<p>Iowa is more creative writing and less english lit per se.</p>
<p>But basically any top 50 school that focuses on liberal arts and not engineering or science is going to have a good program.</p>
<p>As far as I know, USC is science school and UT is not really what comes to mind when I think of quality liberal arts.</p>
<p>One thing you could do is check what the most popular majors are at each of the schools you're looking at. The more popular the major, the higher the probability that the program is good.</p>