<p>We all know USC is excellent in terms of both academics and sports, but at my school, USC is not considered a high-tier academic school. I'm in California, and most people at my school see UCLA and Berkeley as miles ahead of USC in terms of academics. And, for this reason, I sometimes feel a little embarrassed when I say that I'm going to USC to some of my classmates (even though I love USC and turned down other great opportunities including LA to attend!)...so I guess my question is: Where does this hate towards USC come from?</p>
<p>Truthfully, it depends on the field, USC has some very good ones and some very mediocre ones whereas Berkeley is relatively strong all-around (would be even better if they had more money) and has been at the top for many years. USC sharp rise has been in the past few decades and has risen faster than any other university so yes, it is quite possible that the academics are still lagging a bit in some areas.</p>
<p>In no way can USC’s academic repute be consider bad. However, I would not consider it first rate. Please see link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amacad.org/members/classList.pdf[/url]”>http://www.amacad.org/members/classList.pdf</a></p>
<p>However, as the above poster has said, USC’s academic reputation is definitely on the rise.</p>
<p>I had a similar experience when I was in high school. Even with people looking at UC Berkeley and UCLA as a good deal higher, I was proud to be going to USC. Their looking down on it primarily stemmed from historical reasons. Ex-president Sample’s presidency brought on a lot of change in the 90s into the new millennium. Peoples views, if younger generally inherited from family, and if they’re adults formed when they were younger and paying more attention to colleges (like my parents decades ago). For example, Marshall (one of the top business schools) used to admit anyone that could pay the modest tuition in the late 70s. Obviously, now they’re more selective and have more prestige.</p>
<p>Attending USC AND making the most of it will make everyone who didn’t wish they could have :)</p>
<p>Reputations are perceptions from the past. From this perspective, USC was not an academic rival to CAL or UCLA. </p>
<p>Forward thinking individuals might be more interested in what is happening now and projecting future trends.</p>
<p>From this perspective USC is well-positioned relative to the top California publics.</p>
<p>“Where does the hate come from?”</p>
<p>Lots of places:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ignorance - People simply aren’t aware of the changes that have taken place.</li>
<li>Laziness - It’s easier to fall back on old stereotypes than to do the research and make the effort to change your own mind.</li>
<li>Insecurity - Everywhere there are schools that others like to “dump on” to make themselves feel better; here, Michigan thinks of Michigan State as its “little brother”, U Florida looks down on Florida State and everyone looks down on Arizona State. It doesn’t make it true, but if somebody’s ‘worse’ then somebody else must be ‘better’.</li>
<li>Rivalry - If you know someone is going to get worked up about little jabs then it can be fun to poke your rival to get a rise out of them. This board is no exception, some UCLAn ■■■■■ will come along and snipe at SC only to be met with the requisite wave of “you’re so wrong, look how great we are” responses that betray an insecurity.</li>
<li>Basic lack of knowledge - At son2’s school 99.9% of people only knew of the football team. In the subsequent two years there has been a noticeable jump in the number of his schoolmates applying to SC - he’s not some thought leader, he just put it on people’s radar. The fact that a 3.7/2000 got rejected two years ago only increased the interest.</li>
</ol>
<p>Finally - who cares? Unless you insist on going back to reunions you’re unlikely to see your high school classmates very much. Just remember, living well is the best revenge - it’s not about where you get your education but what you do with it that matters…</p>
<p>About 125 students from Harvard-Westlake, the top private high school in LA, enrolled at USC in the last 5 years, whereas only 20 enrolled at UCLA. These numbers are off the top of my head from what I remember from reading on their website several months ago. </p>
<p>Similar ratio of students enrolling at USC to UCLA is evident at the top private/boarding schools in the Northeast. </p>
<p>So, USC is attracting more of the best students from the top schools in the US.</p>
<p>USC offers better scholarships and financial aid dough than UCLA. Enough said.</p>
<p>^^ And yet, even with a Presidential scholarship, Cal and UCLA were cheaper than USC when we (full pay CA parents) ran the numbers. D picked USC over HYPS and CAL with regents for the academic program that met her needs BEST.</p>
<p>Hell no. USC is a top 25 academic school in the nation. Anyone who says it is a mediocre academic school is full of it. While of course some places are better (Ivy leagues for example), USC is strongly working on getting into the same conversation. California wise, it is definitely up there. I would say Stanford is up top, followed by Berkley, then very closely behind that (practically ties in my honest opinion) would be USC and UCLA.</p>
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<p>What about Caltech?</p>
<p>Ok, here’s my view: I grew up in LA. I basically always heard either that UCLA is brilliant and USC is rubbish or vice-versa, depending on the speaker (although, when it comes down to it, we all agree that both are excellent schools). Berkeley did not get as much attention down here in the past. Plenty of people went there, but I feel like, a generation or two ago, UCLA was infinitely better perceived by Southern Californians. </p>
<p>If you’re studying film, communication, journalism, or other media fields, USC is your best bet. If you’re studying science fields or some of the tougher social sciences, go to Cal. If you’re talking about liberal arts, it’s mostly all the same (but I may be inclined to argue that UCLA and USC are stronger in this respect than Cal). I don’t want to get into this, but if you’re a theater student, UCLA and USC are hugely different and it’d be up to you to determine which culture suits you better. I really don’t know enough about engineering. </p>
<p>Either way, only one person has treated by USC studenthood as less than satisfactory, and that person was a serious jerk. Everyone else acknowledges that my academic experience is excellent.</p>
