Thats great and Im sure the seminar must help! I wish him the best of luck! Yes, they had me perform 2 original songs. I was also very nervous, and i was mostly concerned that my voice would crack or something, but i spent a solid 4 hours warming up and afterwards felt overall pretty confident. One of the judges said, “it was a pleasure to hear you today” which seems like a good sign since they’re not really supposed to react. We’ll see! @astute12
Fingers crossed for you and my son @oregonkiddo !!!
It is my understanding from reviewing past admission articles and posts that USC only admits around 1,000 of the 10,000 or so legacy applicants that apply each year (using recent years as a guide). 9,000 legacy applicants (or 90%) were thus rejected… which is understandable… as only 9,000 or so were admitted in total last year. The differential that you are referring to has to do with legacies having a much higher than normal yield rate (almost double in fact). The normal yield rate used to be around 33-34%. Last year, it jumped to 37%, leading to 358 more freshmen enrolling than what they were shooting for (3000) when they admitted 9042.
Yes… 20% or so of the 3358 in the freshmen class are legacies… i.e. about 600. So around 600 of the 1000 agreed to enroll… i.e. a 60% yield rate. Many more legacies are offered the TTP option too, as I understand it.
Using those #s… USC could thus fill its entire freshmen class of 3K by simply admitting 5,000 (or half) of the 10,000 legacy applicants. But they are not going to ever simply fill their entire freshman class with only legacy applicants. They are aiming for diversity on many fronts instead. Clearly then, USC is left having to disappoint even 1000s of legacy applicants… among the 56K or so who will be disappointed by Saturday.
Because of last yield’s yield rate, the total # admitted is now projected to fall from 9042 to 8100-8200. Coupled with an increase in applications from 56.675 to over 64K, the admit rate is projected to be 13% this year vs 16% last year.
Is USC a complete reach for me?
SAT: 1260 w/ essay 21/24
UW GPA: 3.93
W GPA: 4.30
AP’s: 9 + honors courses
Teacher + counselor reccomendations: 9.5/10
Club soccer
President of community service club
Manager at a local restaraunt
CSF member
-talked about having a tumor removed + my two surgeries with ACL repair and meniscus repair
My dad is an alumni + on the alumni board (separate from admissions)
I got waitlisted by UCSB, denied by UCD SD and LA, waitlisted by BU, are my chances at USC shot?
@jj1999 are ucsb decisions already out? Thought it was tomorrow!
@oregonkiddo there was a leak at 3 but they closed the UCSB portal back down again 
we have to wait until 3 tomorrow now
Well…we’ve waited this long. I think we can hold out a few more days. NCAA Tourney should distract until we can all cross the finish line!
@jj1999, not impossible but hopefully you have also applied to a couple safeties?
Sweet 16 does not begin until Thursday though! These tournament games have been my coping mechanism lol. Though I have nothing to complain about since I still have Thunder-Celtics, Warriors-Spurs, and USC in the NIT today. 
@winjammer
@Nomorelurker not sure what a safety is anymore. Can any LAC or university in the top 25 UNWR rankings be considered a safety? Top 30 maybe? Who knows… when kids are being rejected across the spectrum with no discernible pattern. Sometimes it seems to depend on how many kids they are looking for, for certain majors or programs, regardless of stats or talent. I wonder if undeclared is the way to go initially!
I used to think anyone applying to more than 5 schools was being lazy and unfocused. Today, anyone not applying to at least 10 can be considered naive. My kid applied to 12 and I thought that was ridiculous. I was not happy about all the application fees. Now, I’m thinking he should have applied to at least 3 more.
There are so many considerations…not the least of which is the affordability of the school. There are too many variables “to chance” anyone. Applying to certain select schools have become little more than buying an expensive lottery ticket. Time for some Wine.
@winjammer I used a college counselor for my D16. We were told that no school with under a 30% acceptance rate could be considered a safety for anyone.
My D18 applied to 3 safeties that she would be happy to attend- LMU, Denver and Chapman. She received between 26K-32K at each. She liked Denver the best of the three so applied to their honors and leadership programs. Because she would have been happy going there, she really hasn’t been stressed while waiting for her top tier schools.
