I was accepted to UCLA on Friday with a 28 ACT and 4.1 UC GPA (3.85 UW for USC), following a request for supplemental info which I used to discuss my Girl Scout gold project, humanities education/background and experience growing up gay and with a disability in a southern state. UCLA is not an option because of finances, and I’d really been hoping to get into USC, but they’re both reaches- I was honestly shocked when I found out about UCLA, and while I don’t want to get my hopes up and think this means anything for USC, I’m curious to know if there’s generally overlap in acceptances/rejection between the schools? Is USC more or less holistic? Do a lot of people who apply to both get into UCLA and then get rejected from USC, or vice versa? Sorry if this is a dumb question…
USC and UCLA admit similar, overall, calibar students but their emphasis are different. USC puts more emphasis on the scores than UCLA, which emphasizes more on GPA. However, even in GPA front, USC accounts for the freshman year marks as well as the seventh semester’s, where as UCLA has least interest. Now if you had a stonger freshmen and seventh semester grades, then you can have a better chance in USC.
Unless you can secure substantial financial aids, USC would not be any cheaper than UCLA even for OOS students!
I have an older sister who was admitted to another private school which database comparisons show is less generous with grant financial aid than USC-- she was still offered an extremely generous package, so I am not too worried about that aspect. My seventh semester (which I was able to submit to UCLA with the supplement) and freshmen grades were both good, so I hope this works in my favor! Thank you so much @uclaparent9 !
I was accepted to USC early with a scholarship and UCLA two days ago. From my understanding, USC puts more emphasis on students with spirit and who are willing to explore interdisciplinary studies. Because of this, it tends to be a little bit easier to get into USC than UCLA for undeclared students. I don’t wan’t to get your hopes up but usually if you have gotten into UCLA, there is a 90 percent chance you will also be admitted to USC.
@scoolcat congratulations on your scholarship and acceptances!! that’s really amazing 
and yeah, I applied undeclared to UCLA and to communications (Annenberg) for USC. I really hope this is the case… I talked about wanting to do pre-law, research and media advocacy in my essays. And again, congratulations!
if you talked about those three different subjects I have a very good feeling about your admission. Keep me updated!
@scoolcat I got rejected from USC this morning.