Not Everyone Can Be A USC Undergrad

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
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<p>I laugh whenever I hear people compare USC with Harvard, Stanford, etc. USC’s curriculum needs to be more rigorous. The faculty needs to be more excellent. The students need to be more accomplished. To be academically recognized, USC needs to produce more than just one nobel/fields medal winner. The faculty needs to be more innovative; they need to publish more. I don’t sense the publish or perish mentality that exist in the faculty at USC. </p>

<p>I perception from non-Trojans is that USC is not on the same level academically as a Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, etc. USC is severely lacking the cut-throat, drink fire out of a fire hose, competitive reputation. USC will never achieve ELITE status until is is able to improve in these areas.</p>

<p>Solving these problems will take years or maybe even decades. That said, USC is moving in the right direction. Admitted students stats needs to keep improving. A larger endowment will allow USC to recruit the best and the brightest faculty. We need to get rid of mediocre faculty who cannot teach or is not publishing.</p>

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<p>Comparing USC to Harvard, Stanford, etc. is not that unreasonable - especially when you look at specific programs. For example, USC is ranked at the top along with Harvard in public policy and is actually ranked higher than Harvard in engineering. Not to mention top notch programs like film and music that are considered the best of the best. USC needs to beef up in the hard sciences for sure, but to dismiss it outright in its position with other top schools is misguided.</p>

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<p>I would argue music and film are not considered “core” academic departments. The reason for HYPS’s success is because of their highly ranked hard sciences, social sciences, and humanities programs.</p>

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<p>Stanford and harvard are on a different level. I don’t need know about “publishing more” since 99.99% of what is published by even the elite schools isn’t even read… These people collect huge paychecks for writing things that have nothing innovative in them at all. </p>

<p>“is severely lacking the cut-throat, drink fire out of a fire hose, competitive reputation” That’s probably true for USC but is for most schools even the ones I assume you think are elite… Like I said people get paid for writing garbage no one reads and have nothing innovative in them.</p>

<p>“We need to get rid of mediocre faculty who cannot teach or is not publishing.” Yes that is a problem but you can’t fire tenured professors which makes it harder to hire new one to replace them.</p>

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<p>I made this comparision before. </p>

<p>USC is to Stanford as Northwestern is to Chicago</p>

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<p>*comparison </p>

<p>Another one is NYU is to Columbia.</p>

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<p>The condescension, it’s blinding! Please do USC a favor and get over yourself, plenty of good schools have many transfers, like Emory.</p>

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<p>[In</a> Defense of USC | The Unofficial Stanford Blog](<a href=“http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/11/in-defense-of-usc.html]In”>http://tusb.stanford.edu/2011/11/in-defense-of-usc.html)</p>

<p>The experience that followed was anything other than what I might have expected. The classes were incredibly engaging and dynamic; the campus was extremely welcoming and filled to the brim with excited students advertising their interests in every culture and activity, and a night on the infamous 28th street left me wanting more.</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>Which begs the question – why do so many Stanford students seem to harbor such resentment – whether legitimate or in jest – toward our private Pac-12 peer? Why do we feel the need to put down USC at every possible opportunity?</p>

<p>One of the primary complaints I’ve heard against our SoCal neighbor is rooted in the rumored “spoiled children” attitude and their alleged sense of wealth and/or entitlement. My jury is still out on this one: on the one hand, more than 64% of students receive some sort of need-based assistance from USC; on the other hand, anyone who hangs out on campus long enough will soon notice the markedly higher percentage of luxury cars speeding down Figueroa Street, designer handbags dangling from tan arms, and – if you look carefully – maybe even the flashing of a Black AmEx or two. I will admit, from my observations, Trojans do tend to be a little more up-front about what they can afford. That said, I would be curious to see just how similar USC’s socioeconomic profile looks when compared to Stanford’s; despite our tendency to rock the esoteric start-up t-shirts and rumpled jeans look, it’s tough to argue that there isn’t a sizeable demographic of wealthier students buried under all of that casual, Northern California attitude.</p>

<p>Another misconception I’ve heard railed against USC is their apparent lack of diversity. This was something I’d always felt to be true about the school growing up. Seeing many friends and classmates from my hometown attend USC perpetuated in my mind the truism that a sizeable portion of the USC student body is from California – Southern California specifically. This fact lends itself to an image of a homogenized, stereotyped-“Californian” student body. And while, admittedly, many USC students do fit the tan, blonde-haired, blue-eyed mold, many more do not. USC claims the largest population of international students in the nation, and more than 55% of the student body identifies themselves as students of color. And, we –as Stanford students – should recognize, even people from geographically close places have very different stories to tell.</p>

<p>And then there’s the partying. I feel like a lot of Stanford students (for some reason unbeknownst to me) feel the need to look down on USC for their heavyweight social scene. If, for a moment, we can put aside the politics of Greek life, alcohol consumption, and sexual health and instead focus on aspects like the strong football/athletic culture, the downtown LA location, and a very community-oriented student body – it’s tough to argue that Trojans don’t hold a remarkable sense of pride in their school or know how to have a good time. And for people who are looking for a memorable party scene in college – what’s so wrong with that? Are Stanford students jealous? Maybe it’s the idea that hard partying is intrinsically linked to lower academic standards, but USC still beats the odds on that front too. When it comes down to it, USC is a strong academic institution. With almost 20 different schools of study, including the noteworthy Marshall School of Buisness, Leventhal School of Accounting, USC School of Cinematic Arts, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Thornton School of Music, and Ostrow School of Denistry, USC has a lot to offer for students with specific fields of study in mind. What’s more – kids very clearly want to go there. USC’s acceptance rate dipped to 23% in the most recent admission cycle, and, with this year’s transition to the Common App, many speculate that those numbers will fall considerably lower. And, from what I can gather from ProFros, I would guess that for every Stanford student who applied to Harvard, Yale, or MIT, there is at least one who applied to USC.</p>

