USC: Can I get in?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>USC: Can I get in?
USC is my dream school, and has been since I was a little kid. I am a senior at a catholic private high school in California, and these are my statistics. </p>

<p>GPA: 3.97, 3.78 unweighted
ACT: 34 composite (32 reading, 32 science, 34 math, 36 english, 8 writing)
SAT II: 710 Bio-M, 710 Math II
AP Tests: Biology 4, Psychology 4</p>

<p>I have played waterpolo (jv/v) for all for years, and I have swam too, but I am not good enough to get in on sports.</p>

<p>I worked for 2 years as a busser in a restaurant</p>

<p>I am also in a lot of clubs in my school.</p>

<p>This year I have a hard schedule, 7 classes including AP
Chem, gov, and calc, and I should get all A's with the exception of gov. </p>

<p>I want to take the math II test again and hopefully get a high 700-800</p>

<p>With these stats, do I have a good shot at USC?</p>

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<p>You should be able to. Great stats and test scores, ECs are mediocre. But being a cal resident, they may place preference on you. Write a good common app essay, and the supplement essay for USC is pretty easy.</p>

3

<p>you have a pretty good chance, although a total of 5 APs is a bit on the low side. nice ACT score though.</p>

<p>@scscience: state residency has no bearing on an individual’s chances at being admitted to USC, as it is a private university.</p>

4

<p>Actually being an out of state resident would be helpful. From California, not so much.</p>

5

<p>You should get in.</p>

<p>However, USC is tough to get into.</p>

<p>My friend’s son got into Wash U and Michigan, but not USC</p>

<p>My brother’s son got into Cornell, but not USC</p>

6

<p>I don’t claim to know a lot about USC admissions, so be sure to keep this in mind when you’re reading this post…</p>

<p>Here’s an “interesting” study of a public [high school in CA](<a href=“http://www.pvpusd.k12.ca.us/penhi/collegeacceptance/collegeacceptance2010.pdf”>http://www.pvpusd.k12.ca.us/penhi/collegeacceptance/collegeacceptance2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;). (Perhaps interesting only to a few.) USC decisions start on page 94.</p>

<p>There’s a disconnect here because you attend a parochial school rather than public. But perhaps you can glean some info about your chances from this study:</p>

<p>Look at candidates 669, 740, 792, 793, 887, 930, 968, 976. These are typically high-score and high-gpa students who were rejected. But I’m sure that some of these might have applied to USC’s specialty schools like Viterbi. So in other words, you’d undoubtedly be taking a large chance if you specified your major in one of these on your app.</p>

<p>If, say, USC looks first at scores and later gpa, then know that amongst these students that applied to USC, effectively no one was rejected with your scores. Add that you have a good uw, and that should help you considerably.</p>

<p>Note, too, that private high schools don’t have bunches of AP’s that excellent public schools have, so you have a good reason why there’s little difference between your uw and w gpa. So here’s the way differences in gpa work between public and private high schools:</p>

<p>WGPA:</p>

<p>Excellent Public School >> Private School</p>

<p>UWGPA:</p>

<p>Private School > Excellent Public School</p>

<p>Also, what helps you, too, is when I have glanced at the USC website on admissions, it appeared that there were greater acceptance rates for private-school over public-school kids.</p>

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<p>In general, I think OP has a really good chance at getting into USC (as long as you are not talking about the specialized programs). However, it is difficult to predict with limited information about class rigor and EC’s. For example, our area catholic high schools offer (on average) more AP classes than our public schools. Thus, it is hard to tell how rigorous OP’s schedule was/is. Did OP take 5 AP’s when 10+ were offered (and taken by the average honor student)? </p>

<p>I hope you get your dream, OP, but apply broadly for both financial and safety reasons and choices. Also, apply by Dec. 1 at USC to be considered for scholarships.</p>

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<p>My school offers 9 APs so is taking only 5 of those bad? Ones I didn’t take are euro, us, Lang, lit</p>

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<p>thank you for the info drax12
very interesting</p>

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<p>Thanks drax12. Really reassures me to see that all those kids with test scores similar to mine got accepted. And yes, the reason my unweighted and weighted gpa are the same is because of multiple reasons. 1. Frosh and soph honors classes were marked honors, but weighted as only 4 points. 2. We are forced to take classes without weighted option (I.e. Spanish, religion, physics, fine arts, geography, computers). 3. my school only offers a total of 11 weighted classes (9 APs, and 2 junior honors). I have taken 7 of these. I think that unweighted Gpa is a better representation of intelligence and work ethic rather than weighted just for these reasons; the kids who don’t have the opportunity to get a cume GPA of 4.8+ (max at my school is a 4.39)</p>

11

<p>Absolutely, waterpolo426…</p>

<p>I was thinking of including the tougher standards within private schools wrt weighted course grading, but I didn’t want to make my post any longer than it ended up being. I"m not sure why they don’t just release the restrictions; there must be reasoning behind it. And undoubtedly, USC already knows this.</p>

<p>One other factor you can consider is how many students USC takes from your high school. If it’s on average 10% of the senior class, and if this should continue, you’d be placed even better towards your admission. </p>

<p>I’d only warn you against overconfidence, which you don’t seem to manifest. Things could happen.</p>