<p>hi all. im in sort of a strange situation. i am in my jr year of HS and am quite worried about college admissions. basically i think i have to go to a jr college cause my grades (2.76 unweighted) and sat (1390) are quite low...but my dad keeps saying not to worry and that im "in" sc. my mom said one of his good friends works at SC....is this possible? ive already mentally prepared for jr college but if sc accepts me im def going to consider going. ive researched sc and have seen/heard about this type of things happening but i thought it was generally a joke. </p>
<p>so my question to you: have you heard of this being true? and if true should i go to sc or just go to jr college? i dont want to feel like i cheated or somehow got ahead of others for unfair reasons...</p>
Can you provide any examples of your research? I suspect this post is a “joke,” but I will respond anyway:</p>
<p>
Nope. I have heard of children of faculty being rejected, however.</p>
<p>Hopefully whomever your father knows at USC will gently inform him that if you did get in you would be sitting in classes where the other students have unweighted GPAs averaging 3.8 and SAT scores hovering near 2000 or above, that would likely be academically disastrous for you. As you suggest, spending a couple of years in Jr. college developing your study habits and test-taking skills would be an excellent idea before transferring to a university as academically challenging as USC.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>*Be sure to update us in March about how your application to USC turned out to assist others doing similar research.</p>
<p>I was once offered admission into a Stanford graduate program because I happened to be taking a continuing education class taught by the program head. Out of the blue she said that I should enroll in the program. When I joked that my grades probably weren’t good enough, she said it was her decision, so I do believe that one person can control things like this. (I didn’t enroll. I already had a Masters from USC, and I didn’t feel like spending the time or money for another one.)</p>
<p>alamemom makes a great point, though. You’ll be in classes with serious students, and you might find yourself overwhelmed. There’s nothing particularly impressive about being a USC dropout.</p>
<p>My point wasn’t really about graduate school. It was that admissions aren’t always based on what people think. </p>
<p>Unfair favoritism in admissions is an issue in many universities. Unless people here know for sure that each USC admit is reviewed and approved by multiple admissions officers, I find it very plausible to believe that some students are admitted to USC based on who they know, rather than proven academic accomplishment.</p>
<p>I think for students well-qualified for the university, employees of the university might go out on a limb (though my observations on this board of many legacies and some children of faculty members being rejected leads me to believe this would be VERY rare at USC, if it happens at all) and advocate for an individual applicant in the manner you suggest, but when presented with a student who has not yet shown in any way that they are capable of handling the coursework that same employee probably would not want their name and reputation associated with that student.</p>
<p>If the student is applying for a talent or portfolio-based major and has displayed exceptional skill, then the grades and test scores become much less important. But this applicant did not mention that he/she is applying to a talent or portfolio-based major.</p>
<p>Again, graduate school admission is very different and faculty members can often hand-pick individuals with whom they want to work. I do not feel this is “favoritism,” it makes sense that they are able to choose the people with whom they collaborate for research and who will assist them as teaching assistants.</p>
<p>It seems every year someone comes on this board with a rumor (friend of a friend, parent’s co-worker’s kid) and wonders if it may be true that there is a insider way to get admitted. As for current times, we have not heard one story confirmed, so there is no evidence on cc that this happens. In fact, as alamemom stated, we have actually heard reports of those who thought they had a sure-thing then NOT be admitted. That has been true for kids of huge donors, kids of celebs, kids of employees/professors, etc. </p>
<p>To be fair, I think an almost-there admit may get a bump from such a connection. If the student has very near-qualifications (like perhaps 3.4 and up GPA, 1850 and up SATs), and a really great hook, they might be offered spring admissions. But this includes recruited athletes, fabulous musicians, URMs, and other hooked candidates.</p>
<p>There is little reason an employee at USC admissions would put his/her job at risk to illegally give a leg up to an applicant who would not be normally admissible, right? Every admission decision is reviewed by a committee, btw.</p>