FAQ for USC Admissions

<p>ATPS is a pretty low key club. There are a lot of different opportunities you can take advantage of, but there generally aren't regular meetings. For example, they just got back from a retreat to big bear, are going to see phantom of the opera, and will be going broomballing soon. There was also an article about them in the Daily Trojan yesterday, as they worked with Children's Hospital to deliver cards to sick patients.</p>

<p>Thank you Sequoia!!!</p>

<p>My D just got a letter saying they are sorry , but she is not being considered for the Trustee or Presidential scholarship. They said if she is a NMF, she might still have a chance of a scholarship--but she is only a commended scholar. Other than that, they said to just wait, and not to expect to hear anymore until late March.</p>

<p>Needless to say, it is disappointing. </p>

<p>I noticed in an earlier comment, that there are three options in being accepted: 1. with the Trustee/Presidential scholarship. 2. With a NMF or Dean's scholarship and 3) You're still great, and we accept you, but we can't give you a scholarship. </p>

<p>What are the options now if she does get accepted? What kind of packages does USC offer? She a great stats...</p>

<p>Did you look at the list of various scholarships offered by USC under "scholarships"? Last year, there was a long list of scholarships in the application brochure. You should also be able to find this list if you search USC.edu and type in "scholarships" and see what comes up. Your financial situation is personal. However, from what I have read on this forum, it sounds like if you truly have financial need, there is need based scholarship money available if your daughter is accepted. Fill out the financial aid materials and see what happens. Meanwhile, I hope you have other schools to consider while you wait until next month. If USC is your daughter's first choice, and she is not accepted, then aim to work out a transfer agreement with USC if you are interested. I hope your daughter is accepted. I know the wait is very hard.</p>

<p>got a mail talking about financial aid at usc today. dang prolly not a good sign.</p>

<p>Your parents need to file the financial aid forms. You might be pleasantly surprised at the kind of financial aid there is available if you truly need it.</p>

<p>^well the thing is getting the mail prolly means i wont get a scholarship. I know i wont get much in FA.</p>

<p>Thanks mdcissp for your reply.</p>

<p>USC is her first choice. I thought it would be the easier to get accepted there than her other top choices--UCLA and Brown! We do have financial needs, so I guess we will wait and see. (And she does have other backups than those three I mentioned...)</p>

<p>What is a transfer agreement? I have never heard of it before.</p>

<p>happy_sunflower, regarding "transfer".....with some of the students who are rejected and who have decent stats, USC offers advisement sessions on transferring if they might wish to do that in Soph or Junior years, from a community or other college. Such advisement details which courses would be transferable and so on. USC particularly does this with legacy students who they feel could mature a bit more, and potentially improve their resumes by attending a cc for a couple of years.
If your D has great stats and if you felt she had a possibility for a scholarship, I expect she should be fine anyway.
You may also be surprised with the financial aid. USC is very generous, and it could very well turn out that USC would be less costly than UCLA.
Best of luck!</p>

<p>I have a question i am freaking out about if i am giogn to get in or not like majorly. i was wondering if you got a letter of recommendation from someone who has donated money to the school and called in to the school does that have a good pull on your application or does it not matter?</p>

<p>No, it most likely won't help. Just relax for now, and see what happens.</p>

<p>so it wont even help if the school said they would make a note of it in the application?</p>

<p>Over the past 10 or 15 years, such a letter or phone call will not overcome a mediocre application package even if the donors were your parents or grandparents. If your GPA, test scores, etc are truly borderline for acceptance, a steady history of large family contributions might get you the tip. But we heard a story about the president of USC writing a nice letter for a student... who did not get accepted. In general, the letters of rec that have the most power are those written by adults who have known the student (not just the family or parents) personally and well, seen a lot of the student's work and can explain how that student's specific talents and strengths match the program they are applying for.</p>

<p>yeah they did write about my talents and stuff and all the things i have done</p>

<p>Do you think it might be a good idea to phone and let USC know that my son went from NMSF to NMF? I am worried that he hasn't heard from them yet. Honestly, I thought he would have a good chance at acceptance...not enough community service I imagine...oh well.</p>

<p>happy_sunflower,
It may surprise you, but the SAT scores of entering freshmen are higher at SC than at UCLA. Also, SC law graduates now pass the bar at a higher rate than law graduates from UCLA.<br>
It is not easier to be admitted to SC than UCLA these days. SC has a holistic selection process for admission. I have seen two posts from unhappy dads whose seniors were not admitted to SC with scores of 2240 and 2250. Madbean has posted regarding NMScholars who did not receive admission. Last year SC had 35,901 applications for a targeted class of 2600. The university received more acceptances and ended up with a class of 2744.<br>
SC is a Tier I university. It is considered highly selective. Some posters on other selective college forums are finding admissions selection to be a mystery. Parents wrote students were not admitted to a safety college, but received admission to their top reach college. Others, unfortunately, posted their seniors were not admitted to any college.<br>
Perhaps you may wish to visit the College Admissions forum to learn more about the process.</p>

<p>@Georgia Girl: It may surprise you, but the SAT scores of entering freshmen are higher at SC than at UCLA. </p>

<p>Not entirely surprising. UCLA does practice more holisitic admissions, does reject higher SAT applicants in favor of more needy, less rich, folks having more hardships, but otherwise talented. Also usc is known to play us news ranking game well (nothing wrong with it). One fact alone that usc superscores sat but ucla does not could account for the above differences.</p>

<p>Question: I was accepted into USC's College of Arts and Sciences yesterday. However, I have recently decided I would like to pursue architecture. How can I go about switching into the architecture school?</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

<p>Contact the architecture school ASAP and see what you need to do. This is a school that you definitely need to transfer into immediately, because the classes start right away there, and are quite intense.</p>

<p>Has anyone ever been admitted to USC with a 19 on the ACT and a 3.7 GPA...</p>