and see what’s going on, that shows me a lot of leadership and care.</p>

<p>"GE/lower division"</p>

<p>Her class sizes are small (the biggest is 50 kids). French is 12. She's not finding it that hard but I hear the same from her friends at Brown, Stanford, Cal, and Wash U. If you attended a highly competitive prep school your first year of college is going to be a vacation compared to the rigors of 7 periods (4 of which are AP) your sophomore, junior and 1st semester senior year in high school. Haven't you heard, "the new college is high school". At USC there are lots of very, very smart kids and as frustrating as it is to the UC alum making nasty comments, many smart USC students are also very good looking, talented, and successful, and chose USC over the "crowded" UC's.</p>

<p>2 years of JC is a smart financial way to do it (before attending any school, private or public) but your daughter will miss out on the full college experience, dorms, friends, intramurals, etc. </p>

<p>Here are some sound bite type statements about the general “brand” and culture that I see in USC students and the school:</p>

<p>Strong school spirit, almost cultish (in a good way)
LA style and beauty (there are a lot of good looking people at this school)
Bookish and Nerdy (which is an interesting mix with the models walking around campus)
Sunny and Open (the campus is beautiful)
Bikes everywhere (my daughter’s is pink with a bell)
Football (enough said)
Professional (this is probably the biggest hit I get walking around campus and meeting my daughter’s friends. Whether they are an engineering, law, or film major they all look like they are ready to put a suit on and go to work. The USC students are poised, articulate, and well mannered individuals who look you in the eyes and speak clearly in a conversation with you. You’d be shocked at how many students at other CA universities can’t do this. It’s definitely a school that has attracted a large percentage of students who will go on to the management side of their chosen fields)</p>

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<p>see post 197 for my response to your posts</p>

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<p>Wow, that's a very comprehensive assessment, Appstressin! My S is also a freshman at USC. He's always been a geeky/nerdy kind of kid & is very happy at USC & has found a nice niche. His HS sends about 10% of its graduating class to USC every year, many NMFs with great merit scholarships. I am not aware of any of them transferring from USC to anywhere else and all have varying degrees of enthusiasm for their experience from LOVE LOVE LOVE USC to having a good time & getting a good education. My S is somewhere between the two.</p>

<p>Most folks who aren't PASSIONATE about USC & look at the school failrly objectively will admit that it attracts a lot of very qualified students & faculty and offers some impressive internship, volunteer, resarch & job opportunities. I also has a growing international reputation and has many outstanding students from all over the world, which I also see as a plus. For many folks, the attractive climate is a huge draw & because of their generous donors, they have a lot of money that state Us just don't with their budget crunches.</p>

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<p>appstressin:</p>

<p>plenty of suppostions. Would you care to point out which posters on this board are associated with Cal? And, of course, support your pov that Cal feels threatened? Heck, the Cal folks I know aren't even threatened by Stanford, so why should they feel threatened by 'SC?</p>

<p>btw: I'm sure you know that most private schools, including USC, mix and match test scores, but the UCs do not. Thus, its not surprising that test scores are higher at USC, particularly with the automatic tuition discount for NMFs.</p>