<p>Congratulations to everyone who got selected to be a finalist! To those who did not, do not lose hope!</p>
<p>Anyways, I have heard about people getting selected as a finalist for one scholarship (say Presidential) and then getting bumped up to another one (Presidential to Trustee). My question is how do this occur? If this happened to you please feel free to share how your interview went!</p>
<p>It happened to me (interviewed for presidential, got trustee). I remember thinking that my interview had gone well but not exceptionally so - I was still nervous that I wasn’t even going to get the presidential.</p>
<p>I found out when they sent the scholarship letter; it didn’t mention anything about the fact that I’d interviewed for a different scholarship, just that I was a trustee scholar.</p>
<p>-bump-
thethuster, I’m in the exact same boat! Even with a half tuition scholarship around $22k, with such a high total cost of attending, I don’t think it’d be possible for me to go without the trustee. I really really hope to be bumped up! Thus far, from looking on other threads for general advice, I’ve seen:
-show you have a passion that you can speak of expressively
-show you’d contribute at USC/a professor would want to have you in his/her class
-they want to see how likely you’d be to attend USC if you got the scholarship, so lather them with love and mention specifics about the school that you like
-reread your app, they tailor a lot of questions to your app and major
-dress up but relax and treat it like a conversation
-be youself</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to be bumped up from Presidential (for which I interviewed) to Trustee. As yeikes mentioned, there’s really no way of knowing for sure why they decided to move you up a notch (or down a notch, as happens occasionally as well). </p>
<p>I don’t think you should be doing anything different to get bumped up than you should be doing anyways just to get the scholarship for which you were invited to interview. In other words, I wouldn’t try to “play” the interview so as to get bumped up.</p>
<p>The advice that jollyia posted is a great start. I’d suggest, generally speaking, that the interview isn’t about you so much as it’s about USC (and the school to which you’re applying). You’re clearly capable and accomplished to have gotten this far, but during the interview, I’d strongly advise trying to put the focus on all the specific opportunities the University has to offer (and how eager you are to take advantage of them).</p>
<p>Finally, I don’t think it hurts to be honest in the interview about your money situation. At the end of my interview, when they asked me to name my top choice school, I said that I would attend USC in a heartbeat should I receive enough merit aid to do so. I wouldn’t dwell on this too much (you don’t want to overly dramatize your circumstances into a sob story [even if true]), but you can at least let them know that money will indeed be a deciding factor.</p>