<p>I think University of Southern California is a pretty good school.</p>
<p>Some people do, but i don’t. This is one of my favorite colleges, so hopefully one day i’ll get in! :D</p>
<p>It’s a generational thing. USC used to admit just about anybody who liked football and whose parents could pay the high tuition. They have become much more selective in the past decade, so younger people have a different impression of 'SC’s student body than their parents do.</p>
<p>The perception began to change on CC in 2004. It persisted for a while here, but except for a few random posters it no longer is an issue. Check out the posts between me and my good friend The Dad. Also mostly gone are the ridiculous UCLA-USC threads. It is now possible to prefer one without having to attack the other.</p>
<p>“It’s a generational thing. USC used to admit just about anybody who liked football and whose parents could pay the high tuition.” +1</p>
<p>Very true, especially for the wealthy oversea Taiwanese families whose kids were having problem getting into good college due to poor performance on National College Entrance Exam (way tougher than SAT & ACT imho). In fact, at one point, 1/3 of USC’s international students were all Taiwanese. There were USC alumni chapter in nearly all of the major cities in Taiwan… lol Hence, USC = University of Spoiled Chinese, since people couldn’t tell the difference between Chinese and Taiwanese. They all look Asian… lol</p>
<p>“They have become much more selective in the past decade, so younger people have a different impression of 'SC’s student body than their parents do.” </p>
<p>Also true!!</p>
<p>Over half of USC students receive need-based financial assistance and scholarships. Hardly sounds like a place filled with “spoiled” kids!</p>
<p>The school is extremely difficult to get into – especially compared to USC back in the late 80s and early 90s. As a previous poster mentioned, money and status earned you admission to USC more than your academic successes. However, when Sample became the school’s president, he made it his goal to change USC’s image around and turn it into the Stanford of Southern California. He did a pretty good job during his tenure, I think!</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years (or less?) USC broke the top 15.</p>
<p>Sparkeye,
Please post the evidence for your sweeping statement regarding student selection of international students at SC. This year the largest number of international students are from India. Since 2008 the four countries that send the largest number of international students to SC and enrolled have been China, Canada, South Korea and India. </p>
<p>To state that people could not tell the difference between Chinese and Taiwanese is a racist comment and is not true. </p>
<p>SC did not admit “just about anybody” in past years. All those individuals donating millions and millions of dollars graduated in those years. Also, there are presidents of colleges, famous inventors, Pulitzer Prize winners, noted professors, heads of film studiios, founders of huge companies such as Salesforce.com, Kinko’s, California Pizza Kitchen, MySpace, Cogent Systems, Geocities.com, Dollar-Rent-A-Car, ThatGame Co., Qualcomm and others. There have been Academy Award winners, Pritzer Prize winners, Turing Prize winners and other prestigious awards including National Medals. The world of music has enjoyed the gifts of composers David Newman, Morten Lauridsen, Chistopher Beck, Jerry Goldsmith, Bear McCreary and Rob Cavallo. Marilyn Horne and Jessica Rivera have graced the opera stages. Irving Stone, Jonathan Kellerman, Bert Kosko, Joe Jares (sports) and Leo Buscaglia all were on the NYTimes best sellers list. There are pages of other noted alumni including Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon. </p>
<p>You have pride in your school Ohio State. Why do you feel it necessary to make insulting remarks about another university?</p>
<p>USC is a Pacific Rim university. It has always had large numbers of international students enrolled. Colleges/universities along the west coast have traditionally had representation from Asian countries.</p>
<p>To set the record straigtht USC does NOT have alumni clubs in nearly all the major cities in Taiwan. Here is the list of USC alumni clubs in Asia. One more is starting in India, but is not yet listed on the website.</p>
<p>USC Alumni Clubs in Asia:</p>
<p>Beijing
Hiroshima
Hong Kong
Hsinchu
Indonesia
Kansai
Kaohsiung
Mumbai
Nagoya
Pearl River Delta
Phillippines
Seoul
Shanghai
Singapore
Taipei
Tokyo
Vietnam</p>
