Current opinions of USC

Parents Forum
81

<p>Didn't Newsweek name USC college of the year a few years ago?</p>

<p>I look at the students who go to USC. They look strong to me. The alumni network is strong. You get to go to school in So Cal. USC has great school spirit and usually a great football team. Great film school. The academics are there if you want the academics.</p>

<p>I can go to USC and become a lawyer, doctor, business person, movie director, teacher, journalist, professor, etc. </p>

<p>There is a So Cal vibe that is different than a Northeast vibe at USC. The school isn't in the NE. The school is in So Cal. </p>

<p>Tsdad, your kid likes the school and that is what counts. The same with HImom and the other parents with kids at USC.</p>

<p>But Tsdad, if it makes you fell better, USC looks good to me. :)</p>

82

<p>dstark.</p>

<p>Thank you. It makes the 6 figure tuition plus expenses go down easier. LOL.</p>

<p>I have made my last tuition payment.</p>

83

<p>lol.............</p>

84

<p>tsdad, I said in an earlier post that I believe people either love or hate USC, but not necessarily for logical reasons. I grew up in So Cal, and I think part of the visceral response is due to the perception that USC was for rich kids. That's not true, of course, but I think the perception remains. As I mentioned, my sister was a Trustee scholar, and had 4 years of tuition, and several of R and B, covered by the generosity of donors to the school. If we lived in So Cal now, I would have looked at it for my kids. And this is coming from a UC grad!</p>

85

<p>I really appreciate this thread. We have visited many colleges in CA, from privates to UC's to a few CSU's. We were put off by the location and "snobby" reputation of USC too, but went there anyhow and were pretty much swept off our feet by everyone we met....profs and students and admissions office....and their programs, such as Renaissance Scholars and Thematic Options. It didn't seem snobby at all, and we are on the lower income side. It went from a "probably not" to one of the top schools on my daughter's list after we visited it and looked into it more.</p>

86

<p>My friend's kid is lower income but really determined. He needed a LOT of $$$ to go to any school outside of in-state flagship U. He applied to 14 schools. One in Wisconsin (Ripon) offered him a full-ride & one-way plane ticket. Of ALL the other OOS schools he applied to, USC was the most generous, offering to fund everything but $9000 on a merit/need award. He's now in his 2nd year of med school & can't say enough about the great education he got at USC & his wonderful time there.</p>

87

<p>USC has the most wonderful, welcoming, diverse campus of any school I know - rather than take issue with the negativity I have read about it, I figure that those who realize what a gem it is will apply and those who see what they want to see based on old biases won't - it's truly their loss, because the place has something special to offer everyone...USC does, as HiMom says, offer a great education - as well as a vast array of extracurriculars to complement the classroom experience. We are not wealthy and my kid is not a party animal. I find the reputation puzzling. There is much more partying and more monied snobbery at many small LACs than at USC...</p>

88

<p>I think someone should address the OP's concern that the GE classes are perhaps too "lite." This is true for some of them, by design. </p>

<p>The Science requirement, for example, can be satisfied by a wide variety of courses, from hardcore physics to a lightweight geology survey (aka Rocks for Jocks) or a topical course focussing on current environmental issues. The latter ones are going to be interesting and fun for poetry majors, and most importantly not require much math. </p>

<p>Similarly, engineering and science majors will not suffer too much in Arts courses that focus on modern visual arts. A chemistry major is welcome, however, to take the hardest-core Shakespeare course if he wants to. </p>

<p>The stunning thing about SC, however, is that Rocks for Jocks is going to be taught in a small class by an outstanding academic in geology, with the material fine tuned to really inspire that poetry major to be open minded to science and to add in some way his next Ode on a Boulder. As expensive as SC is, one would expect excellent value from a course like this. I don't think opportunities like that are available in cattle call state schools, where the choices for your science requirement might be limited to large classes of Chem 101, Bio 101 or Phys 101.</p>

89

<p>You know, a comments-about-USC thread is kinda like playing Queen's Gambit Declined in chess: after the initial move, with several variations, the next 37 responses are pretty well known.</p>

