Hi. I recently committed to UCLA a few weeks ago and I am having intense doubts about it. USC has been my dream school my entire life but when I visited campus, I didn’t really like the vibe. When I visited UCLA the next day, I fell in love. I committed after visiting UCLA but I truly think I made an impulse decision based on one mediocre experience at USC & I literally keep crying every night that I have disappointed myself who wanted USC SOOO badly since I was 7. I am incredibly grateful to attend UCLA but I just can’t help but feel like I made the wrong choice.
UCLA is a better school and you will do well there - i wouldn;t worry about it
You made the right choice. Congrats and be happy!
Decisions are tough. Once you get there you will never look back. And dont listen to other people. USC and UCLA are coin flips. Youll be fine. And youll love it
You have several posts going back a few months that all say USC is your top choice. Maybe it is the right place for you. Call admissions Monday and see if it’s too late to change your mind
Is COA the same for you? I would imagine UCLA be much cheaper, if you are in-state. Academics are similar, prestige (rankings) are the same, so the cheaper one wins.
@futurodehail, there would probably be some days at USC that you would not like the vibe either. On any given day, a school or its students might not hit you the right way or the vibe may not feel as good. Over time, you will likely find that you can be happy with the choice you made. S had two visits to USC in the last year, one of them more positive than the other. He ended up deciding not to attend USC and although he generally loves USC, it was not the best fit for him in the end.
If you literally cry every night over the decision, I would try to switch to USC. I will say that I went to my dream school as a freshman, and ended up hating it and transferring after one year.
OP, congrats on getting into BOTH USC and UCLA. That’s amazing! Both are world class universities, and I think you would succeed at either. If you feel, in your heart, USC is the better fit, I’d contact Admissions asap and try to make it happen. One is a Trojan for life, not merely 4 years.
And one is a Bruin for life too.
If you’re worried about vibe, things change on a day to day basis. UCLA kids get mugged and stolen from too, and tend to compete rigorously for spots as research assistants, teams, etc. Due to USC’s wealth (3rd largest fundraiser in America after Harvard and Stanford), the area is being gentrified rapidly, and academic prestige as a qualitative feature will soon surpass that of UCLA. Either way, quantitatively, USC surpasses UCLA (Higher average gpa, SAT scores, more valedictorians, etc but also in rankings: 21=21 on US news but 15th of the Times higher education ranking, which is the next best thing.
Regardless, if you truly think you can strive at USC because as your dream it motivated you to succeed then that aim will continue motivating you. Plus, the Trojan family is known to be one of the strongest across the US - just check out Poet’s and Quant’s analysis of the same.
Oh, and what you want to study matters too - USC has an amazing film school (Number 1), highly regarded Business school (top 10), and great communications school. If you’re interested in the Arts and sciences part of things, USC isn’t as great honestly.
Best of luck!
@futurodehail Sorry to hear you gave up a dream you had that long, it happens to a lot of students. What did you find out? I agree with the posters that said call USC and see if it is too late. Every day counts. Both great schools but the alumni network of UCLA is nothing compared to USC, Trojan for life is serious stuff that equates to opportunities throughout life. Frankly, people at UCLA just aren’t going out of their way for other UCLA grads. It’s a big public school and just less personal. Not bad, just the way it is at many public schools. Public’s love their sports teams, but a strong network outside of that is not as common and strong as they are from many privates. I do think UCB grads might have a decent network, but that is more about their engineering being strong than a school network. USC, Ivy’s, Stanford, the Jesuit schools and many privates pride themselves on a very strong alumni network and it pays off for everyone. Plus all the perks of a private education - like easy class scheduling and accessibility to everything like research and projects you want to do.
If you go to UCLA, you will find your way there and have a great time, but I hope gave it a shot if you wanted it for all that time. Congrats on having two such great choices in the first place, you should be really proud of that.
Does anyone ever wonder why we make such important life choices based on a liking we had as children with barely any knowledge? Nostalgia really is something.