USC and BU had to be considered reaches because of their acceptance rates. We would never assume she would get into either.
There are many of her classmates who are majorly stressing out because they are not getting into the UC’s but don’t want to go to their safety schools.
Good luck to your son!
@Marcie123 I would disagree with the claim that ANY school under a 30% acceptance rate can’t be considered a safety. I think it depends on the statistics and extracurriculars of the student. For example, Northeastern and BU were both safeties for me even though their acceptance rates are under 30% (I got hefty scholarships from both and got into Questrom at BU). It can also depend on the relationship between the HS where you are and a university (Tulane’s national acceptance rate is around 30%, yet is over 50% for students from my HS, which has made Tulane a viable option for most high stats kids).
@winjammer , I would define a “safety” as a school that has close to a 50% or higher acceptance. In addition, I think based on the student’s stats and strength of essays and activities… one should really have a strong feeling that the student has greater than a 60% chance of being accepted. In our case, the in state option was a safety at 53% acceptance. After plugging in GPA and standardized tests to one of the online calculators, it was realistically closer to a 80% chance of acceptance. S got into their honors program, EA. I agree that applying to 10 to 12 colleges is reasonable, given the current dynamic, especially if more than half of them are low matches to reaches.
To your question about UNWR top rankings, I would speculate that schools in their “top 45” would not be “safeties” for most. That being said, we viewed Tulane (#40 on the list) as somewhere between a match and a safety. I realize some with very high stats did not get into Tulane EA, but having demonstrated a lot of interest, toured there, and with strong essays and extracurriculars, S was admitted EA Honors with a high merit award. In California,where so many students who apply to USC live, many UC schools are very tough to get in like UCLA, CAL, UCSB…, maybe something like UC Santa Cruz might be more of a “safety” (higher than 50% acceptance) for some students. UC Irvine at 40% acceptance might be closer to a match for some on the high end of stats, but in today’s world, I don’t think students can take anything for granted. I would shoot for above 50% acceptance for a safety (for students with very high stats).
@Marcie123, it sounds like you hired a good counselor. Chapman has a 47% acceptance (not quite 50% but close enough) and LMU is just over 50% so great job! Anything under 20% acceptance should be considered a reach for everyone (IMHO). USC reportedly will end up at 13% this year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see USC move up on the UNWR rankings next year.
@Nomorelurker I used the college counselor for my older D. For D18, I didn’t use one. I feel like I knew enough (mostly from CC) to go without. It would have been nice to have someone other than me giving her deadlines on her essays. Other than that, it’s worked out.
@collegesavant1, I agree that (with very high stats and a strong application) one could possibly view some schools with under 30% acceptance as a “safety” but it can be a risky business. Glad it worked out in your case with Northeastern and BU and for my S with Tulane, but I read many high stat students were deferred at Tulane this year. Tulane was more of a “quasi safety” due to checking all the boxes with the demonstrated interest and community service that was put in. That being said, the instate option was the true safety, with greater than 50% acceptance and with stats considered, greater than 70% expected admission.
Tulane has gotten harder this year. This is from their 2022 blog…
Due to the increased influx of applications, the acceptance rate was also curbed to 17 percent from 21 percent last year, creating the most selective class in the university’s history.
@CADREAMIN @WWWard I was emailing my adcom for my area about forms and a LOCI, he mentioned that they would be sent to the “committee”, does this mean anything? Did my app pass the first read? Or should I take it with a grain of salt? I’m usually a lurker, but I want to take the time to thank both of you for the time and effort you both put in. Thank you very much for your help and support!
You are correct, Mopep, the middle 50% SAT for EA was 1440-1540 and ACT was 31-34. See here: http://tuadmissionjeff.blogspot.com/2017/12/spring-scholars.html. Tulane has always had its fair share of high stats students, but the percentages have gone up the past few cycles as the school’s strategies to recover from Katrina have allowed it to claw back to its status of prior years.
I noticed that of the entire USC makeup, only 5% of students are in Annenberg. Does this mean that Annenberg applicants automatically have a lesser chance of being accepted, or does USC accept without noting the intended major?