USC class of 2023 Applicants Thread

Hey everyone! With merit parcels being mailed soon, please remember to be considerate to all applicants, regardless if they receive an acceptance or not.

Posting this from last year’s thrread. @Quantjock

Hi, proud parent of a newly enrolled USC Marshall World Bachelor in Business (WBB) student here. I’m posting this as an FYI for any future WBB Presidential scholar early admits and their families. The merit scholarship process works slightly different for WBB (as we found out the hard way) and there isn’t any info posted on USC’s website about the specifics. Hopefully by posting here it will help smooth out some of the bumps we encountered this year for future WBB families. I’ll cross post this info to the Trustee/Presidential scholarships thread in case Google sends people there.

Most (not all) of the US WBB admits are notified of their acceptance in the early round with other Trustee and Presidential admits. In their admission letter in the “White Box”, WBB early admits are notified that they are invited to interview for a Presidential scholarship during one of the Explore USC scholarship events. One bad thing about the acceptance letter is that the actual WBB program acceptance itself is hard to find. It isn’t listed in the main section of the letter but is found as “additional information” at the very bottom of the second page under the Merit Scholarship Status section. Not seeing that right away led to many moments of wondering whether a WBB admit was out of the running.
The Explore USC visit, overnight stay and scholarship interview were exactly the same for the WBB kids as they were for other Presidential scholars.

From that point forward, things start working differently for WBB. Scholarship notifications for most USC Presidential and Trustee winners happened via portal the night before Regular Decision boxes were sent out by USC Admissions. That didn’t happen for WBB admits. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, wait up all night refreshing the portal. Or the next day, or the day after. It will never update. WBB scholarship decisions and notifications are run thru the Marshall admissions office, not the main USC scholarship/admissions office and they will not show up on the USC portal. This year, the WBB early scholarship decisions came via an email from the head of Marshall admissions, in the afternoon, 4 days after other scholarship results were posted on the portal. Those were four very long days and nights for us, waiting and wondering about the results of the scholarship interview. Knowing before hand that the portal would never update would have been nice to know.

Fortunately, all WBB students are awarded either a 1/2 tuition or a 1/4 tuition scholarship as part of their acceptance to the program. The WBB scholarships are joint awards from all 3 partner universities (USC, HKUST & Bocconi) and they transfer to each school as students travel to them. It’s welcome news for the US admits that the scholarships are applied to each school’s local tuition cost. For example, if tuition at Bocconi is 14,000 euro, the 1/2 tuition WBB students pay 7,000 euro the year they are in Italy plus room/board. After doing the math, this aspect of the WBB program made USC an extremely attractive option for us.

One downside that is unique to the WBB merit awards is that they are program specific and are not transferable to other majors at USC. If students leave the WBB program to transfer to Viterbi or into a different major in Marshall, they forfeit their scholarship.

WBB students must also maintain good academic standing which is spelled out in the acceptance letter as at least a 3.0 GPA in all Marshall business classes and at least a 3.0 GPA in all USC classes. Grades at the partner institutions must be maintained at an equivalent scale. With only 2 full years at USC, and less within Marshall itself, that leaves little room for a couple of weak grades. That is another downside and may be why the WBB program is so selective.

One last important item
we found out recently at admitted students day that the WBB scholarship award will not officially post to the USC financial aid portal until sometime this summer. It’s only after orientation when the WBB classes are scheduled, that the WBB scholarship notification is sent by Marshall to the financial aid office and applied to the portal. Until then, the only proof of scholarship is the emailed letter from Marshall. Hang tight and don’t stress too much about the big numbers on the financial aid portal, it will eventually be fixed.

I hope this is helpful for future adventuresome WBB admits, Fight On!

Anyone know the difference between the applyto.usc.edu applicant portal and the you.usc.edu portal and which one will show updates to my application status? As of now the you.usc portal is empty and only shows “join our mailing list” and “Sign up for a campus tour” while the applyto.usc portal shows the documents that have been received by usc. Any help would be appreciated!! Thanks!

@arsal2144 I couldn’t tell you what the specific difference is, but applyto.usc.edu will be the one updated with your application status when the time comes

Perfect! Just wanted to make sure I was monitoring the right portal for when merit decisions come out. Good luck to all!

Been scouring this thread for a while now and hoped making an account in time for merit scholarship release would help curb the anxiety slightly.

Applied to Marshall as an accounting major. 1490 SAT (750 math 740 EBRW) 33 ACT 3.893 UW, 10 APs + AP Scholar with Distinction. ECs: band president, senior class secretary, NHS, 4-year band member & principal clarinet, Spanish Club, Spanish & math tutor, worked at Subway, 1 year of volleyball.

Stats/ECs very average or below average for USC, let alone USC merit scholarship pool. Not anticipating a nice big package in the mail, but would love for one to show up! I’ve been incessantly monitoring USC’s Instagram for any updates and admittedly have gone a bit insane waiting for some hint of merit scholarship package mailing-out. Good luck everyone, and thanks so much to this thread for having helped me plan out and become notified of anything possibly related to USC admissions!

Does anyone know the expected times parcels should arrive by region?

Good luck to all! go trojans!

Does anyone know how they give out scholarships, is it like each school gets a certain amount they can give out? I applied for the school of architecture.

Sending luck to everyone! and remember, whether or not we receive good news, the sun will always rise tomorrow.

@memelover123 Read this for answer to your question


http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/2120819-usc-merit-acceptance-in-january-what-when-how-p1.html

@CADREAMIN Thank you! Your insights are so very helpful!!

Thanks!

Does anyone know what criteria is used for determining who gets merit? Is it mostly “stats” (SAT/ACT/GPA), First Gen, Scion, or something else?

Does not having completed the financial aid process disqualify you from receiving aid at this time? If I haven’t submitted all my tax documents, will they still consider me?

@anxiety247 The deadlines for FAFSA and CSS have not passed. The longer you wait however, that can impact you because less aid might be available but the sooner you get your info in the better.

My daughter was accepted somewhere in December, and they won’t release the financial aid info until March, so not all schools release it with a decision.

Financial Aid and Merit are different. Not submitting tax doc will affect your eligibility for need-based financial aid. Merit scholarship consideration does not care about a need or if someone has completed FAFSA or CSS etc.

Ok since packages may or may not have just been postmarked, best of luck to everyone here!

Financial aid is not part of the notification this week. That information comes much later.

Anyone knows if packages are out today?