USC class of 2023 Applicants Thread

Son is a spring admit, so maybe his FA comes later?

Is anyone out there waiting to hear about a Tuition Exchange Scholarship for USC? We were told that they won’t be decided until the middle of April! Argh, more waiting!

Does USC have tuition guarantee so it stays the same all four years? Or does it increase every year?

Does anyone know if we got no need based financial aid, could there still be merit aid coming? Particularly for the WBB program?

Still waiting on Financial Aid–in CA

@collegemom111111 no guarantee. It increases every year.

@CADREAMIN Sadly, the reasons for increase this year are vexing, Without having unexpected payouts the university would have been flush with cash with the unexpectedly high yields of the last two years.

@JohnGaltIII Agree. We have seen an increase every year for the last 9 years we have had a student there. We don’t know any other way.

@CADREAMIN And it is not simply a USC thing. The price of tuition inflation has dwarfed even medical care. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiSwYfIrqPhAhVOM6wKHWIsDqgQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mybudget360.com%2Fis-college-worth-it-college-education-cost-student-debt-inflation%2F&psig=AOvVaw0Qwq_3RFbOo782hqCim7e3&ust=1553811903559871

anyone get their financial aid yet?

Same here. I don’t know how we could afford $80K a year.

Does anyone know if McCarthy housing is guaranteed for NMFs?

My D is spring admit too. The portal shows the cost for Spring 2020, which is close to 40K with zero aid.

@CADREAMIN two questions:

  1. Do you know if any more merit aid announcements will be made and if so when? Wondering about Dean's in particular, but there are a few others too, I believe.
  2. Do you know if when the housing portal opens Friday we need to be prepared to pick dorm preferences, or is it enough to simply pay the $55 to get a spot in line and make specific preference selections at a later time?

Thanks in advance!

You actually have a lot to fill it out, but can come back and change things. There are things you can skip till later. Fill out what you must, skip what you can, pay and get the time stamp.

Honestly no clue on Dean’s. Some years there were none or very few in spring because they were given in January. But this year they weren’t, so they are certainly conspicuous in their absence. Scholarships are supposed to be out by April 1.

@treealum When did you get news on your Associates last year? Was it with any other info or just show up on portal or in email?

Are your housing options more limited the later you commit? I have a visit planned for April 23rd so I want to wait until after to make my decision but I don’t want to get stuck in a bad situation if I don’t commit until later

I’m 99% certain I know the answer to this, but just want to confirm something.

We knew going in that the pop music program that she applied to doesn’t offer music merit.

And while my D’s academics were obviously good enough to not stop her from getting in, they certainly aren’t exceptional by USC standards. So we weren’t expecting any academic awards either.

Frankly we’re thrilled that she got in, and that she has this as an option to consider along with her other admits (that do have merit awards). It’s an expensive option obviously, but still nice to have the option to choose such a unique program.

As we didn’t apply for FA (because we wouldn’t qualify), there is nothing filled out on that FAST page (if we’re even looking in the right place).

So even though we don’t expect there to be any music merit award for her, would that FAST page be the place it would show up, regardless of whether we applied for FA?

Thanks for a sanity check on that. And congrats to all of you who got in, including the many “double threat” musicians on here that got both academic and music awards!

@jdecker9 Housing priority is given by date and time you apply so it’s a matter of what is left when they go through those that apply ahead of you. If you know you are going, you should apply first couple days it opens (first day best) and lock in your spot in the queue. Just guess at housing preferences you can change them anytime before app closes May 1 (I think that is date, not sure). If you don’t go to USC you would just lose the $55 buck app fee.

I would not wait till after your visit to have best chance of living where you want to.

@CADREAMIN We got notification with the financial aid. My daughter was very confused when she looked at it. She asked me “What does this mean” haha. We knew we would get 0 need-based aid but applied to be eligible for federal loans. I remember her texting me a picture of the scholarship in that financial aid page. Then a few days later we received a letter in the mail about the scholarship. I liked that this year they sent a separate email for the scholarships but it was a very pleasant surprise.

Did anyone get access to their financial aid TODAY??