I called admissions today because I wanted to sign up for the Experience USC program and they told me the portal is tomorrow
Yes. 1/26/2017 at 1 AM PST.
Could someone please clarify for me? I applied to USC before December 1st, have my portal information and everything. I have not recieved a letter or any update in my portal. Does this mean I have been deffered or rejected? Also, does this mean I did not get any merit aid? Thanks for the help!
I think we all might need a reminder (based on a glance through the admissions stats page) that this isn’t personal, or the end of the world.
Not hearing this week is not a rejection. Whether or not you need scholarships to make USC possible, not getting scholarships does not equate to being rejected. It just doesn’t… I know it might sting, and it might (might, because they do continue to offer dean’s in regular, and you can apply for independent scholarships) feel that way, but it’s not the same. You’re going to confuse future applicants by posting things like that.
Even if you feel like you were taken out of the running for an unfair reason, not every school will do the same. I know that feeling: if this was your first school, I promise you’re going somewhere great.
College admissions come down to chance on top of qualifications. It’s a bit like Calvin Ball. You never know what’s gonna be worth twenty extra points and a high-five, and what’s worth -200, but you can bet it’s sort of arbitrary. (I’m not saying those who got in didn’t earn it, to be clear. You did. It’s just that there’s an element of luck on top of the extraordinary stats and ECs)
(you guys are lucky, I spared you the 12 paragraph version of this)
**Decision: Accepted **
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1470 New, 2160 Old
ACT (breakdown): none
SAT II: none
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Probably like top 40-50%, very competitive prep school
AP (place score in parenthesis): English Lang (4), APUSH (5), AP Chem (2), didn’t include AP chem lol
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Micro/Macro, AP Calc AB, AP Physics 1, Honors Philosophy, Honors Government
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): none
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): cross country/track, a lot. yearbook editor. lots of other small stuff they probably don’t care about.
Job/Work Experience: delivery boy
Volunteer/Community service: Habitat for Humanity, mission trip and stuff
Summer Activities: Running camp, summer school
Essays (rating 1-10, details): 9, this is probably what got me accepted with the Trustee scholarship finalist. If you can’t tell, my grades and scores are pretty average for a CC user. My essays were all very intellectually curious since that’s the kind of person I am. I think they really liked them.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): 8, didn’t read them but they’re probably good
Teacher Rec #1: English, probably real good
Teacher Rec #2: Math, probably decent
Counselor Rec: Decent
Additional Rec: none
Interview: none
Other
Applied for Financial Aid?: No
Intended Major: PPL (Philosophy, Politics, and Law)
State (if domestic applicant): Florida
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Gender: M
Income Bracket: High enough to not qualify for aid
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Hispanic probably
Reflection - Pretty sure it was all in the essays. I looked back at them today and I’m actually still impressed with what I wrote. I was beyond happy to receive the package in the mail today.
Strengths: Essays
Weaknesses: GRADES
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Essays
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Rejected from Dartmouth, haven’t heard from others yet
General Comments: good luck to everyone else, but with USC especially I really do think they are holistic and want to get a good picture of you
Will we get an email when the portal is updated or should we just keep periodically checking
@mcf010 I’m guessing we need to just periodically check
@mcf010 Last year, some applicants got a “no scholarship” email in the morning
I hope one of the parents can clarify something for me.
I am NMSF, have a score of 35 on ACT, 4.2 GPA at competitive bay area public HS, multiple international and national writing awards, Presidential and Prudential award for community services etc. Excellent rec letters and strong extra curriculars, leadership, etc. My school GC thought I had a good chance with Stanford, didn’t happen…
I didn’t hear from USC today. I understand I might still get admission in March. Is it possible that I might also still get a scholarship?
Thank you!
still no update to application status.
is the portal messed up for anyone else? Getting weird things happening
for example, you.usc.edu/login/ is leading to the change your password page and clicking on undergraduate admissions leads to a page not found error on http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/
@DeliciousCashew That’s happening for me too! Although, it didn’t happen 10 min ago when I last checked… maybe that means they’re updating the portals now?
@pristinechris and others. Here is what I know (just a USC parent others will know more.)
This is the best place for scholarship info: http://admission.usc.edu/docs/Scholarships.pdf
You will see there are many scholarships and notification times vary.
The smaller scholarships CAN accompany the larger (for example, I know kids that got Dean’s and an additional “department” scholarship of a few 1000. They also received an additional grade-dependent award at the end of the decision process.
But I believe for the larger scholarships that require interviews: (Monks, Stamps, Trustee, Presidential) most if not all candidates are notified this week.
Of course, this the merit based aid. Need-based financial aid may also be available.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, CaliDad2020
Are the portals updated yet? I received my admission decision today and along with the acceptance I was told I had to register for a visit and interview through YouSC to move on for merit scholarships, but when I logged into that there were no changes and no way to access the admitted students area.
@harry2889 people are saying it’s gonna be updated around 1AM PST
@pristinechris Tomorrow is probably last day to get package, but portals also update tomorrow so you will know for sure. Kids don’t know this, but there are a lot of students with your stats that do not get scholarships, some don’t even get admitted. Surprising but true.
Even with a scholarship kid, I dislike this process very much. Kids go through this now then 45,000 get to be rejected with 30,000 of them being rejected for a second time in March. Too tough on the kids that don’t get it. imo.
that will be 2:30 pm in India
For the past several years portals updated between midnight and 1am PST. They could change it up, but that has been the pattern the last 5 years.
Portals for scholarship packages will update with admission and Explore USC info, students that didn’t get scholarship will get new message confirming you didn’t get it and will hear about admission in March.
I posted the details of these a few pages back (actually about 14 times in last two days 
)
They need my USC pin number for the tax return form for financial aid. Does anyone know where I can find that, I can only find my ID number 
Correction: Just found it! Sorry dumb question lol