@Mysonsdad @CADREAMIN ditto. No portal change or email according to my D
@MidwestMom2Kids_ according to last year notifications were sent in batches. Even a Deans scholarship would help, so our fingers are still crossed.
@CADREAMIN thanks! I needed to hear that.
Hello, I found out I was accepted as a Trustee finalist, but I am also a NMSC semifinalist. I read through the recent posts and found answers regarding presidential and NMSC semifinalist, but not trustee. In my case, should I just put some other school as my NMSC first choice then? I’m a little confused…
Congratulations to all of you and your kids who have been admitted already and will be interviewing for scholarships or about to get the Dean’s. It is highly highly competitive, and gets more so each year.
I want to point out to those who have equally great applications, equal or better stats, fabulous individual awards and accomplishments but are disappointed you didn’t get a scholarship invite, that USC Trustee/Pres invites are the equivalent in insane odds to being admitted to Harvard or MIT or Stanford or you name it. They invite about 3.5% of those who apply by the deadline. Crazy! But the thing is—it is likely you will be admitted to USC in a few months, if you have similar stats, and not only that, many of you will get into Yale, Northwestern, Duke, Harvard, Cal Tech, etc etc. And history has shown that for many of you in that hyper-elite stat category, you may just want to choose one of those other lottery schools in the end. About 30% of those who actually are awarded the Trustee end up turning it down to attend another school, so there is that. . 
It can feel like a real blow, but it’s time to be resilient and a little patient.
For those of you applying to USC’s most selective Schools (like SCA), there is no way to predict how decisions for scholarships are made. There’s less than a 4% admission rate for SCA altogether, and from that pool they select a small percent to interview. I’d guess they invite 4 out of 1000 SCA applicants to interview for the top scholarships, and most of the decision will be placed on what unique talent/attribute/voice you’ll bring to the program as shown in your submissions.
Questions about NMF…
@catzxo, there are several reasons that I believe an applicant’s NMF status is NOT considered when invitations are being sent to interview for Trustee and Presidential.
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USC can’t know who will be receiving NMF by the early date (Dec) they are making merit scholarship decisions. And there is no obligation for a student to list NMSF unless they do so voluntarily on the app.
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As stated before, each School gets a certain number of invitation slots and they make their own decisions on who gets to the scholarship finals. In several Schools, talent and initiative and other non-academic aspects can become critical decision points. The School/Major is trying to lure the students they think will be leaders in their department, so the needs of the major hold a lot of weight. Therefore, for those Schools, auditions, essays, supplements, portfolios and outside-of-HS accomplishments, awards and honors are keys to getting noticed. These decision makers in each School are less interested in stats (SATs, GPAs, APs) than you would think. So while there is likely a recommended range for these top awards as guidelines (within the top 1-2% of test scores, for example), once that bar is cleared, each School will have their own desired needs. They often don’t pay any attention at all to NMSF, if it’s even mentioned on application.
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Dornsife is a different matter, since the USC Admissions office handles decisions in these majors and also undeclared. But again, they have no way of knowing who will be declared NMF and don’t tend to pay too much attention (from past decisions).
The reason we can logically know this is there seem to be NMSFs who are invited to interview for Presidential, or even get offered Deans–which seems fairly odd since the scholarships cannot stack. If you are NMF and come to interview at Explore for the Presidential award, you are hoping to be one of the rare candidates who might get bumped up to full-tuition (trustee) status. If you are awarded the Presidential, it does NOT STACK. It will be replaced by your NMF Presidential when the final NMF paperwork is processed. It’s not USC’s intention to mess with you–so it must be they don’t have the ability to track who may be up for NMF.
Again, congratulations to this year’s lucky and talented crop of invited scholars. We’re rooting for all of you now and in March.
@madbean s got email regarding no “big” scholarship but received SDA Open house postcard invite. Thoughts?
@tennessee1 Here are my stats! http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19219533/#Comment_19219533
I am also a National Merit Semifinalist (likely a Finalist), a National AP Scholar, and an AP Scholar with Distinction. I’m sorry that your son wasn’t a finalist for the scholarships; he seems like a very promising student.
I got accepted yesterday and called USC this morning to ask about scholarships since there was no info inside my folder. They said scholarship info would be mailed within 1/2 days but I checked my USC portal and my scholarship info for Deans scholar was up there
Received the Dean’s scholarship notification on my portal. I had my hopes up because the package they mailed me had a “Trustees Scholarship Finalist” booklet in it, but oh well… 
Still grateful for the acceptance, but I’m not sure I can afford to go.
I didn’t get any scholarships I kinda expected not to but its still a bummer. I had a 32 act, 4.0 unweighted GPA, a bunch of college classes under my belt, and a bunch of extracurriculars. Also some really passionate essays and I’m pretty sure my rec letters were good. Oh well, hope I get in in April 
I also hope my being homeschooled didn’t affect it negatively.
@riverbanks I thought those students who don’t get accepted into a interview mandatory program just get into USC as an undeclared student
Does anyone know what it takes to get bumped from Presidential to Trustee? I’m Viterbi btw, 2380 SAT, 3.8 UW and 4.35 W
Thank you for the info @madbean!