<p>Well, USC has a reputation for bringing in “SCions” (which has negative connotations in itself but 'SC makes a pun out of it) in hordes. I remember reading that a quarter of the student body is a legacy, though that may have changed.</p>
<p>Who cares? All the Ivies are filled with spoiled, “privileged” children and everyone strives to go there.</p>
<p>What’s a prestigious university without spoiled children?</p>
<p>Um Georgia Girl, Sparkeye7 is right. You can’t tell Chinese people from Taiwanese people unless you can hear the difference of their spoken Mandarin. Which only native Mandarin speaker can do. Which makes it understandable and even expected that people from other nations cannot differentiate Chinese from Taiwanese. Also, Han Chinese is the predominant “race” in both China and Taiwan; being a “Chinese” or being a “Taiwanese” is a matter of politics. I think “racist” is a bad word choice.</p>
<p>His implication that Taiwanese students who chose to attend SC were spoiled is rather offensive to these individuals.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For one, the Ivies are very prestigious and usually dominate academically, neither of which USC can claim, at least not to the same degree. For another, the Ivies are not “filled” with these spoiled, privileged children, but they are well-represented. And finally, almost every university, from the prestigious to the non-prestigious, will have a very large portion of students who are privileged, including all the UCs. That’s just the socioeconomic landscape for higher education in the US. One study found that 74% of the students at the top 146 colleges are from the top economic quartile, while only 3% are from the bottom. It’s not an Ivy-specific problem. Of course, to ‘offset’ this, many people judge universities based on the representation of low-income students, a measure in which USC does well. But most of the Ivies do okay there as well, and all have many times more than 3% of their students who are low-income. Berkeley and UCLA may lead in terms of Pell Grant students (though there are some colleges that have a higher proportion than either), but they both have a high percentage of privileged students too. And universities that are not prestigious, which tends to mean they can’t afford to be need-blind or to give good financial aid, have even higher percentages of privileged children.</p>
<p>University of Spoiled Children
University of Scholastic Compromise
University of Second Choice</p>
<p>All those old nicknames don’t apply to the Prophylatics anymore…</p>
<p>CalvinCoolidge, I agree, but my wife, from the PRC, would say that she can usually differentiate Taiwanese from mainland Chinese by dress as well as by accent. However, as the mainland is being transformed by Western capitalist culture, the differences in dress, especially among the young, appear to be disappearing.</p>
<p>I can’t tell the difference and I don’t think I’m a racist. My best friend is Thai and people usually think he’s Pilipino.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I still think of USC as the University of Spoiled Children. My cousin goes there…she’s in a sorority, her sorority sister just took her to Cabo on her father’s private jet. She was telling me how some of the guys in the frats already have jobs lined up at companies where lots of SC alums now work. I have yet to meet anyone like this at UCLA. What does this mean to me? I would LOVE to attend USC and have rich friends and work my way into that circle haha</p>
<p>I’m puzzled, SMC…didn’t you just get accepted to UCLA from SMC this past spring? I’ll read into it … that’s actually good that you’re taking summer classes before your class officially enters. You’ll get out of the school within 2 years…</p>
<p>I don’t think the rich element to USC’s greek system really matters if they don’t make exceptions stats-wise for these students. Greeks, frats and sorority members, tend to be rich any way, anywhere.</p>
<p>Hard to imagine headlines like this coming out of UCLA or Stanford:</p>
<p>“USC Students Have Sex On Roof Of Campus Building”</p>
<p>[USC</a> Students Have Sex On Roof Of Campus Building](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>USC Students Have Sex On Roof Of Campus Building | HuffPost Los Angeles)</p>
<p>@Georgia Girl</p>
<p>Given that USC has alumni clubs in Taipei, Hsinchu and Kaohsiung, I’d say Sparkeye is correct. That’s a pretty amazing alumni organization.</p>
<p>^^ Wait, wasn’t the girl in that story from UCLA?</p>
<p>If it is to be, it is up to me…</p>