Perception of USC outside SoCal

<p>I live in Southern California, and I was just wondering what the perception of USC throughout the nation is, since I think our view of it is here is warped by its proximity.</p>

<p>At least at my school, and I'd think most probably throughout SoCal, USC is considered quite an excellent and "good" private school; some of the individual schools, like Marshall for business or the film school, are seen as really good and at the top in that field. I'd say that on the super-subjective "prestige" scale, USC falls in between the Ivys & Stanford and UCLA & UC Berkeley, which, perhaps along with UCSD, are commonly considered the "best" UC's (this isn't, of course, to say that the education is worse at any of these schools, but it's just the common opinion).</p>

<p>So how is USC perceived elsewhere?</p>

<p>yes the088, your preception is pretty accurate. It's considered a good (but not excellent) private school, rising everyday. It used to be just another school, but recently it has been rising in the ranks. Most people know USC for its film school, and many consider it at the level of
TIER I: Ivys/Stanford
TIER II: USC
TIER III: Berkely and UCLA, thought I know many californias would bicker that UCLA and berkely deserve to be higher up there, but then again berkely is 90% californians and ucla last i checked was 96% californian, while USC is more diversed.</p>

<p>Not to offend anyone from CA, but I am from Boston and have been admitted to USC for freshmen year. BEfore I look at the US news top100 colleges&universities, i have never heard of USC, but so as UCLA, UCBekeley, and other UCs. After I have known them, I asked people in my school and most of them only know UCLA and USC as universities of hot girls (and no one even heard of UC Berkeley). So I guess these UCs and USC are only well known in the west coast.</p>

<p>i live in seattle, and go to a catholic school, and people are in LOVE with usc from my school (20 applicants from a 240-person class). Our school is filled with preppies, which is unfortunately why so many of us like the USC style stereotype of preppy stuck ups lol. People in my class would absolutely die to get into usc and the competition between us becomes pretty cutthroat during the application process. We have people applying to all the different usc programs (las, marshall, music, film, bac-md, engineering). 4 of the 20 were accepted.</p>

<p>i live in illinois. usc isn't seen as very good, except for its film school. it's kind of considered to be a second-rate ucla full of spoiled californians, and not worth the money.</p>

<p>my personal opinion is pretty different, though. : )</p>

<p>Here in NY - NYU is the sought after school for film/cinema . We never heard of USC (except football) until a second cousin ravings made us check it out 3 years ago and then we were pleasantly surprised. Doing the USC tour hooked my son. Before that he was looking at UCLA, but then he found USC film/cinema superior to them. Still, this year only 3 kids from his HS are going to USC (all 3 had high stats and were accepted). Majority focused on NYU with more rejections than acceptances.</p>

<p>I live in a suburb of Houston, and they think of it as "that school in the ghetto with a good football team." They view everything in terms of UT:Austin and Rice, though, and don't actually look at anything out of state.</p>

<p>From a hiring standpoint: if you are competing for a job on the east coast against grads with degrees from well known east coast schools and the people doing the hiring have never lived...gone to school...or worked on the west coast then forget it. With that said...I live on the east coast and my son is enrolling at USC this fall. Why?(given what I said above)...because I have worked my entire career on the east coast and whereas the school might not open doors for him here I can. If he decides to stay out west after graduation that is where the USC network can open doors. Make sense? The film school might be an exception to the above.</p>

<p>Just a note to tell y'all a personal experience of mine! </p>

<p>I went to visit USC this spring and my dad got a t-shirt there. I'm not even sure if I'm going there yet. But my dad wore the shirt to a regatta (rowing competition) I had one weekend and some strange guy came up to him and was like, did you go to USC? And my dad said no, but my daughter will probably go there. And the guy was so nice and gave us his business card and said to call him if i ever needed a job on the east coast, etc. etc. It was a really nice gesture. </p>

<p>That's just a perspective from someone who lives in very very Southeast Georgia, since you wanted to know about outside SoCal.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Not to offend anyone from CA, but I am from Boston and have been admitted to USC for freshmen year. BEfore I look at the US news top100 colleges&universities, i have never heard of USC, but so as UCLA, UCBekeley, and other UCs. After I have known them, I asked people in my school and most of them only know UCLA and USC as universities of hot girls (and no one even heard of UC Berkeley). So I guess these UCs and USC are only well known in the west coast.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Anyone who doesn't know about UC Berkeley is probably lacking a large portion of their mental faculties. That's absurd. If only to know Berkeley as that "school where liberals are." Sheez.</p>

<p>"and no one even heard of UC Berkeley"</p>

<p>Wow! I know a lot of folks from India. Their dream schools outside of India are MIT and UC Berkeley.</p>

<p>I personally know at least two kids who turned down MIT and accepted Berkeley.</p>

<p>
[quote]
and no one even heard of UC Berkeley

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ask you friends if theyve heard of "Cal" - You know, the Golden Bears (pretty good football team last year)...cause I bet they have....SAME SCHOOL!</p>

<p>Most people from California probably don't realize the sort of collective blind spot most east coasters have about the west coast. Many otherwise educated people, especially from NYC area, are ignorant of all aspects of California including the incredibly high quality of the state schools such as UCB and UCLA. This has very important implications(as to the choice of a college) for any California resident who wants to pursue a career that would most likely land them in NYC i.e. a career on Wall Street. This is very relevant to the topic of this thread as too the perception/name recognition of USC away from So. Cal.</p>

<p>My son is in the USC film school. Many folks in the DC Metro area weren’t really familiar with the school (except those of us who remember the Nixon administration) when he applied in 2002-2003 although the football team may have resolved that problem. However, USC is now attracting an increasing number of applications from students in the DC area's public and private schools. Not all the students are actually going for a variety of reasons, it's very far away, it's expensive, the state schools (UVA, CWM, UMCP) are pretty good, but an increasing number of young people are applying because they aware of the opportunities USC offers.</p>

<p>Krazy:</p>

<p>You do know that the largest number of non-Californians at USC are from Texas? It was explained to me by one Texas parent: "it was as far away from Texas as my kid could get."</p>

<p>And to confirm, I'm from Texas and seriously considering USC.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies; I was just wondering because I grew up thinking of USC as this wonderful school ranking right up there with the Ivys on the prestige list, and it's only recently that I realized that that's not the way SC is seen elsewhere.</p>

<p>And also I'm considering going to school outside of California, so it just seemed like an interesting topic.</p>

<p>I'm aware that Texas and Hawaii are both at the top of USC's non-Californians list, but it makes sense that there's lots of people from TX if only because it's so big. I know one person there who's there for theatre, but mostly because his dad is an alum; his brother in my grade is opting for the ever-popular UT:Austin path. When talking to my friend from SoCal's mom, she told me she "didn't think of USC as a tech school," (I'm majoring in computer science) although she is familiar with the school. No one else from my school even considered applying except for people in music, and they're violinists who want to study with Midori who was just hired there. None of them ended up applying.</p>

<p>I'm not saying that USC isn't a good school, but it seems everyone I know sees the world as made of UT, A&M, other-schools-in-Texas, Ivies, MIT, and Stanford. A few acknowledge the existence of good UC's.</p>

<p>I do want to get away from Texas though; I only applied to in-state schools because I have some sort of obligation to do so.</p>

<p>Well from my experience, in Austin, people are crazy about UCBerkeley and a lot of ppl from my school applied there.</p>

<p>Most people don't know about it, and would assume that it's a public state school. Other more educated people immediately think of the strong film school.</p>