<p>USC is pretty high on my list, but my parents are worried about safety.</p>
<p>Visit with your parents and take a tour. They need to see for themselves - I doubt that reassurances from anonymous posters here will convince them.</p>
<p>It is safe enough, you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Our girls had no problems. USC is a few minutes from LA Live and Staples. Very different from 15 years ago.</p>
<p>Our D is a freshman, she is loving USC…and I feel she is very safe. The University is aware of safety issues and takes an active approach to the issue. So does the city of Los Angeles. I feel USC is as safe, or safer than other urban campuses.</p>
<p>the area directly around usc is pretty safe, there are always dps( department of public safety?) officers around, and i dont really think any ‘gangs’ would really hang out around the university… but if you go maybe 5-10 blocks off campus, in the wrong direction, then yea it will start getting a little less safe… all in all, youll be fine i think, i felt extremely safe there, and never had a worry, and i lived off campus :)</p>
<p>USC is a great school unfortunately it is located in south central LA. USC has more police than the green zone in Iraq. Students can’t walk 3 blocks off campus to get pizza and a beer at night. It is what it is. USC should sell it’s campus and buy some land elsewhere but it wants to be part of the solution to the poverty in the area. It’s a noble idea but at some point you have to understand the problem is too large for USC to fix and you have to do what’s best for the students and school. I pray for those injured last night.</p>
<p>[Shooting</a> at USC Halloween party leaves several wounded - latimes.com](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Archive blogs)</p>
<p>Sorry emberjed, I was going to post that I thought it was relatively safe from a parent’s perspective but after last night, I’m pretty much right there with your parents. This shooting incident happened right in the middle of the campus too at the student center - not off campus or at the edge of campus near the sketchy neighborhoods.</p>
<p>OP, my son is also interested in USC. However, I am just like your parents - worry about campus security around USC. After reading the link on Hallowean party shooting on campus, I am even more worried.</p>
<p>There was also a shooting in Hollywood.
[Police</a> probe Halloween shootings in Hollywood, Pacoima - latimes.com](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Archive blogs)
These things happen anywhere.</p>
<p>4beardolls and other prospective parents- I think it is important to realize that violent crime can happen anywhere. I live in NC and several years ago the student body President at UNC was murdered. I grew up in Virginia. Blacksburg was considered a small town, yet the unspeakable happened on the VA Tech campus a few years ago. </p>
<p>I understand your hesitation but I am here to tell you that the USC education and experience is worth the extra hazard of living in what some would consider an unsafe area.</p>
<p>My DS in a sophomore currently studying abroad in Japan. I have been so amazed by the one-on-one support he has received from his First Year Advisor and his Study Abroad Advisor. Both worked very carefully with him on his course planning to ensure that this semester in Japan would not put him at a disadvantage with his Computer Science major. This is just one small example of why if I had to do it all over again, I would send my son to USC. </p>
<p>So please, be sure to weigh the good with the not so great when helping your child make their decision.</p>
<p>I posted a longer response in another thread about the shooting from my current student perspective but I’ll just say here that I think that USC is still a relatively safe campus. It’s not really black or white regarding the ideas that “violence can happen anywhere” and “USC is in a dangerous and ghetto area.” Yes, both are true statements to be honest. </p>
<p>Could USC do a better job protecting students? Sure. Is it possible to totally protect you son/daughter no matter where they go? No. Sorry I can’t help more but students here are grappling with the safety issue at the moment as well. All us current students can do is continue being smart with where we go, who we associate with, and keeping our wits about us in possibly dangerous situations. With dangerous situations being anywhere and everywhere at anytime, not just at USC.</p>
<p>I went to Virginia Tech and that school holds the record for a mass casualty incident on a university campus. The issue there is the gun culture in parts of rural America. In the 80s in the Blacksburg area if you assumed everyone you met was carrying you were more likely to be right than wrong. LA is very safe for the vast majority of residents.</p>
<p>The question is not can crime happen anywhere? Of course it can. The question is, is south central LA a safe area. The answer is no. Would anyone posting here move their family and live 5 blocks from USC campus? Can students walk off campus after dark to eat pizza in the area surrounding school? Do student need to be back on campus after dark to be safe? Why does USC have the largest police force of any campus? Is your daughter safe if her car breaks down 5 blocks from campus at 10:00pm? Are there other schools that offer a similar education in a safer surrounding? Do you want to put your child in this environment?<br>
IMO USC needs to move to a better location.</p>
<p>^ A student was brutally murdered by another student, right on campus, at bucolic UVA. Lovely, quiet Amherst in a “safer surrounding” has, from what I read, a very ugly side. </p>
<p>That said, I’m not sure I understand the rationale for allowing a student group to partner with an outside promoter to host a large party on campus that seems designed to attract nonstudents. I would guess that is not going to happen again soon.</p>
<p>My kids have never had any incidents of violent crime to them or any of their friends while they have been at USC from 2006 through the present. </p>
<p>It does sound like someone used poor judgment to allow a huge party on campus which attracted non-students in this unusual incident which occurred last night. I am sure it will NOT happen again and that MUCH care will be taken to figure out what mistakes allowed the huge event to occur in the 1st place.</p>
<p>Violence can occur anywhere–remote, urban, and in between. USC is a great place–visit with your kid and see how you all feel about it. The area surrounding campus is quite nice and I feel very safe when I go to visit. My kids feel safe there as well.</p>
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<p>Yes. I live five blocks north of campus and there are families everywhere (27th street). The Neighborhood is nicer than the one I grew up in (Brooklyn, NY).
Yes. I’ve done it. Rosso Oro’s.
No. There is a HUGE swath of off-campus student housing and businesses from jefferson up to adams, from vermont to figueroa that students are constantly walking around on. The Row, where USC’s greek orgs are based, is three blocks off campus.
We do not have the largest police force of any campus. That honor belongs to NYU. We’re not even top 5.
Yes. The AAA of Southern California is six blocks from campus, so your daughter might actually be helped almost immediately.
Yes. Columbia, UPenn, Drexel, Johns Hopkins, the list goes on.</p>
<p>IMO you need to stop fearmongering. USC’s neighborhood is not nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I understand that if you’re coming from suburbia the urbanism might be off-setting, but I cannot think of a single time where I have felt threatened walking home from class or in my neighborhood at night.</p>
<p>This shooting was because an outside organization promoted an on-campus event to non-usc students, which SHOULD NOT have happened. The shootings last year were more than a mile from campus, far past the campus police patrol area.</p>
<p>USC strives to make campus as safe as possible for students, and they’ve done a great job so far… however, if organizations don’t play by the rules and create a dangerous situation, then that is not USC’s fault, but the organization’s. It is ridiculous that 1500 non-usc students were gathered at the campus center attempting to get into an USC student organization event - LA Hype, the company promoting the event, ****ed up big.</p>
<p>Actually, the exemptions to the rules about no loud and large parties on school nights past 10pm should NEVER have been granted in the 1st place & having such a large crowd of non-USC community on campus late at night is inviting TROUBLE and DANGER. Hopefully this will NEVER happen again, as it shows a HUGE lapse in judgment by the administration.</p>
<p>From what I heard, the administration knew nothing about it - the student org hosting the event told the administration one thing and went out and did another (or at least their partner organization promoting the event did)</p>