During the welcome reception at Explore, Director of Admission Kirk Brennan said they had 64,000 applicants and calculated the admission rate to be 13% this year. I guess they round up? He also admitted that they had over-enrolled last year’s entering class.
I was really impressed by what I heard and saw at Explore, and luckily escaped the food poisoning. DS was blown away by McCarthy. Blown. Away. He couldn’t believe how large the rooms were, how plush the facilities were, and how secure it was (biometric fingerprint scans–really) Unfortunately, he had a bit of overkill on the “rah-rah USC” front from his host’s friends/roommates (they were practicing their student tour guide spiel). I guess he wanted to hear from others who weren’t 110% in love with USC, so he could have a more balanced overall perspective.
My perspective? The FA package/scholarship decision is the decider. For this reason, I suspect DS is afraid of expressing any love until after FA package is known.
@CADREAMIN Uh, I was already pretty tenuous in the influence department but yeah the frat parties were the last push into ecstasy. He said that the kids were very nice and accepting at the parties. Thank you for the good wishes regarding the scholarship. The money is important to all of us but feeling wanted, feeling like it’s a win/win for my son and the school is probably the best thing. I’m biased but they will be choosing very wisely.
@WWWard The other thing that blew me away is that dean of admissions said that the average SAT for the students in the room last Thursday was 1560, the average ACT was a 35, and something like 90% had never gotten a B in high school. Pretty amazing.
The entire USC Village where McCarthy and all the other new dorms are is unbelievable. It changed the entire landscape of the area - that use to be a sketchy rundown strip mall and now it has a Nordstrom feel. It makes USC feel much safer overall by expanding it’s perimeter. Prior to The Village, most sophomores wanted to get off campus and out of student housing, but the Village changed that. Housing said last year it filled in a day and a 1/2 and this year they expected it to be full the first day of the sophomore lottery. All the buildings there offer many amazing configurations of apartment style living.
For freshman, whether scholarship or not, there are other options that are cool and fun places to live for that freshman experience and meeting people. They do a good job of matching room mates by majors/interests/lifestyles (if you answer honestly on the housing survey) if you don’t have someone in mind.
Indeed. That is truly amazing.
Overall, of course, the stats are lower on average. USC tries to craft a well-rounded freshman class. To do so, they will admit most with above average but not super-stellar stats… kids that excel on other fronts too – ECs, leadership, essays, performance, athletics, creativity, etc.
Last year, the middle 50% admitted had… 3.77 to 4.0 unweighted GPA, 1350-1500 SAT, 31-34 ACT. And in turn, 3K+ with test scores in the 99th percentile also were rejected in the process. There is just not enough room. A staggering 55,800 or so applicants will face rejection this year. That # almost matches the # who applied last year.
This is why I unfortunately have to recommend over-applying. The Common Application makes it so much easier to apply to many colleges. And the ultra-competitive environment also encourages it. Together, it feeds the insanity, leading to the super high #s being reported of 64K applying to just USC this year.
Combined, my two daughters applied to a whopping 32 colleges but then only garnered 13 admissions to 19 rejections overall. And you simply cannot predict these things. One got into Princeton while still being turned down by 7 others. I simply hope that everyone this cycle applied to a good mix of reach, match and safety schools… yielding enough quality choices when the tables finally turn and the students get to decide…
My favorite quote from Mr. Kirk Brennan at explore when I went:
" (student’s name), we saw your B in chemistry, and we consciously decided to overlook it"
Also can confirm the curbing to 13% and the average scores of 1560 and 35. I still think that’s absolutely wild. I would also vouch for USC being very holistic with their admission process. I found out one of the trustee finalists had <1450 but their passion absolutely showed through in everything they did and in who they were, and when I talked to my admissions officer and interviewers, the main thing they repeatedly mentioned was a specific essay that I wrote and why it stood out to them.
Hello everyone, I’ve been lurking in this thread for a while… I was wondering how common a request for an interview over Skype or FaceTime is? I interviewed with an SCA Film Production Professor last week and it went really well…
Has anyone gotten an interview for Animation? Or is it just film production majors?
@ColossusXM we have a thread about SCA! congrats on your interview, i got one too
For mid-year grades, do I need to mail in the official transcript through the USC portal? My guidance counselor already sent grades through the Common App so I’m not sure it is necessary. Any information would be great… thank you!