I had a 34 ACT 4.0 UW and 4.6 W and got nothing danced for 14 years, volunteering, ap scholar, have a job, and nothin
@Usccurious, re: the SDA Open House postcard. In the past receiving this unassuming postcard invite has meant the student is admitted. I hesitate to put this out there, since there is no way to predict changes in School policies. However, the SDA Open House is held in April and is intended to woo admitted SDA students to select USC. It includes panels, Q & A meetings with the department, and free tickets to the Musical. The year we attended, only admits were present and from the standpoint of kindness, there is no earthy reason I can think of why a university would invite a student they do not intend to admit to an admitted students event AFTER (presumably) they receive admissions results and they are a “no.” Of course, we’re talking about a large institution and not everything runs perfectly smoothly (a Deans Scholar here reports she found a Trustee booklet (accidentally) inserted into her admissions packet) but I would be quietly and cautiously hopeful. And I’ll whisper congratulations to your S as I expect the policy stays the same as always.
@syd0898 , sorry to hear that, you sound amazing! Not sure it helps, but you are in the company of about 30,000 others that applied early and did not receive anything, many with stats like yours. It is a brutal process for you guys cause I think you are led to believe it is pretty easy to get one of these. You are at the top of your class, lots of APs, ECs, leadership and did all the right things. Probably sacrificed a lot of fun in high school to hit those marks. It may have not paid off in this particular instance, but it will. You will have some great choices and USC may be one of them when March rolls around. But truth is, I know plenty with stats like yours who weren’t even accepted in recent years. In a holistic review, it can be a crapshoot as someone described it earlier. They are looking at so many things you can’t control besides the ones you can. Hooks like where you are from, race, URM, first gen, whether you are international or not, plus uniqueness compared to others in this class, in that major, etc.,…all you an do is submit a great application and see what happens. It does not diminish all you have done. It will pay off. Hang in there, these next few weeks can be exciting but stressful, full of ups and downs, it’s not all fun like “High School Musical” and Disney would have you believe. But you will end up at the best place for you in the end, truly, it happens.
From Jersey and accepted into USC with merit scholarship Still waiting for other schools but still very excited!!
So has anyone else here received the postcard like @Usccurious yet?
@fireball99 asks: Does anyone know what it takes to get bumped from Presidential to Trustee?
There is no one answer and it’s all conjecture, but here are a few things to keep in mind:
- You are competing against the other candidates in your major/School for a set number of Trustee and Presidential scholarships. Each department will decide, after all the Explore interviews, who among the group impressed them the most as the perfect student for their department/major.
*Sometimes, you and the interview panel just “click,” and when you talk about your (research/ internships / travel to Greece?) they can see how good a fit you are for their particular program (maybe they have just received funding for research in your exact area of interest like AI; or maybe the company you interned for is a super start up and impresses them; or maybe they are about to offer a new Greek History course in your major). Whatever it is, sometimes you get very lucky. One student I know had read/loved a book in her field and it turned out it was written (!) by one of the professors on her interview panel. How do you prepare to be that lucky?
*Sometimes you luck out in how many invitees don’t come to Explore in your School/Department. By chance, perhaps your major has a low turnout, meaning the odds are ever in YOUR favor. Cool!
*Sometimes the others who are interviewing in your particular major really (really) prefer another university. They have yet to hear back from Harvard or Yale, for example, and so they come to Explore but are looking down their nose at USC. It happens. So if their attitude shows up during their interview (it happens!), they may fall lower on the panel’s list.
*However, if you want to go to USC badly and the only way you can afford to attend is by getting Presidential or Trustee, and this is REALLY TRUE, it cannot hurt to let your panel know that USC is your dream school, #1 choice, favorite university for this major, but of course, your family NEEDS this great merit award to allow you to attend. In some majors, there will be many equivalently fabulous candidates. How can they tell who is dying to come to USC and NEEDS that $$ from those who are so-so on USC and really really hope they’ll get into Yale or MIT (and probably will). Be careful not to look desperate. Not to beg!! And just be sincere in how you present your enthusiasm.
*It is painful for us observers on CC to hear back after the merit decisions are announced from students (all fabulous) who have been— bumped down. But it happens of course. So while you are in the honeymoon phase of being invited to interview, it’s important to keep a level head. This is just the next stage of a very high-stakes competition. For many of you, being able to afford attending USC is on the line, but the best advice is to not let it get to you. Be a strong competitor, feel confident in your qualifications, show your enthusiasm (if sincere) for USC and the field you love, but realize there will be some winners and some losers in the $$ at the end.
*Last bit of advice: USC (all highly selective colleges) is looking for what each student can bring to the university. The Presidential / Trustee interviewers are looking for what each student can bring to their department or major. This is not how most applicants to college look at the process. They get excited by what USC or Princeton or ? will give to them. But my advice is to change your mindset a bit for the next phase (interviews). Look carefully at your application–essays, etc–and try to imagine what your major saw that you bring to them. Then think of how you can show that part of yourself to the panel. If you wrote an essay about starting a non-profit to bring eyeglasses to poor children (and you applied to Marshall), be prepared in the interview to talk about how you’d like to expand on that when you get to USC. Or how the leadership skills you learned doing that will be used at USC to start another company. Figure out how you can show them you have more to bring than just a list of your past accomplishments.
And best of luck.
@miwo331 Hey! I’m in the same situation (having receiving the booklet titled “trustee scholarship finalist” but then receiving the notification on the portal about getting the Deans scholarship instead). Have you figured it why this is by any chance? I called the office and they said they would get back to me “soon”.
Still happy about my acceptance though