But OP- Thought I’m a UCLA commit myself, I seriously think you should reconsider if you’re at the point of tears in regret. You’re gonna basically be going into UCLA miserable, unless you can change your outlook sometime soon.
In reality both school will feel very similar. Both are large and the overall atmosphere is very spirited (D1 sports!!!) so if you dislike Ucla you will prob dislike usc. Both attract very similar students.
Hi, I’m like the complete opposite. My aunt took me to UCLA when I was about 13 and I fell in love. I knew that I just had to attend this school someday. However, I encountered many setbacks and didn’t exactly graduate high school. For this reason, I had to transfer into a university. I was accepted to UCLA and USC (but for the spring semester). It had taken me so long to transfer and I didn’t want to wait any longer, so I committed to UCLA. I went to orientation and was “Bruintized”. I had a really bad time though. My experience was likely atypical, but a bunch of things rubbed me the wrong way. They were giving a presentation in an auditorium and somehow there were no seats left, so I sat on the floor. It puzzled me as to why they couldn’t pick a bigger venue, but I got over it. Next, we were to meet with student advisors as they went over our transcripts/transferable credits. Somehow, my advisor forgot about me and I was literally the last person to be seen. We had to make our way back to the dorms in order to register for classes, but since my advisor had taken longer than what was expected to see me, I was making my group late. I had to make a mad dash up the hill to catch up with them. My transfer group was pretty small (about six people). We were told that only 2 students at a time were able to enroll in courses. My student advisor decided that since I was the last person to get to the dorm, I should go last. I felt this was quite unfair because it was his fault that I was late! The final straw was how course registration went. We were handed a list of classes to choose from (even electives) and told not to deviate from this list. I wanted to enroll in a Spanish course, but it wasn’t on the list. My advisor did not let me register until I changed this. Just to appease him, I put random classes from the list of approved classes and created a schedule full of classes I didn’t want to take. There were some that I genuinely wanted to take, but they had filled up—likely because I was the last person in my group to have a shot a registering. After this night, I withdrew from UCLA and decided to attend USC. I had actually never paid a visit to USC, but my gosh, was the difference astounding. I had such a great time. Course registration was a breeze. I enrolled in every single course I wanted to take. I was even able to add classes that were not in my school/major—something that could have never happened at UCLA (at least according to my student advisor). It was a nice way to demonstrate the private vs. public school experience (when it comes to picking classes). Nobody was telling me what courses to take; I had complete freedom. While I may have been Bruintized, I was so pumped about becoming a Trojan that day. I don’t regret my decision picking USC over UCLA (even though I knew very little about USC). Whew, sorry for the long story, but this was just my experience. Like has been said, dream schools may not always be what you think they are. While I had a blast at USC, it’s possible that you could dislike it. Maybe I just picked the wrong date for UCLA orientation (but the experience was bad enough to have an effect on me). No two people will have the same experience.
LOL 
All part of the fun of life at the big U
I wrote about this in my hints for attending UCLA; get to large lecture classes early at the start of the quarter because people hoping to add the class will fill up the seats so unless you are there early you will sit in the aisle.
I think one bad orientation leader is a poor reason to judge a whole school. There have been many exceptional NSA’s that lead orientation groups.
I’m sure that’s definitely been the case, but the way they treated me that day definitely made me feel like just a number. An orientation is supposed to be the time where you convince students to attend your institution; not drive them away. I was no longer excited to attend a school that had been my dream institution for so long. When we had one-on-one meetings with our advisors in Covel, I was literally the last one there. Literally. The dozens and dozens of other transfer students had already finished their meetings and were off to register for classes.
I have nothing against UCLA. Some of my favorite professors at USC got their degrees from UCLA and I myself would not mind going there for a PhD program someday. It’s just that at the undergraduate level, the school did not seem to be a very good fit for me.
It seems the OPs original discussion has been resolved. Thanks everyone for the inciteful opinions regarding choosing between Ucla and usc.