<p>I don't think anyone ever said that all students from wealthy families are snots or that there's no socio-economic mixing or anything of the sort. And most of the kids who are snots are being so behind your back and out of earshot. But if you want to catch some of the worst offenders, go down to some of the Orange County locales such as Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, the areas where half the houses have USC flags out front, or at the Fashion Island mall, and either eavesdrop upon or elicit comments from either students on trips home or their alumni parents...God's gift to God or so you would think.</p>

<p>For those whon enjoy USC, great. Reminds me of a blurb I once saw on the dusk jacket of a book: "People who like this kind of thing will really enjoy this." No foolin'.</p>

<p>footnote: I don't have much input from the engineering side of things but I would expect engineering & the hard sciences not to be "lite" regardless of where it is.</p>

<p>footnote #2: to the USC student who thinks some profs have outdated attitudes, the one's I've cited have them on the basis of the quality of current writing assignments.</p>

90

<p>To add another opinion…</p>

<p>I spent my first year of college at USC before choosing to transfer to another college. I will be honest in admitting that out of the 8 colleges I was admitted to in high school, USC was probably 6th or 7th on my list. However, I couldn’t afford the $40k/year tuition at most of the schools I was admitted to and I was awarded a Trustee scholarship (full tuition) at USC. So I decided to go there and while it was not my top choice, I was still very excited about it and had absolutely no intentions of transferring at the start of my freshman year. Anyway, here are my thoughts:</p>

<p>Academic Rigor: I took all liberal-arts classes during the year I was there. I found the majority of my papers/exams to be challenging, but graded rather easily. Maybe I was being hard on myself, but sometimes I felt as though my grades were higher than what I really deserved. Overall though, I was satisfied with the content of the classes. However, I found other aspects of my classes to be disappointing. The classes were too big for my liking and there was a heavy-reliance on TA’s. In fact, I wrote 20 papers/essays my freshman year and not one of them was graded by an actual professor. Some 300 and 400-level liberal arts classes even used TA’s. </p>

<p>Overall, the academic feature that disappointed me the most was my fellow students. Many people are in the pre-professional schools like business, engineering, communications, etc. While this provided for a diversity of educational interests, it also meant that a lot of people were more focused on getting a practical, applicable education than studying the liberal arts. I found this to be especially true of the business students. And the choice to pursue a pre-professional education is perfectly fine—it just didn’t create a very academic/intellectual atmosphere, which is something I really wanted in a college. I was actually appalled by the number of students who didn’t show up for some classes and treated certain courses and instructors as a joke. The brightest students seemed to be those on an academic scholarship or in the Thematic Option (general honors) program. </p>

<p>Size: As I’m sure you know, USC is big. About 16,000 undergrads and 15,000 grad students. For some people this is great and exciting, but I found it to be overwhelming. I didn’t like the size of my classes and the sheer number of anonymous people.</p>

<p>Safety: My hometown is very safe and has about 3,000 people, so you can take this with a grain of salt, but I thought the area around USC was unreasonably unsafe. Is the campus safe? Yes, the majority of campus is safe even at night. The area around campus? Ehhh…I would say that the students received e-mails about every 2 or 3 weeks from the campus police regarding incidents that happened nearby. Yes, some of these people were not using common sense and were out by themselves at 4am, etc. However, other students were mugged even in broad daylight or when accompanied by someone else. One female was even held at gunpoint in the basement parking garage of a USC apartment complex. So let’s say you live on campus—then safety is not too much of an issue as long as you use common sense. But if you live in the area off-campus (and most students do after freshman year) you have to be considerably more careful. </p>

<p>Social Life: I think the OP said that they live in SoCal, so it would probably be feasible for the daughter to bring her car to campus. However, if you don’t have a car, your social options may be limited to Greek Row or taking public transportation (not a very popular option in sprawling L.A.). Additionally, without a car or good friends with a car, there will be no such thing as an impromptu run to Target or a spontaneous trip for dinner in Santa Monica. The freshman dorms organize these types of outings, but I don’t know what I would have done without a car after freshman year. </p>