<p>ETA: to be clear, he was not a jerk for deriding my experience. He was a jerk in general and he just confounded it by basically insinuating that USC is no big deal, which was based on old stereotypes and generalizations.</p>
<p>Caltech has a class an incoming 244 students, so while everyone knows it is in its own league, statistically its not that relevant to most and not included in many discussions.</p>
<p>I actually grew up with interesting opinions on USC and UCLA. My Mom went to UCLA, and my dad USC. Overall, they are both amazing schools. USC is absolutely the best in the nation for film, and also has a top business program. I myself admire the way USC allows students to combine majors and programs (such as the Business Cinematic Arts program, which is my dream!). USC is a great school, and is still growing. It has a lot to offer!</p>
<p>I would rather say A.F.I. is still the better film school, but it all depends on what you go into, I guess.</p>
<p>USC has increased its undergrad admission stats with high test scorers, etc. Its undergraduate class now matches or exceeds Berkeley and UCLA. </p>
<p>Where USC has not caught up is in faculty research achievements and graduate programs in the more traditional academic oriented disciplines. USC has been adding faculty but still lags considerably and that takes a much longer time to close the gap…if it ever gets there.</p>
<p>AFI is a graduate-only film program, and not affiliated with any university. In my case, I ruled it out early on because a) didn’t want to do grad school for film and b) the lack of university affiliation eliminates the possibility of any real synergy with other departments and programs, like, for example, USC’s business cinema program mentioned in the thread.</p>
<p>I agree with most of the above comments, as the big thing is that the university has arrived academically, at least on the undergraduate level, and is focused on building excellence across the board. Dr. Nikias in his inaugural address characterized this as pursuing “undisputed elite status” for the university. Look for things to continue to change as the $6 billion fundraising campaign continues, as the key for the university’s long-term growth is money in the bank (working on it) and a safe neighborhood and fully residential student body (also working on it). They’re also working on building the sciences, the hospitals, and the health science campus.</p>
<p>Attitudes towards USC are generational, and here in L.A. the attitude has basically gone from “party school” to “WOW, that place has really changed.” Most older Bruins I know treat us younger USC grads much differently than the knee-jerk scorn they used to have for USC grads because it’s a whole other caliber of student body now.</p>
<p>Here’s a good article from a few years ago on the USC-UCLA rivalry, although even since this article was published the university’s numbers have continued to dramatically improve:</p>
<p>[Crosstown</a> Rivals - - News - Los Angeles - LA Weekly](<a href=“http://www.laweekly.com/2006-11-30/news/crosstown-rivals/full/]Crosstown”>http://www.laweekly.com/2006-11-30/news/crosstown-rivals/full/)</p>
<p>One other thing, regarding the academy memberships.</p>
<p>USC’s strengths are in the arts and the professions, and not so much in the liberal arts. Whenever people want to hate on USC, they immediately invoke metrics like that. USC’s fantastic professors in cinema, business, accounting, etc. aren’t necessarily going to be listed in programs like that. Programs like that are based upon dry old notions of academia being nothing more than old white men in bow ties and tweed jackets with elbow patches smoking a pipe and lecturing in front of a class about some obtuse battle between two different English clans in the 15th century. If that’s what you want out of college, then USC isn’t necessarily the place for you. But if you want to get a business degree and a second major in communications or engineering or theater, then USC is a great place to go. Those kinds of programs are USC’s strengths, not so much the dry, older conceptions of academia.</p>
<p>It’s somewhat like Einstein’s famous quotation that if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life thinking that it’s stupid. Harvard is a great university, but its engineering program is only (“only”) top 20. It doesn’t have much of a theater program. Within NYC, Columbia is the better university but many of NYU’s programs rank much more highly. Same thing here. I’m quite bullish about USC’s future but like any school it has its strengths and weaknesses and people who focus on its weaknesses alone ignore its fantastic strengths elsewhere.</p>
<p>Building on what USCAlum05, although it is true that USC’s strengths are not in the in traditional letters and sciences, it will not take long till they build up a reputation to be on par or greater than UCLA. More aggressive hiring will skyrocket their humanities and sciences in no time. One only needs to reference the current philosophy program that went from ranking in the 30s to 11th tied with UCLA and Columbia. These traditional academic programs are not measured by the curriculum because how many different ways could one teach political science, anthropology, ethnic studies, chemistry, biology. But what does matter are faculty, research opportunities, personal attention (office hours and small classes), and intellectual peers. </p>
<p>USC has proven to be a excellent recruiting powerhouse lately and it will not take long for USC to recruit the best of the best. USC not only recruits top faculty but these outstanding researches are also dedicated to having students involved with their research. More and more QUALITY research opportunities will become available. Personal attention has already been available at USC where UCLA and the other public universities have their students literally fighting for attention. Some like it and thrive in that environment but most top students want accessibility to profs and small classes. Regarding intellectual peers, it is clear that USC is and has been one of the most selective universities in CA and has had a higher caliber of enrolling students than any of the UCs for several years now.</p>
<p>With all this said, it is not that UCLA is going to be going down in quality but that USC will be sky rocketing passed. </p>
<p>Although Berkeley’s reputation and research will be hard to pass, USC is currently looking to be a peer of similar privates such as: Northwestern, Cornell, Penn, Rice, and Vanderbilt.</p>