<p>phanta,
There is no evidence that spring admits have lower grades or test scores than fall admits. You are making an assumption.</p>
<p>Berkeley also offers spring admission.</p>
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<p>Of course - USC refuses to give that information, so no one can say definitively either way. But my conclusion is what is generally assumed to be true, and indeed I’ve never seen anyone contest it: spring admits are those ‘on the edge.’ The alternative conclusion is either a) the spring admits are stronger on average, or b) the spring admits are the same on average, which would essentially mean that spring admits are randomly chosen. (a) is extremely unlikely, and (b) doesn’t make sense at all (USC must have a method in deciding who is a spring admit and who is a fall admit).</p>
<p>Since we don’t have any data on it, we have to rely on logic and probability, and this is a relatively easy conclusion to make.</p>
<p>Many colleges/universities now have spring admits. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor students leave for health, financial, academic or personal reasons. With students arriving with many AP classes many now graduate in 3 1/2 years.</p>
<p>The Director of Admissions at Skidmore college was quoted as saying there is no difference in the quality of spring or fall admits.</p>
<p>These are some other colleges/universities that have sping admits:</p>
<p>American
Northeastern
UCSD
Berkeley
Skidmore
Brandeis
Wheaton
Colby
Maryland
Hamilton
Clemson
Rollins</p>
<p>I know that there are other schools that use spring admissions, None of them, save for perhaps Berkeley, aspires to be in the top-20 any time soon. It doesn’t say much when the schools you’re comparing USC to are either public or generally ranked far lower than USC.</p>
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<p>That’s Skidmore, not USC. I also doubt the veracity of the director’s statement. He/she might also consider lower stats not to be indicative of lower quality, which many don’t.</p>
<p>Just look to the discussions of spring admits and to the results threads, at USC or at other universities. People generally agree that spring admits are edge cases.</p>
<p>If what you’re saying is true, why does USC refuse to include them in its average SAT/ACT/GPA? Why are no statistics available on them?</p>
<p>Wait. You have an unsupported theory and refute the statements of another university’s Director of Admissions? So you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing?</p>
<p>Not only is there no proof that students on WL or spring admits have lesser scores/GPAs than regular admits, but it doesn’t even make great sense. We often see students with lower stats admitted to USC (as self-reported on CC each year) than ones who are not admitted (again, self-reported). With holistic admissions, this is always going to be the case, otherwise top schools would simply admit from the top of the stat pool. Done. </p>
<p>However, for the sake of argument, even if those taken off the waitlist at WL schools, or those admitted in spring account for less than 10% of the total matriculants each year. If their GPAs, for example, were even as much as .2 lower than the regular pool, this would only lower the total admit average by .02. 2 hundreths of a percentage point. Instead of average 3.8, there would be an average 3.78 or rounded to 3.8. And those are a whole lot of assumptions which I think are unsupported to begin with. This is a non-issue.</p>
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<p>:)</p>
<p>I’ve always found it much easier to win arguments when I don’t bother with pesky things like facts.</p>
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<p>When someone calls out my post, I will respond. Georgia Girl brought up an irrelevant point about the director of admissions at a random East Coast school that couldn’t be more different from USC. I know you would prefer I not point out the flaws in that reasoning, but it must be said.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure how this is relevant. It’s entirely possible for spring admits to be lower on average than fall admits, while some higher-stat students get rejected altogether. Regardless, your statement that some lower-stat students get in over higher-stat ones is useless (that’s the case at every top school…). On average, admitted students have higher stats than those rejected, as seen here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/1112/USCFreshmanProfile2011v4.pdf[/url]”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/1112/USCFreshmanProfile2011v4.pdf</a></p>
<p>In order for the average admit stats to be higher than the average stats of applicants, higher-stat applicants must be more common in the admit pool. Notice also in that document, USC makes sure to say “Fall enrolls” or “Fall admits,” rather than include all first-year freshmen. Why does it do this, madbean? Why not include the data for all freshmen? I notice USC is also fine including spring admits in fall applicant #s; sure, no student applies for spring admissions (so technically everyone is a fall applicant), but including them in the applicants but not the admits artificially lowers the admit rate. Do you agree that this is disingenuous?</p>
<p>Honestly, in the context of other discussions, USC affiliates freely admit that spring admits are the ‘edge cases,’ the ones just above the accept cutoff. Yet when it’s suggested that USC is intentionally not including them in its stats because they’d probably bring the averages down (and raise the admit rate), some of them will fight tooth-and-nail to avoid that conclusion, even though they know it’s probably true and indirectly admit it in other contexts.</p>