<p>There are some other important reasons why I left USC (didn’t like LA, wanted to be closer to D.C. for a political/government career), but those are more personal things that probably don’t apply to most people. I have to concur with blucroo’s opinion that if you are not big on sports, the Greek system, and the whole fight-on “rah-rah” atmosphere, you may want to keep other college options in mind, <em>unless</em> you have a compelling academic interest in a great ‘SC program like cinema, music, etc. </p>

<p>At the same time, please keep in mind that this is just one student’s experience. Many of the students seem to really enjoy USC and I found many positive aspects of ‘SC: Beautiful campus, lots to do in L.A. (if you have a car), going to the beach, diversity of student body, etc. I second the advice to visit on a normal day when there are not a bunch of events being put on by the admissions office. In my opinion, USC does an <em>amazing</em> job of marketing itself to prospective students and you should visit campus on a day when there is not so much hype/pretty brochures/free lunches.</p>

91

<p>I had no idea there were such varied opinions about USC! As the OP here, this was a very enlightening thread. I have appreciated everyone's comments so much. Thank you to all for taking the time to post their thoughts and experiences. For our d's major, in the So. Calif. area, USC is still her top choice. We'll see how this all plays out though. Thank you again to everyone for the thoughtful and pertinent posts.</p>

92

<p>TheDad, I'm really not trying to argue with you, but I wonder why you have such a disdainful opinion of USC? It seems to me that unless someone has first-hand experience (either attended or is close to someone who did) then the opinions must be second hand at best. Did you have a particularly negative experience with a USC grad? Just wondering....</p>

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<p>I haven't read all the posts but I will add that the USC architecture school produced the most innovative (in form and technology) architect of our time, namely Frank Gehry, as well as another true innovator, Thomas Mayne. </p>

<p>The major USC complaints can be addressed with the following statements: Hello! USC is NOT an itsy bitsy East Coast LAC in a bucolic setting! USC places a strong emphasis on pre-professional training!</p>

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<p>Cheers:</p>

<p>Does bucolic mean the smell of manure we periodically get on the west side of Madison?</p>

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<p>TheDad: "The undergrad business degree is a joke"</p>

<p>this, i know for a fact is untrue, USC has one of the top business programs in the country. =)</p>

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<p>BusinessWeek Ranks USC 20th in the Country:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/2006/0619_top50b.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.businessweek.com/pdfs/2006/0619_top50b.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>USNEWS (2007) Ranks USC as 9th in the Country (Undergrad).</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/premium/topprogs.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/premium/topprogs.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Best Undergraduate Business Programs
Rank / School / Peer assessment score ( 5.0 = highest)</p>

<ol>
<li> University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4.8 </li>
<li> Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (Sloan) 4.6 </li>
<li> University of California–Berkeley (Haas) * 4.5
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor * 4.5 </li>
<li> New York University (Stern) 4.3
U. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) * 4.3
University of Texas–Austin (McCombs) * 4.3 </li>
<li> Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.2 </li>
<li> Univ. of Southern California (Marshall) 4.1
University of Virginia (McIntire) * 4.1 </li>
<li> Cornell University (NY) 4.0 </li>
</ol>

<p>footnote: I don't even see Smith listed on either list.</p>

97

<p>USC's grad business program is widely respected. It's undergrad program is a joke. Talk to hiring managers outside the "Trojan family" (sic).</p>

<p>SJMom, the area is full of SC grads by the metric tons. I have experience with them as clients, colleagues, etc. There are some very fine, well-educated people among them. There are also significant numbers who are still pompous, pretentious frat boys at age 45. (There are also 45-year-old sorority girls who to me seem cardinal-and-gold parodies of Barbie, but what the heck.) Do you know of any other college where alum will have college flags flying outside their homes...let alone several on a block? Of course, pompous and pretentious says nothing about the quality of the education and certainly there are some Harvard grads that could give USC alum a run for their money...though Harvard's about the only school I can think of us where this phenomenon also arises. But as to the quality of the students and the quality of the education, you can assemble the tell-tales from numerous sources. I know two profs, one of whom has a daughter attending UCLA in spite of a full-ride offer via faculty appointment at UCLA and another who is so disgusted with the general caliber and writing ability of the typical USC student that while his child is years away from college age, he wouldn't <em>think</em> of letting his child attend there. I've also talked to hiring managers (and CEO's of small firms) who independently report almost uniformly negative experiences with undergrad business school graduates. I also have friends who obtained graduate degrees at USC who shake their head about the general undergraduate tone and rigor on campus. It's not one source, it's many. </p>

