<p>Yes, Thornton required everything by Dec. 1st, so by default we made the scholarship deadline.</p>
<p>lol now there seems to be a frenzy of uncoordinated letter receivings and status updates…i think the usc admissions dept is using organized chaos to effectively fool all of us</p>
<p>I applied by the dec 1 deadline and didn’t get that new preliminary review status thing or the letter I live in New York, my status did change to forwarded for committee review last week though</p>
<p>^^ lol organized chaos…then those are some brilliant people (which we should assume they are anyways) in USC Adcom looking for brilliant applicants who can withstand their test without mentally collapsing.</p>
<p>^trudat lol.</p>
<p>Daughters status has been “reviewing” - it was briefly “forwarded”- then back to “reviewing” and tonight this:</p>
<p>“We have completed a preliminary review of your application. We sometimes request additional information (senior-year grades, for example), so be sure to watch the mail. You may submit senior year grades at <a href=“http://www.usc.edu/midyeargrades[/url]”>www.usc.edu/midyeargrades</a>, even if we did not specifically request them. We are continuing to review applications and expect to mail notification of a decision by April 1st.”</p>
<p>We did not get the letter notifying us of not getting the 2 scholarships. I am amused by this - it would be so boring just waiting without this puzzle.</p>
<p>^ I’m intrigued…except it’d probably drive me nuts if it happened to me personally.</p>
<p>“You may be disappointed” is right!</p>
<p>I’m pretty disappointed. I’m still hoping for acceptance though; my status online is still at “committee review” and not at the new one about looking for mail. (:</p>
<p>Keeping my spirits up.</p>
<p>oxolojo I have the committee review status also I don’t think that the preliminary status is an update to the forward for committee review status I think it is an update to the reviewed by admission committee status so they are 2 different status updates and I don’t think we will be receiving the preliminary status update. I could be wrong but that’s just what I took it as.</p>
<p>cdr777, I hope so! I’m glad we’re in the same boat!</p>
<p>Floatin’ to the cardinal and gold, hopefully…</p>
<p>S2’s status has not changed from forwarded to committee… for quite some time. No letters or other communication received. It is an interesting processes.</p>
<p>I also have the “We have completed a preliminary review of your application” status. What does this mean? And does everyone who applied before 12/1 receive the letter about not being a scholarship candidate? I have yet to receive the letter mentioned, but I do live on the EAst Coast. Does anyone know when that letter was mailed? Or when the next wave of acceptances is? Also, has anyone had the preliminary review status and then had their status changed to something “better”? If so, how long did that take? Thanks!</p>
<p>@hello21, there seems to be more information about this topic on the status update thread.</p>
<p>I didn’t get the letter today and I’m on the east coast… so hopefully I’m still being considered for a scholarship?</p>
<p>I got the “sorry, no scholarship, but we’re considering you for admission and if you are accepted you’ll get the presidential” letter today (in Hawaii).</p>
<p>As a National Merit Semifinalist (anticipate Finalist), I took this as bad news. I’ve been homeschooled since 6th grade through various distance learning/online programs. No parental help since 7th grade. I am worried that now I am competing with the National Merit Finalist crowd for admission, because according to the letter, admission will automatically get me a half-off scholarship. Therefore I’m not a “money-maker” to them.</p>
<p>As a rural Hawaiian homeschooler NMF (I’m ethnically white, no such luck in that department), I don’t like the idea of having to compete with ONLY the upper-middle-class, overachieving, California prep school crowd (and the smaller quantity of kids who achieved to their level, like myself, without such privilege). I taught myself algebra, for crying out loud, and now I’m being compared with kids whose parents have been paying $20,000 a year for them to have access to everything and everyone. Not that I’m badmouthing other student’s achievements - I just hate being put under the microscope like this. I’m pretty certain that I’d get into USC’s normal applicant pool handily, but now that I have to fight for money to get accepted… I guess its down to whether or not USC thinks I’m worth twenty grand.</p>
<p>I’m dead-set on USC - it was the only university I visited that appealed to me, and as someone who never went to a normal high school, the whole “Trojan Family” aspect is incredibly appealing. Both my paternal grandparents went there, and are overjoyed to think that I might attend. My scores aren’t ridiculously high enough to get into Harvard/Princeton (already rejected at Yale), and none of my safeties (Chapman/LMU) appeal to me. If I don’t get into USC, I’m takin’ a tub with a toaster. Whoever thought that being a self-made student ranked top 1-2% in the nation wouldn’t be good enough? It seems crazy when I think about all the kids at my local high school who don’t even try - despite having thousands of students, only a handful (less than 5-10) go to a college on the mainland each year.</p>
<p>How many Presidential scholarships does USC give for NMFs? How many kids put USC as their first choice school? Is being a NMF going to HURT my chances for admission? At this point, I’ll be happy with acceptance - nevermind the fact that I was hoping for a scholarship and that paying $50k a year is an impossibility. At least I have the NMF presidential factor… hopefully.</p>
<p>PS, stats:
-2180 SAT (would have been a 2230 with a perfect Writing score if not for some bizarre essay grading)
-5’s on AP English Lit, US History, Biology, and Macroeconomics
-770 English Lit, 770 US History, 680 Math II (I wasn’t kidding when I said I taught myself Algebra. It shows, sadly.)
