Last year was an unusually high acceptance rate at 16% due to concerns about students deferring because of COVID. (USC decisions came out after the CA "lockdown.) In other recent years it has hovered around 11%.
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Wow, that’s even worse. I hope some other schools will work out for my son.
That article is behind a paywall so I’m not sure what it says but I thought USC didn’t allow gap years or deferment due to COVID.
They don’t. I meant that they were concerned about yield due to students deferring college altogether - as opposed to deferring enrollment at USC - both because of the virus and the financial impact of COVID on their families. It was very early days and no one knew what the impact would be on universities.
800-1200 for merit was the common figure used on here for the last 10 years+, the low and high of that range depending on the year and expectations. It wasn’t that long ago that only 20k applied by December 1st and 800 was the norm, but the last several years it has been around 40k. There have been other years where 800 was the amount given even during large amount of applications - when USC is the “hot ticket” for whatever reason and they expect many to commit. They like hitting their targets and are pretty good at forecasts by now.
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70k apps would be all time high, wow, thanks for info @Vadaddy. Just a couple years ago they enrolled 300-400 too many and it really had a negative impact on classes and campus. It wouldn’t seem like that would be a big deal for a school so big, but it made a mess for that class. Hopefully they manage their yield well with those big app numbers.
They will need to keep the admits in the upper 7K or very low 8K at the most I would think.
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I think they will need to accept more since everyone’s applying to more schools than usual. All yield rates will go down
That seems to be the case, i.e., it isn’t that more students are applying to college but that because of test optional and uncertainty surrounding COVID each student is applying to more colleges. They can still only attend one! My daughter applied to 18. In a “normal” year, that would have been 10, 12 max.
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He actually said 72,000!
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@SoCalEsq do you think because of test optional, kids are applying (and putting out that application fee) to colleges they know they wouldn’t qualify for if testing was required? Colleges will make a lot on app fees if so! So is it because they think they have a better chance without testing or is it uncertainty if they want to go far away from home and that may change when things get better? I also assume gap students are jumping back in to the app pool causing increased apps. Just curious as I don’t have one applying this year.
One or two of mine applied to a ton but more cause they literally weren’t sure what type of college they wanted at time of applications, if they would get in, or what they would get merit wise (then ended up at USC). Would have loved to have saved some of that time and money on all those other apps, but I guess everyone has to hedge their bets. 
According to this NYT article today (may be paywall for some), test optional is main reason.
With an 11% acceptance rate, USC is Ivy-adjacent. 
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Thanks for link, I had seen a few other articles but not that one. Yes, and that’s 11% overall, much lower acceptance rates for Viterbi and SCA, etc.
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Did I hear correctly on the call that you can register for housing in March without committing to the school? If so, is that a common practice? It sounds like you can sign up next month and that would put you first on the list when they start assignments in May?
FYI for comparison, according to the USC Common Data Set for 2019-2020, there wee 66,198 total Freshman applications.
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Last year early admits were able to put down a deposit and register for housing in February. I’m not sure if it was the same day upperclassmen signed up for housing but the site crashed within the first 30 minutes.
USC hasn’t given current students any information about housing for next year so it is promising that they are anticipating a March sign up date. If anyone remembers the date they mentioned, please share.
ETA that in normal years they seem to have enough room in McCarthy for most if not all Trustee and Presidential scholarship recipients. Some scholarship recipients choose to live in other dorms. Did they mention if they are planning on singles or doubles next year?
I was wondering the same thing about singles vs doubles. I do believe that there will be doubles however because at Explore USC there was some talk about rooomates that makes me think that we would most likely have doubles. Also if they plan to guarantee housing for all freshmen and sophomores then they have to do doubles because there won’t be enough room for everyone to have a single.
They didn’t mention singles vs. doubles. They said housing will open March 1. They said the scholarship kids could choose McCarthy or any other dorm. Finally, they said that housing is guaranteed for 2 years.
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Oh yes, they did mention roommates so presumably there will be doubles.
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Is McCarthy only for trustee/presidential students. This is hypothetical but if I want to live in McCarthy and I am a merit scholarship recipient does my roommate have to be one as well in order to live with me?
One question is whether the merit scholarships are substitutes for financial aid? From what I understand they reduce the school cost calculation (hence financial aid first implicitly) not the parental contribution. So the cost to USC would be the same until the financial aid contribution is passed. I’ve heard rumors that the merit scholarships are disproportionately given to financial aid recipients? Eliminating the Mork would save money. These merit scholarships do seem like a smart approach , as on campus interviews also allows USC to sell itself as well.
Does anyone have more information on whether there is a skew to the financial need of the merit recipients? Does it really reduce the cost of the college for most? I would think it does in general but maybe not as much as “half scholarship” would imply? If it reduced family contribution then it absolutely would. (In other words didn’t affect financial aid contributions)
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