My Son will start USC Spring semester. What experiences do you/your children have at Richmond, American Unv London?
Might check out post 144 here. Just one view but perhaps you can put up other questions on this thread to that posters attention…
@chesterfield1 You may want to have your son talk to one of the Spring Admit student ambassadors. He can find one who went to Richmond.
Richmond u London is known as a school for rich kids who couldn’t get into a"real" London university. Nothing like USC. (Also, it’s not IN London.)
If you really want to go to a rich kids’ school-resort for a semester, try American University of Paris or Franklin in Lugano.
My DS was a spring admit Fall 2016. He chose Richmond because as a Freshman he felt it would be an easier transition in an English speaking country. And we had recently visited London on a family vacation and loved it. He had an unbelievable experience and says he wouldn’t change a thing. Richmond is small. You live on campus next door to the building you take class in. There were about 40 other USC kids, some were spring admits and some were TTP. The USC kids form a bond although my son said there were a couple different groups of USC kids based on personality, etc. I helped him choose classes very carefully using the USC transfer credit site. Between his AP credits and the classes at Richmond that gave him, in some cases, double GE credits (again we chose very carefully), he had only 1 GE to take once he arrived at USC. He took the Freshman Seminar that he needed Spring semester and then he needed WRIT 150 which he took Fall 2017. The classes were not too hard. He took 5 classes and got 3 A’s and 2 B+'s. He traveled a ton. He signed up for a couple Richmond sponsored trips, one to Florence and one to Scotland. He also traveled many other weekends and during the October fall break with other USC kids at Richmond. They booked their own travel or I helped book flights and hotels in some cases. He did the orientation in Paris, with all the other Study abroad spring admits. He went to Dublin, Sweden, Amsterdam, Prague and even jumped out of a plane in the Swiss alps. He loved his travels and the classes were somewhat interesting. He went to pubs in London as well as night clubs. He is a very mature kid and did not overindulge, but I believe some others may have. After arriving at USC he felt it was interesting to get the different perspective of British professors vs US Professors. Yes, Richmond is not a top University in London, but one of his classes in IR was taught but a prof who also teaches at London School of Economics. I was disappointed that the EU students did not mingle much with the USC kids, but they did a bit. The area is beautiful. I went with him to get him settled and it is definitely a strange feeling dropping your kid off in Europe but we explored the area together and while he was doing orientation things I toured castles, Wimbledon and signed myself up for a day trip (by myself) to Bath and Stonehenge. My son is more worldly and experienced because of this experience. He had his wallet stolen while we were traveling together before the Richmond drop off, which was probably a good thing. He then knew to be more aware while traveling with friends. The experience of Freshman first semester abroad was incredible. He matured immensely. He has the traveling bug now. He went to Tokyo with Marshall the spring he arrived and traveled to Europe for spring break. He loves USC but is very grateful for the opportunity to study abroad his first semester. He said he is glad he was a spring admit. While at Richmond he actually contemplating staying, but when December came alone he was glad to be going back to the states and starting USC in January (unlike many of his TTP friends who had another semester in London. I could go on and on. Let me know if you have more specific questions I can answer. Also, he had a 4.0 and 34 ACT with tons of EC’s. Spring admits are not low stat kids!
^^^ great informative post. Sounds like a wonderful experience. Agree about the stats, same with TTP students. It is more about not enough room than lower stats in both cases.
@CADREAMIN Thanks (my first post and hate all the typos after rereading) Oh well. DS18 is another potential Trojan (still undecided). Hoping to make a decision after Cal Day this weekend. Went to Bruin Day last weekend (then Ubered to USC to visit brother DS16 and walk around campus to refresh his memory.) USC was dead (coachella) while UCLA was very vibrant since it was Bruin day after all! DS18 is a Presidential scholarship recipient (interviewed), but has some very nice options (Northwestern, WashU, WF, UCSD, UCSB). I think he has narrowed to USC, UCLA or UCB. It has been very stressful!!
@map888 What an exciting and stressful time for your house! All fantastic schools. We went through that with our second USC student. Bruin day was impressive and Cal was never really in the running as it didn’t click with him. In reality, it was probably all USC once that package came, but he did give the others a shot. Good luck, it’s a great problem to have. Let us know if you end up with a Cal sticker, one of those house divided window decals, or don’t need to get a new one. 