<p>I suspect that the student quality mirrors financial aid in some respect: to President Sample's credit, he has been trying to upgun SC's academic strength, buying a lot of high-scoring students with generous FinAid offers, a commendable enterprise but one that barely dents the Greek/alcohol/football culture. </p>

<p>Finally, of the local options, I think if you talk to high school GC's, many more students are admitted to USC but not the flagship UC's than vice-versa...a telling datum.</p>

<p>Some of the defenses by current or near-current SC students are memorable. Like the one who boasted that USC was "going to be the Stanford of the West." Or another who said "we have so many outstanding social choices that you can't expect us to give as much time to academics." I think the latter attitude is the underlying reason for the "academic lite" reputation cited by another poster. Obviously, you can work hard at USC...but you certainly don't have to nor is it, in general, demanded.</p>

<p>And beyond this, I think the equine has been flogged beyond expiration.</p>

<p>X-posted: LTC, considering Smith doesn't have a business school, it would be indeed an aberation if it appeared on any ranking of business schools.</p>

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<p>I'm not quite sure that I can rationally reply to the above post, but I'll try. </p>

<p>I understand that you have had some bad relationships with USC alumni. I understand completely your annoyance with the overgrown teenagers currently out in the workforce. What I think you miss, is the entire point of this discussion. USC is changing... a lot. The attitudes you comment on are from alumni who graduated a long time ago. Not to insult the ages of parents on the board, but age is very relevant to this conversation. It is in recent years that USC has risen in standing. We had a well deserved party population, which the alumni tend to propagate. However, that isn't true of the current students. </p>

<p>I am disturbed and somewhat frightened by your comment by professors about USC students' writing abilities. If you told me their names, I would be careful to avoid any classes taught by them. A professor who is disgusted by his or her students, and doesn't see any hope for the institution for which he or she is working is not one I ever want to be taught by. </p>

<p>My general point is, unless you are talking to very recent alumni (last 3-4 years), I'm not sure you are getting an accurate view of the school. All most alumni see of the students is on game day. While I freely admit that we are somewhat wild and crazy then, that is not true for other times. </p>

<p>I'm sorry that you have had such bad relationships with USC alumni and students. I wish that my feelings or others of those on this board could give you a view of the other side of the situation. I understand that USC has its faults, but it also has amazing opportunities for many types of students, through both service and academics. We may hang our flags on our porches, but that means that we have pride in the school that we are attending, and hope in what it is fast becoming.</p>

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<p>I would agree with a lot of what TheDAD says above re: the attitiudes I have observed in many members of "the Trojan Family", as well as the unchallenging undergraduate education in many areas [not all, so retract any barbs you may want to throw]. What does it say about the overall quality of an undergraduate education a University offers when, instead of boasting about which grad schools it's graduates move on to, instead the talk is about how the "Trojan Family" can be relied upon to find graduates jobs? Why would USC grads need this help anyway? Something to think about for highly qualified students looking for a well rounded, challenging undergraduate education . As it has been pointed out before, USC has some great pre-professional programs, but in general I wouldn't recommend it for a highly academic student who wants lots of intellectual interation inside and outside the classroom with lots of other bright students.</p>

100

<p>I don't know--the engineering & pre-med students I know who have attended/are attending USC have told me all have had fine educational experiences and have nothing but praise for USC. This is one of the reasons our very academic, competitive HS sends so many students to USC (about 10% or so of its graduating class), many NMFs on merit scholarships. They are serious students & find a good balance of academic & socialization--not aware of any who have transferred out or mentioned anything about "academic lite." One of our friends has had two of her kids graduate in biomedical engineering & tried to get her 3rd child in to USC as well. </p>

<p>In any case, it seems folks love or hate USC for many reasons. Not sure all of them are purely objective. As has been posted, USC is changing, as schools do, especially with President Sample at the helm. The USC alums I have spoken with agree that it is not the school they attended as it is much more academically rigorous now than it was then.</p>