<p>hey! i received a lot more money to attend USC than i did from my #1 school, and this is going to be the toughest decision i have to make. I just wanted to hear from current students, grads, or incoming freshmen what draws them to USC because I just want to make sure I make the right decision. My #1 school is Bama if you were wondering. It would just kill me to give up all the money I got from USC, and I am trying to look for positives to reassure myself I am making the right decision!!!</p>
<p>How much is the merit scholarship from South Carolina? Is this a university scholarship or a dept scholarship?</p>
<p>Do you have any questions in particular?</p>
<p>I have a few things that I love about USC, but I also have a few things that I really don’t like about USC.</p>
<p>Some Pros:
+Urban location, but the campus is really nice itself. You’re within walking distance of a lot of great downtown shops and restauraunts and Harbison (where the mall is and a LOT of shops) is a short drive away. Yet, while you’re on campus, you don’t feel like it on most parts. Walking through the horseshoe every day is really a highlight to my experience at USC.
+Opportunies. There are a lot of opportunities here in every aspect of college life. There are hundreds of clubs to get involved in. There are a lot of local businesses to get internships from. There are tons of study abroad options. There’s the opportunity to meet a lot of great people from all over the US and world. Since the school is 40% out-of-state, you definitely have the opportunity to learn about other people’s culture and realize some things about yourself. I’m starting to realize just how many differences there are between South Carolina and other places in the US.</p>
<p>Cons:
+Housing. There isn’t enough on-campus housing for students. 900 upperclassmen who applied for on-campus housing this year will not get it. I have a lot of friends who still don’t know where they’re living next year, because they planned on living on-campus and didn’t get anything. They’re also really disorganized. They always say they’ll send out an email, yet they rarely do. During my signing-up experience freshman year, they kept putting off when they’d finalize assignments. I called to complain because I still didn’t have an assignment, yet they were allowing other students to already switch rooms and things like that. The housing itself isn’t bad. It’s actually really good in fact, and housing will work with you to change rooms, but the people who run housing really need to be more organized.
+How spread out some things are. The engineering building is a mile from my dorm. I’ve had back-to-back classes that were a twenty minute walk apart. (There’s 15 minutes between classes).</p>
<p>While I think AUGirl did a nice job of summing up the basics, I’d like to throw in a personal story.</p>
<p>I only applied to 2 schools, College of Charleston and USC. CofC was my first choice; in fact, USC was more of a joke that I applied to just to throw in an extra school. When it came down to it though, CofC ended up being far too expensive, and offered very little scholarships, while USC offered me in-state tuition plus some extra. I was so torn-up about this decision, but in the end I went with USC because I just couldn’t force myself to go further into debt. The first time I stepped on campus was at Orientation in June and it took all of 10minutes to fall in love. The campus is so beautiful, and it’s a big enough university that for someone like me (undecided major at the time), there were all sorts of options to choose from. I have never regretted coming to this university.</p>
<p>Things to think about:
- Is is a big financial gap? Are you paying for college on your own, or are your parents? How much financial assistance do you expect to receive from the FAFSA or other scholarships?
- Consider the things that made Alabama your first choice. Does USC also offer these things? Are you willing to compromise on these things for the financials offered at USC?
- Make the decision that’s best for you, but in the end it really isn’t worth it to take out all of those loans. I promise you that you can get a great education at either school, but you don’t want to come out of college and be in debt. In this sort of economy, it’s a really dangerous situation to put yourself in.</p>
<p>I hope that helped.</p>
<p>I agree that housing is a mess in terms of having enough. One note on size…as of 2013/14 no classes will start before 8:30 AND there will be 20 minutes between classes in recognition of how spread out campus has become.</p>
<p>Wow you are blessed. My daughter has 7 APs, 4s on AP Lang and US History exams she took junior year, 1960 super score SAT. 1280 combined cr/math, 3.8 for junior year taking 6 academic courses including 2 APs, 4.4 first semester Senior year with 5 APs including Calc AB, Micro and Macro Econ, Lit, Env Sci and Govt, won an all district lacrosse player award junior year, long time commitment to lacrosse including travel all through junior and high school, but a 2.9 GPA fresh and soph year at a very competitive private school so apparently that was counted at face value. Same thing happened to my son who attends South Carolina and he had a 3.9 GPA at the end of his sophomore year at south carolina with As in Calc and Stat and other tough courses. He had no APs since he graduated from that private school. In fact his score on their math placement test was so high he was told it was one of the highest ever. Moral of the story. Never send your kids to private school in Northern VA.</p>
<p>Oops forgot – no money</p>
<p>USC was also not my son’s origional first choice. He was my our suprise accepted at his first choice college with a $14,000 scholarship, a private college that most people would probably consider a tad bit more prestigious than USC. He has also offered what was essentially a free ride from another (lest prestigious) college.</p>
<p>But after carefully weighing out the pros and cons of each school, USC just seemed to be the right fit. It wasn’t the most expensive or cheapest school, it wasn’t the easiest or hardest to get in, it wasn’t the closest or furtherest from home. But like in the Goldylocks story, it was just the right fit for him. The ultimate deal maker was the quality of teachers for his particular major.</p>
<p>He hasn’t regretted his decision, not for one second.</p>
<p>imagep, i made my own list of pros and cons, the pros are definitely greater for USC. one of the major things was the degree I will get with completing my major. I am really happy he enjoys it, my brother goes to USC too and loves it which is making me more confident in my decision (:</p>
<p>We are from Florida, and my son is a music major (all-state symphony, yada yada). He auditioned at 5 Florida colleges and USC, and got in every one - including the very highly ranked (musically) FSU, plus UF with a nice scholarship. These are in-state schools for us and his tuition would be $0, but he simply fell in love with the music school, the professor of his instrument, and the campus at USC. Bottom line, he got into more presitgious schools at least for music, with people he knows, with much better financials - and he is going to USC. He got a nice scholarship and an OOS tuition reduction, yet I’m still looking at a bigger hit than any Florida university. As a parent, I want him to be happy so we will make it work…hope that tells you something about USC, Charleston wasn’t ever on his short list.</p>