Hi, my name is Ben, I am a Chinese high school senior, singer songwriter. After visiting all the colleges that I am interested in the US, my favorite one would be the USC Thornton popular music program. However, I’ve heard that it is a very competitive program and it also considers a student’s academic performance. I am wondering what is the GPA or SAT score that will make a student get rejected based on the academic portion (although I know that audition is also important).
Also, if any of you are from Thornton, do you mind sharing some of your stats when you were applying? Thank you so much!!
hi~~
I know that @piranhavator is a freshman there in jazz. He can speak to it. I’d say very high stats though and do be aware that they do not offer any talent/merit money for popular music, only academic. If that is a concern at all.
I think many of these music schools set in an academic institution do expect you to be in range of their average student. You need to be able to be successful in their academic classes as well. I got that impression from questions we asked admissions at Thornton and know a student who applied last year and didn’t get it in. It’s very competitive academically and musically.
Thank you so much for both of you! I do realize that USC does not offer scholarship for the popular music program for talent in music. And I am wondering about what is the board line grade that USC can tolerate? I think my SAT will be eligible for that school. But my GPA is somewhere between a 3.4-3.5 I am not sure whether that will make me an academically unsuccessful candidate for that music school.
https://news.usc.edu/139338/usc-acceptance-rate-fall-2018-admission/
The average GPA for 2018 Freshman class was 3.86 unweighted on 4 point scale.
Other interesting stats:
Average HS student took at least 7 AP or IB classes
60 percent had standardized test scores at 99th percentile or above
Admit rate was 13%
Of those, 17% are international students
China is listed as one of the most represented of international admits
I’m sure lots of kids that had 3.8 GPAs and 34 ACT’s had to have been rejected. 64,000 is a lot of applicants!
Thanks for giving me these stats. So I the GPA is even higher than last year… Is there a place for music majors to have a lower GPA?
There are always outliers. There isn’t any hard fast rule. It’s not that simple. But, I do understand what you’re asking.
For example, my D had applied to UMiami (Frost) and we had heard that the minimum ACT to be considered was a 28. If you look at UMiami’s stats, 28 ACT is the 25th percentile of freshman admissions. So, SOMEBODY is getting in with a 27, but they have something else “rare” to offer or they got really lucky because the school didn’t get any better applicants to fill seats in a particular major or something like that. Maybe it’s an athlete, maybe it’s a musician… who knows. Honestly, if her ACT was below 28, she probably wouldn’t have bothered trying because of the expenses to travel and audition were so high.
I found an old article (can’t tell if using 2016 or 2017 data) that showed about 18% of those admitted to USC had a 3.5 or less GPA and that the bottom GPA was around 3.0
What instrument you play and the applicant pool that you are a part of will likely weigh more heavily on your chances than any “magic number” you find on the internet. But no matter what, USC is a “reach” for just about everybody.
You could also try the USC forum here to see peoples stats / acceptances / rejections, etc just to torture yourself (ha)
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/
Wow! Thank you so much for spending all this time giving me the information! I appreciate it so much! Do you have other recommendations for schools where I can study songwriting/ contemporary music, and is also strong academically? I’m interested in NYU Clive Davis, Miami Frost and Umich PAT program. I am also thinking about music conservatories but they are not my first choice.
Miami definitely takes kids with lower stats but high talent musically. My D would never have been considered for admission there on academics alone. I think Clive is around the same, looking primarily for huge talent and decent academics.
I’m assuming you are primarily interested in a BM or BFA?
What are you looking to get out of the “strong academic” side? A minor? The ability to switch majors if you have a change of heart? The prestige of the school? The atmosphere?
If you have taken a rigorous HS courseload, you may very well only have 2 to 4 semester long classes of general education classes required. Everything else will be in the school of music (much like a conservatory if you are attending a school of music within a university) but with a different atmosphere.
That UMich program looks cool. My D is a college JR and I’d never heard that one mentioned back a few years ago.
No to Belmont? Certainly not as academically strong as USC or UMiami but usually on every singer / songwriters list.
I assume Berklee would be on your conservatory list?
Here is an old thread that has a lot of “commercial music” info…
Maybe you’ll find a hidden gem there!
Honestly, we had to drop the “strong academics” side of the hunt. If I convert my D’s GPA to a 4.0 scale, it was around a 3.9 unweighted and 4.5 weighted, I think 7 APs, top 5% of her class, but only a 29 on her ACT. She didn’t bother applying to USC but was accepted with scholarship to UMiami. I don’t remember why NYU didn’t make her “list” for applications.
USC looks at both grades and talent in the music school. That being said, in general the music school admits have a lower average GPA that the general admits, but it’s still pretty high. If the music school really wants you, they will make it happen for you, but Pop Music is the most competitive program at USC – not just in Thornton, but the entire university. We were told this by the Dean. For guitar pop performance, they accepted 4% this year, don’t know about singers.
Thank you all so much! Yes I have heard that the USC Popular music program is extremely competitive, I heard it’s around 25/400. And a 3.86 average GPA is so high and I hope that music students like me can have a lower standard. Berklee is indeed on my list of conservatory and I am definitely going to apply since I absolutely enjoyed the summer program there. I don’t consider my GPA as “that” low but it’s definitely lower that USC’s requriement… I am wondering how much does U mich weigh academics (I heard that for music student I only have to fill the minimum, not sure about that). And I am also considering the JHU Peabody’s computer music program because I also produce my own music, has any of you heard of that?
But still… my dream college to attend is USC 
By the way… I know that USC does not offer ED EA, do you think it’s safe to only apply for college with only RDs, I probably need some suggestions on that part as well
Thanks!!!
My kid will probably apply to one school EA, but everything else will be RD. Many music programs don’t even have an RD option. I would not ED anywhere you are not comfortable paying whatever the NPC spits out.
Thanks! I am planning to either ED a school that is better than USC (which I doubt even there is one or not) or EA NYU and RD rest of the colleges. I’m just very worried that my GPA will keep me out of those schools
wow… just found out that there is no EA opportunity for NYU… I guess I will have to EA Miami Frost then… I really don’t know if I should ED or not because I couldn’t think of any schools better than USC for me… But my parents told me that not choosing to ED will make me lose a great opportunity for a higher chance of admission #:-S
“Thanks! I am planning to either ED a school that is better than USC (which I doubt even there is one or not) or EA NYU and RD rest of the colleges. I’m just very worried that my GPA will keep me out of those schools.”
In all probability, no it won’t. My recommendation to you is to practice, practice, practice. Your main competition is the talent pool, your grades are fine and will probably not be the deciding factor.
Here’s the thing with EA/ED for music applicants; there really isn’t one minus maybe a few like Berklee, Loyola, I think Syracuse and a few others. Miami has EA (not binding) but only a very very small number of off the charts academic applicants make that cut. Like kids with a 4.0 GPA and maybe a 35 ACT. And even then they still go through the regular audition. I would really caution you in putting all of your eggs into the USC basket. There are a LOT of great programs out there for songwriters/pop so I’d encourage you to explore them all and apply to many.
Good luck!
Thank you so much!! Yes I am also thinking of other programs that I would like to attend (Eg: NYU Clive Davis, Miami Frost, JHU Peabody Computer Music, Umich PAT) I would absolutely apply to all of those schools, probably a few LACs and put my music as supplementary materials. And of course, I will also apply for Berklee.
Also @Spartandrew since you mentioned Syracuse, I heard about their music program on this site, do you know if there is a program for popular music there?