DD spent couple of days at USC Explore. Surprised they discontinued return bus to airport this year. She shared an Uber with couple others for half the shuttle price.
Amazing kids being invited to USC Explore. In DD shared ride was one HYPMS likely letter and another HYPMS acceptance. USC is really trying to use merit to get these top notch kids to LA.
@alexw5555 No… you do not need to send anything yourself. You should just find the link to self-report and enter the requested info.
@WWWard - my theory regarding the big increases in applicants (USC, UCLA, Harvard all report increases) - baby boom of Y2K. All of these kids were born around the start of the new millennium - 2000. Our twins have been in a large year group since kindergarten. The school had to add sections at every grade level as this group progressed through school. The classes after them have seen reduced sections because they have smaller numbers. Just my theory. We will see in the next year or two if numbers are flat or decline.
My theory is that applying to college has become a vicious cycle. Admit rates at competitive schools going down, and to fight the odds, kids are applying to more schools. That said, it would be interesting to see if there has been a similar increase in application in less competitive schools.
+1 ^
I applied to 2 schools, my daughter is applying to 14.
@usma87 That could of course certainly impact it. The NCES does continue to report increases. Last fall (2017), some 20.4 million students were expected to attend American colleges and universities, constituting an increase of about 5.1 million since fall 2000. The 2017 to 2018 #s though seem like only a marginal increase… nothing staggering to account for 8K more applying to USC, for example. Females were expected to account for the majority of college and university students in fall 2017: about 11.5 million females, compared with 8.9 million males. That continues to demonstrate a greater challenge for highly qualified female applicants. There are just more of them.
I would love to see more research on the # of applications per student. A couple years ago, I read an article in the Washington Post I believe that said overall the average is around 3.2 applications per person. That seems low. But that same article also suggested that the kids deemed to be in the top 5% tended to apply instead to #s in the range of 15-20. They called it the “Great National Freak-Out”… with kids and parents panicking about not getting into an elite college… and thus applying to more and more top colleges in order to cover their bases.
I thus tend to concur with @vhsdad I suspect that it is mainly worry that drives up the # of applications. My kids averaged 16, for example. Me in the 80s… 3.
In 2016, USC was not among the top ten in terms of the total # of applications. Those were:
University of California—Los Angeles 97,121
University of California—San Diego 84,209
University of California—Berkeley 82,581
University of California—Irvine 77,810
University of California—Santa Barbara 77,098
University of California—Davis 67,472
California State University—Long Beach 60,732
New York University 60,724
San Diego State University 60,691
Boston University 57,441
Primarily, this seems to be driven by how easy it is to apply to multiple UCs. I will be curious to compare this list for 2016 to the top tens for 2017 and 2018 when available and to see how USC compares or whether it even makes the top ten. I do suspect that USC is among the top 5 private universities in terms of total # of applications.
Great info @wwward, and a nice diversion of conversation while folks await decisions in just a couple/few weeks now! Ya, I will admit, for a couple of mine we were around 17-20 apps. But part of that was uncertainty on their part versus the Great Freak Out. One was applying to several different majors - basically being undecided at application time so covering more bases with different schools for different majors. The other just couldn’t decide if she wanted big, small, rural, urban, close or far - sorta froze up trying to decide what she wanted - perhaps cause she was in 6 or 7 AP classes along with a bunch of ECs and was totally overwhelmed senior year. So we certainly fit the profile of “too many applications” (honestly, I think one of them submitted 22 apps) but felt it necessary given their situation and mindset at that time. Don’t even want to add up the money spent on apps and score reporting!
My brother laughed at me cause after all the apps and all the cross country trips, flying and driving to see a zillion schools, we ended where we started, with USC. It would have been so easy if they were just pre-admitted to USC! Or at least getting in came with a bit more certainty like it does at some schools, but that won’t happen there.
^^^ Indeed… early action or early decision to USC would have made life so much easier. But just look how much we all got to help out other colleges and College Board and ACT, etc financially. Application season has emerged as quite a boost economically for scores and scores of elite universities especially… and for the entire apparatus that supports it all. CC itself seems to be driven to an extent due to the uncertainty and worry that this ultra-competitive environment encourages.
So glad to be done with it all 
Now I can just chime in as an interested observer with no actual skin in the game.
DD just got an email from USC “Discover the USC Experience”. Did everyone get it? It was in her promotion folder.
ya I think it is a mass email everyone received.