<p>I notice no one is addressing my point about the admit rate. Do you agree that USC’s acceptance rate is over 20% this year? And do you think it’s okay for USC not to include in its acceptance rate those ~1,000 students it accepts each year for spring?</p>
<p>I agree with you phanta that USC needs to put an asterisk next to its admit rate that it does not include spring admits. Those kids should be waitlisted instead. At present, USC has three tiers of students: freshmen, spring admits and transfers. I’m not a fan of back door admissions. USC has become a private Cal, IMO.</p>
<p>Emory (Ranked 20 USNWR last year) recently admitted that they misrepresented its SAT Scores of incoming freshmen - instead, it reported the “accepted” students’ numbers. Also, Emory’s Class Rankings of enrolled students was also overstated. </p>
<p>[Emory</a> Announces Findings in Data Review | Emory University | Atlanta, GA](<a href=“http://news.emory.edu/special/data_review/index.html]Emory”>Emory Announces Findings in Data Review | Emory University | Atlanta GA)</p>
<p>If Emory drops in rankings (USNWR) because of the false numbers, then USC could potentially move up a notch. I guess we’ll find out soon. Last year USC was ranked 23 (tie).</p>
<p>I think that as USC continues to climb the USNWR Rankings, it should see an additional jump in applications.</p>
<p>U.S. News rankings will be released on September 12, 2012. Keep in mind data used is from 2011 or before for this year’s edition.</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe Emory has been lying for over a decade and no insiders knew. They should drop at least five spots for cheating.</p>
<p>'I notice no one is addressing my point about the admit rate. Do you agree that USC’s acceptance rate is over 20% this year? And do you think it’s okay for USC not to include in its acceptance rate those ~1,000 students it accepts each year for spring"?</p>
<p>My impression is that USC staff and the majority of students/parents are grateful and flourishing in the vibrancy of the day-to-day academic, social, and emotional growth occurring. This is their immediate experience and focus. For others, an emphasis upon their university’s place in external ranking systems with unsubstantiated validity. Quite a contrast.</p>
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<p>Actually there are 4: fall admits, spring admits, transfers, and successful rejection appeals.</p>
<p>If the yield reflects fall enrolls, that’s not the same thing as fall admits. The latter is what I’m interested in - as the admissions office announced it would, and then did, accept the same raw number of fall admits as in years past despite a large increase in applications with the common app. The result being a very pronounced decrease in acceptance rate - perhaps the interim goal.</p>
<p>Again simple curiosity. I just returned from 4 days at USC with my child moving into freshman housing and am nearly as excited as she is.</p>
<p>@phantasmagoric: waitlist is not more ethical than spring admission. Some colleges waitlist exponentially more students than there is space in the entire freshman class - Duke to name one. These students spend the summer hoping for a call, while a handful (or none) is cherry picked by admissions officers.</p>
<p>Sorry if this is a silly question o: But in the op it was mentioned that the projected average SAT score for this year would be around 2150. Whether this is speculation or not, are these figures listed superscored? Thank you ^^</p>
<p>2012 Freshman Profile shows that the admit percentage was 20% and the yield was, as always, 33%.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/1213/USCFreshmanProfile2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/1213/USCFreshmanProfile2012.pdf</a></p>
<p>Have to look more closely when not on my phone but these data appear to take the entire freshman class number (fall admits, spring admits moved to fall, successful appeals) as a percentage of fall applicants and call it yield. I was interested in initial fall admits and the yield percentage only of that group.</p>
<p>I think you mean the entire freshman class number as a percentage of fall admits = yield.</p>
<p>I’m a little curious about the information you’re seeking too. OTOH, I don’t think it’s useful at all in comparing USC to anyplace else since many other top schools use early decision to improve their “statistics”, by filling a significant percentage of the freshman class through ED (should be close to 100% yield for the ED group). USC has no ED at all. It’s an easy way for any school to improve its yield stats…just “gaming” the college ranking system in a different way. For example: Penn 47% of freshman spots filled thru ED, Columbia 45%, Northwestern 40%, just to cite a few that I came across in a quick Google search. And some schools are hoping/planning to even further increase the percentage of freshman admitted through early ED. So the “yield” comparison will become even murkier as rising yield may simply reflect this higher percentage of ED admits and nothing else.</p>
<p>Bottom line though: D is thrilled to be at USC. All the hand-wringing about rankings, admission stats is behind us and pretty irrelevant to the great experience she’s having so far. There’s no statistical measure of much of what USC has to offer. Any serious applicant needs to visit to sense the energy of USC. We only knew about USC on paper before our visit in April, and now we can’t imagine her being anywhere else!</p>
<p>but i got in with 1790…so it cant be THAT hard right…</p>
<p>^^ I got in with a 1630…</p>