<p>Which brings us back to that question: why are we hating so hard on USC? I hope that my observations of USC insults are merely in a competitive spirit. Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for friendly rivalry and really enjoy the exciting tension that builds during insane games like that of last Saturday. But for those of you who look down on USC just because – I hope this changes your mind. And if it doesn’t – I urge you to spend some time with Trojans. Most are very cool people once you get to know them. And for those of you who choose to completely discount everything I’ve said here – then please just be the bigger person. If you think USC students, alumni, and fans really are that bad, then don’t match that stereotype by hating or stereotyping. Prove that, as a Cardinal, you are better than that. For fear of sounding like the desperate assembly-girl from Mean Girls, I’ll end on this note: USC isn’t so bad. In fact, while I love the rivalry, I think if you put our laid-back, inventive Northern California ying with their high-energy, big-spirit Southern California yang, we’d have a pretty sweet alliance. So Fight On, Cardinal.</p>

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<p>Being somewhat familiar with both Stanford and USC, right now I think there’s not a huge gap between the students. Stanford professors are still at a whole different level, though.</p>

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<p>alamemom, always a fan. However on this, I may disagree with you. Your data may not be relevant. It is against a large population of different schools. If we have data for top 25 schools, we will have better ideas on whether transfers will impact school quality.</p>

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<p>Simba.</p>

<p>There is plenty of good profs at USC but many of them just don’t teach enough. They have sweetheart deals about how many sections they can teach so they can focus on “research” and they get semesters off all the time. If they could be persuaded to be more active in teaching, USC would be a lot better off.</p>

<p>i would think that the gap between students is bigger since Stanford accepts so few of them. If USC cut class sizes and have trustee/presidential scholarship(about 600 get one of those every year) quality top to bottom than the gap would be minor.</p>

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<p>Nothing can replace the unique experience as a freshman at USC. You will forge bonds that first year that will last a lifetime!</p>

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<p>I personally don’t think it’s completely unreasonable to compare USC to Stanford.</p>

<p>Our growth is practically exponential so yes, we’re playing catch up. But I’d rather set high goals than the ye old comparison to UCLA/CAL. Trust me, in a year or two we’ll easily be above them in rankings. The current US News ranking doesn’t take into account the 2012 admit data, in which USC moved to common app and our acceptance rate plummeted below 20%. </p>

<p>Be that as it may, I have two points.</p>

<p>1) If we’re going to become like Stanford, we need two things. More money, less admission. This has been beat to death for sure. I feel like quality professors is not a change that we can make at this very moment, and the introduction of super-star quality professors will have poor returns for their “cost” so to speak. Professors will gradually improve as the schools status improve. Instead, raise more money and reduce admissions rates. Improve the quality of the student body and the school improves in a directly correlated way.</p>

<p>2) Comparing USC’s atmosphere to other schools in the elite, however, is dumb. I got into U Chicago and a couple other “elite” schools, but I chose USC for a reason. We don’t need to tone down the Greek system or partying. Our football culture is amazing. Our traditions die hard. Yes, Harvard and Yale have snooty culture. That doesn’t mean that to become elite, we need to become like that.</p>

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<p>Why would great students go to a school with good, but not great, professors?</p>

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<p>Com…you are right on. USC is the Harvard of the West in one singular attribute: we are the oldest private university West of the Mississippi. We produce more well rounded graduates than any other private university in the American West. And we produce business leaders who create jobs. USC built Los Angeles 50 years before the Normal UofC campus was created.</p>

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<p>

Says who? Nobody would deny that Wash U is extremely selective. In fact, it’s usually ranked just outside the top 5 for selectivity according to USNWR. Most people also wouldn’t deny that it’s less prestigious than Penn or Chicago. The reason? Its faculty isn’t nearly as strong. Getting good students just isn’t enough if you really want to be an elite university. “Build it and they will come” only works to a limited extent. </p>

<p>It’s easy to buy Nobels. It’s a lot more impressive to produce them. USC’s research output has traditionally been pretty mediocre, and that’s only slowly changing. </p>

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Nope. Edit that to California and you’d be right. </p>

<p>I don’t really know what that says, anyways, except maybe that it’s interesting that universities founded later like Stanford achieved worldwide prestige while USC stagnated.</p>

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<p>Given USC was established without an endowment (as compared to Stanford), its achievements are remarkable.</p>

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<p>Both of you are wrong. There are a handful of universities in California that claim to be older than USC. </p>

<p>[Oldest</a> schools in California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_schools_in_California]Oldest”>List of oldest schools in California - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>This goes to show that many comments on here are made up purely to further one’s school.</p>

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<p>Good faculty attracts students, not the other way around. I have never read or heard a professor say he wanted to teach at a certain school because some student was attending there. That is silly.</p>

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<p>USC is the oldest private research university in the west. Keywords private and research.</p>