@schoolmother My Dd thoroughly enjoyed TS weekend. The interview was not super stressful. Make sure your student is in business dress with comfortable shoes (lots of walking and may not have an opportunity to change.)
@SchoolMother He received the McNair and accepted it over UVA (Echols), Vanderbilt and others. 5 years later, I can say that he has no regrets with his decision.
To clarify my previous response, he had one interview with a panel a 3 people.
USC does a great job with the Top Scholar weekend. Just get to know the other candidates and enjoy the weekend.
@atlkaw6 Do you mind expanding on the “no regrets” thing? I’m probably going to be faced with a similar decision, so it would be nice to hear from someone (or the parent of someone) who already chose. What did your son do at South Carolina, what sort of opportunities did he have? Did he find other very smart kids? Was he challenged intellectually? I don’t want to have any regrets either, haha.
@lesjubilants Initially he was interested in USC due to the #1 Ranked International Business Program, the #1 Ranked Honors College, the beautiful campus, SEC football, the school pride and the chance to be a Top Scholar.
At the Top Scholar weekend, he was surrounded by smart and intellectually gifted students. Some of his best friends were at the Top Scholar weekend. In addition, the honors college is filled with many kids who could have also been Top Scholars. Another plus is the design of the honors college dorm makes it easy to meet other students. This, combined with the Top Scholar network, made the transition from high school to college seamless for my son. He was also assigned an upper-classman McNair Scholar as a buddy the summer before the start of school to answer any questions and help with the transition.
Financially, in addition to the McNair Scholarship, he also received the Leiber Scholarship for being a National Merit Scholar which stacked on top of the McNair scholarship. Therefore, he was able to graduate college debt free.
Academically, he graduated from USC in four years with a triple major (International Business, Finance & GSCOM) and a minor in Spanish. He was able to do this because USC is very generous with AP credits. His high school AP exams translated into 52 college credits. He was part of the Finance Scholars Program which admits approximately 20 rising juniors each year and prepares them for top finance careers. The program has 100% placement and the career fields are the following: 50% Investment Banking,20% Consulting, 20% Credit Risk and 10% Asset Management. USC is also ranked in the top 10 in Supply Chain and my son graduated with a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification as a result of a consulting project he worked on his senior year. My son ended up taking a job as an investment banking analyst.
The study abroad program at USC is excellent. Many students, especially in the honors college study abroad for at least one semester during their college career. My son was part of the International Business of Americas (IBA) Cohort Group and spent 2 semesters abroad in Santiago, Chile. While in Chile, he visited several other countries and had some amazing experiences including Machu Picchu and Patagonia. He also took a separate month-long study abroad trip to Spain to learn about Spanish culture. He is now an experienced world traveler and is confident traveling the world by himself or with friend.
Socially, he played intermural sports, joined a fraternity, was part of Freshman Council and participated in a student mission group that built schools in South America.
Some areas that my son did not take advantage of but other Top Scholars did was undergraduate research and the pursuit of National Fellowships and Scholarships such as Fulbright, Goldwater, etc. The office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs does an excellent job of helping students who are interested pursuing these.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have additional questions. In summary, if you work hard, you will have numerous opportunities and faculty and staff to assist you.
I know this was not directed to me but this post is so helpful. My daughter did get in the Honors College but did not get Top Scholars. She is a National Merit Semi-Finalist (Feel 99.9999% positive that she will be a finalist - letters mailed this week). She is planning the same major, IB with GSCOM and most likely Spanish. I think she is 80% on attending USC. It is really helpful to hear about other students like your son.
I doubt anyone would “regret” attending Univ of South Carolina Honors especially if you are a Top Scholar participant. I mean you get a solid undergraduate education for almost free. The fact is since most people who had choices did not take the other road, it’s hard to regret the road you did take. For example, I didn’t enjoy too much attending Cornell but do I “regret” it? No way. I realize that I would have not enjoyed any college because to me at that age, I just didn’t like to study too much. And if truth be told, I only went to Cornell because it was basically free because – ironically it was free for me due to my poor financial background. When something is free, you can have 4 years to think about what you want to do with your life etc. Not a bad option to have for a lazy bum that I was. They had good food and great library so I could read all kinds of books, go to cafeteria to eat at any time, shoot some hoops and hang around with some people when I wanted to. Studying was the last thing I thought of doing. But I feel I learned a lot even though I got bad GPA: I learned about African American lit, Asian American Lit, Women’s Lit, Milton, James Baldwin, Comp Sci, Econ, Bio etc.
I always tell good NMF bound students or their parents from CA that I happen to bump into to consider applying to several Honors Colleges that offer nearly free education whether or not they can afford private colleges because they are almost certain to get into Honors Colleges if they have top GPA and test scores so they can first get into them and then decide later whether to attend depending on the result of their applications. Also, getting into one or two Honors Colleges gives you more confidence that whatever happens to your other college applications, you have a good option waiting for you.
Also, when it comes to giving you college credits for AP tests, Univ of South Carolina is so much easier than let’s say Stanford. My kid could just get college credit for Spanish because he got 5 on that, whereas at Univ of South Carolina, he could have gotten college credits for at least 5 courses.
One thing that stood out to me at TS weekend was how accomplished the student representatives were. As they discussed all of the opportunities outside of the classroom they had been involved in, it highlighted their formation as future professionals, not just students.
I had the opportunity to hear @atlkaw6’s son speak. He is a very impressive young man. He, and other TSs like him, left little room for doubt about the strength of the students and the success of th TS platform.
@atikaw6 than you for sharing so much detail.
I would love to hear experiences from students who attended the HC and majored in humanities. The strength of the business program is well documented. The more traditional liberal arts is not. Anyone out there?
@vamom23 My dd is an IB major, but she is a humanities girl at heart. She can’t officially declare her humanities interests as majors bc she doesn’t have the flexibility in her schedule to complete them as doubles, but she is pursuing them as electives and minors. She has taken several honors sections of humanities courses. I am not sure what you want to know. She has enjoyed almost all of her classes. The classes she hasn’t enjoyed are due to subject matter, not the class itself (if that makes sense.)
Any Top Scholars out there that majored in Bio Chem or more health profession type majors? What was you experience?
@Mom2aphysicsgeek Thank you for responding. I am looking for experience from students who have majored in humanities. What the classes were like and what opportunities were available at USC for research and beyond. The business and health professions receive a lot of accolades, but there is nothing out there about Humanities majors. He has written to the Philosophy and Classics Departments for more detailed info on majors and course offerings beyond the intro level.
@Vamom23 My Dd entered USC at a 400 level in Russian. It is one of the areas shenwould declare as a major if she didn’t have to deal with the additional core outside of business. She is a freshman and is getting ready to start research (more like a long-term project) and it is actually in the Russian dept, not business. Languages are where are heart really is (she is in the CIFA which is the French business focus). IB is the path she is taking to achieve the other goals she has. Anyway, she had no problem getting involved.
@ cheeringsection One of my dd’s closest friend is planning on med school. I am not sure what her actual UG major is. She is a Carolina scholar. I would say it seems like the TSs cross majors, but from listening to Dd talk (no real data here, just what she mentions), there are a lot of STEM focused students.
Thanks @Mom2aphysicsgeek !
These are really great posts! Thank you everyone!
I have been trying to persuade myself to let my DD go to USC with one strong concern of her major - studio art. Anyone know of any students majoring in graphic design? what opportunities were available at USC for art students? Study abroad opportunity/internship for art students? How strong will an art major student graduating from USC be?