-4.0 GPA depending on how you calculate it. I’ve had a few Bs, but my online school (Keystone National High School) grades on a percentage scale, mashing all your grades together to form an overall %. In my case, that average % is over 90%, meaning I have an A average, meaning a 4.0.
-My ECs are good unless the admissions people are totally heartless! - I’ve saved dozens of litters of abandoned/feral kittens, raised them, provided (sometimes quite extreme) medical care /vaccination for them, and found them homes, in addition to funding the entire project myself. In addition I wrote a 700-word editorial for Hawaii’s biggest newspaper that was published during the 2008 election season, and served on a “teen editorial board” for the same newspaper, writing 5 or 6 published letters to the editor in the process. Not a journalist applicant, by the way. “Undecided”.
-I also have an extremely strong letter of recommendation from a teacher - I took one class (honors physics) at a private school in Honolulu (got an A) and she agreed to write it for me.</p>
<p>I’ll be really surprised (and heartbroken) if I don’t get in. I can only imagine what other students are going through. I think admissions was designed from the ground up to create as much widespread concentrated misery as possible!</p>
<p>Now, I guess we all get to sit and stew in our own juices for a month or two. God I hate this.</p>
<p>GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE, I HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE IN THE FALL! FIGHT ON!</p>
<p>Does this “no scholarship” letter mandate you sending in your midyear report?</p>
<p>IIRC, mine asked that I do it as soon as possible… I don’t remember the exact wording, but I’m pretty sure it meant that they wanted it.</p>
<p>“How many Presidential scholarships does USC give for NMFs? How many kids put USC as their first choice school? Is being a NMF going to HURT my chances for admission?”</p>
<p>berk104, wait, do you actually know the answer to this question?</p>
<p>does anyone have any thoughts? I’m a potential NMF too, but I’m very borderline in terms of stats for USC…so I know USC is “need-blind,” but really, does it go into their minds–is so-and-so kid really worth 20 grand?</p>
<p>I have no idea, thats why I am asking. Sounds like we are in more or less the same boat.</p>
<p>AFAIK “needs-blind” is completely different. If it is true that they bump you into a separate admission pool for NMFs, due to the fact that there are only so many “automatic” scholarships to go around, I don’t think that it would conflict with “needs blind”. My thinking is that they’d just reject you so they could continue to say that they provide a scholarship to every NMF (that first-choice’d USC) that attends, assuming you’d get into a good school anyway. I know a NMF that was rejected last year with excellent scores, and that was all I could come up with - that isn’t really fair, though, because there could have been a dismal part of her application that I didn’t know about (I kind of doubt it).</p>
<p>However I have no actual evidence to base this on, just inductive reasoning and a certain amount of panic. Probably just blowing smoke rings here. Knowing how dishonest and intentionally misleading college admissions offices are, though, I doubt we’ll get a straight answer direct from them. The only way to make sense of it is to get some real numbers. As much as colleges tout “needs blind” phrases and “100% of need met” claims, the truth is that they really aren’t accountable for anything - especially private universities. They can be (and often are) as cruel and calculating as they need to be.</p>
<p>wow. I guess people don’t know the weight that NMF carries. NMF will NOT lower your chances at USC, I repeat, it will NOT lower your chances at USC. Not even close. They offer the Presidential automatically to EVERY NMF USC applicant that is accepted with USC listed as their first choice. This helps them attract NMFs and the fact that you listed USC as your first choice is a HUGE benefit towards your application. Top Univeristies use the % or # of NMFs to compare each other and to brag to get more students, because this gets them rated higher, so if they get more NMFs, they can attract smarter students, and their school will look better.</p>