@Nomorelurker – I didn’t know that CogSci (Cognitive Science, sort of a multidisciplinary psychology) was a very competitive major at USC. College Navigator only shows 30 graduated in it at USC for 2016-2017.
If D18 had applied for Computer Science then, yes, I would understand the difficulty getting admitted.
@droppedit, I may have confused USC with another college we toured where they talked about CogSci as being very trendy due to students majoring in with a pre-med track. In any case, I am as surprised as anyone that USC had such a low acceptance rate (12.5%).
For political science I’d think UChicago is the best of the bunch, academically, anyway. Don’t tie too much ego to these somewhat random admission process of any school nowadays. Not good for your health :). But one thing for sure, USC is getting much more selective in the past few years…
Neuroscience is massive at USC. Cognitive Science is tiny. CogSci is housed in the Psychology department and Psych is the largest undergraduate major in Dornsife. So maybe the competition was also regular Psych students?
@droppedit, I confused the Cognitive Science major with Neuroscience. My bad!