My daughter won’t get her mid-term grades until the end of Feb. She emailed her admissions counselor and he said it was fine and that he’d put a note in her file.
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Can you remind us approximately how many applicants get the scholarship notification at this stage?
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I do not recall the exact # from last cycle, but I believe that it was in the range of 1000-1200.
The vast majority of current and past USC students, including both of my daughters, were instead admitted in March – and not January or February.
Good luck to all who applied by Dec 1st.
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Anyone know if SCA applicants could hear in the early (scholarship) round? I know other majors with portfolios/auditions sometimes say that its unlikely to hear back before the regular decision date so I was curious how it might apply to SCA.
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I am also curious about SCA. Has anyone received an interview request who applied to SCA?
They do so. Just keep in mind that USC generally spreads out the 1000-1200 getting in during the merit decision round across all of USC’s various Schools. And some even receive their merit decisions later, but those are usually the performance-based majors like Dance, Music performance, BFA in Acting, etc.
Getting into SCA at any point is a huge accomplishment in itself, as those admission rates are very low. Getting into SCA during the merit round is even more impressive. But there are a few so fortunate each cycle as I recall.
Good Luck…
Does anyone know if the acceptance rates are higher in certain schools?
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I applied to the USC Leonard Davis School.
For the Class of 2025, the overall acceptance rate was 12.5%. The business school was 9.94% (source: Poets & Quants) and SCA, SDA, etc are notoriously in the low single digits. I assume some of the other schools must be slightly above 12% for the overall acceptance rate to be 12%.
Do they post names of recipients and their respective schools?
Dornsife has traditionally been the highest acceptance rate in terms of comparing schools. SCA has historically been the lowest. Business, Engineering and Computer Science are also rather low in terms of their acceptance rates.
I do not believe so. Individuals are free to post themselves, but I do not recall the schools ever doing so. That seems like an invasion of privacy. SCA itself likes to be very private. They seem to prefer that matters related to admissions remain a mystery of sorts 
SCA has never published its admission #s as best I can tell. Absent an insider spilling the info, all that any of us can go on is speculation and the #s overheard or talked about over the years. Overall, the SCA admit rate moving forward will still likely be in the 2-8% range… varying by program… with writing and IMGD likely being in that 2-4% range… production likely in the 3-5% range, animation and MAP likely in that 4-6% range and CAMS likely in that 6-8% range.
If anyone out there discovers the exact #s, please feel free to correct me or update these percentages. This also reflects the inverse in terms of #s admitted for each program as best I understand it… with more CAMS admits and writing and IMGD admitting the fewest.
A few years ago… it was posted on CC that SCA Admissions aimed for class sizes (which means they admitted likely double these #s to allow for yield) of 75 Cinema and Media Studies, 50 production, 12 IMGD, 15 Screenwriting, and 24 animation majors. That was before MAP was an option. Back then… Production was reported to be 4-6% admitted & IMGD was 2%. But more are applying these days… thus my downward speculation in terms of percentages. For example… when these percentages were quoted, the overall USC admit rate was around 17%. It then dropped to like 11-12% before rebounding to 16% and falling again to 12.5% last year, as I recall.
Clearly, gaining admission to any SCA major is a huge accomplishment… as the competition is severe, and the number of spots available is extremely limited. Internal transfers (current students trying to transfer in to SCA) face much better odds. It is hardest trying to get in directly as a high school senior. You could always gain admission to any major at USC or as Undeclared and then try to internally transfer into SCA later, as my younger daughter did.
Good Luck to all those trying to get into SCA this year…
And if anyone has the admission percentages for other USC Schools, please feel free to share.
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If anyone is applying to the business school - Poets & Quants just released their latest rankings and USC Marshall was ranked #3! Only Wharton and Georgetown ahead of them.
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Does any one know Thornton BM in composition class size? Or acceptance rate?
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I’ve attended usc events and the admission counselors specifically for viterbi have said there aren’t any impacted majors throughout the university, so applying to viterbi isnt harder to get into than even dornsife; but people say otherwise so I’m not sure what to think…
Majors aren’t impacted but Viterbi is looking at different high school courses and experiences to determine if a student is qualified than, let’s say, Thornton. And Thornton is looking at different metrics than Viterbi.
In general, colleges of engineering are looking at the amount of math and science that a student was exposed to in HS.
They are just using a numbers game to say Viterbi isn’t harder to get into than Dornsife. It is. And there are majors that are harder to get into within Viterbi because they are more competitive in terms of amount and quality off applicants. But what is a common denominator across every school is a strong application - so in that sense they can say everything is equally competitive. And as mentioned above every school has their own quanitifiers. Viterbi has always had a lower acceptance rate than the stated USC average. It was 9%-10% last few years when USC was in low to mid teens, and generally floats between 9-11%.
Some random notes on upcoming scholarship notifications:
Decisions seem to go out in glumps by a certain school, but not by location. Where you live is not relevant to when you get notified, unless of course they start sending the glorious boxes again, but haven’t heard that is happening yet. Hope they aren’t fading permanently into the sunset, but they may be using covid as a way to phase them out. Too sad, they were cool. Here’s hoping!
For scholarship notifications, they eventually send you an email that says to check your portal. But most students that are following sites like this one see it in their portal before they get the email. Portal is updated first, then emails are sent out to all accepted to interview. The “no soup for you” portal update/email gets to everyone else shortly after the acceptances.
The first page is an admission letter with major information and second page is the finalist information. Says something like, “You have been selected as a finalist for a USC Trustee and Presidential merit scholarship. A scholarship interview will be the next step.This notification applies only to the awards I mentioned. You will still be considered for other scholarships listed on our Scholarships page.”
Remember Thornton operates on their own timetable and does not participate in the merit notification cycle, and much of SCA is the same. While it may be minutely possible, their notifications tend to come later. For a healthy mindset, best to set sites on getting scholarship info at a later time and if something does come earlier than you expect, it’s just a great surprise.
Most in WBB get accepted in this round as their acceptance automatically includes a scholarship of a 1/4 -1/2 tuition depending on their interview. You are told you will interview for the Presidential scholarship. Those applying to WBB, look at your letter closely, it is not always obvious you got WBB, it is in “additional information” on second page (at least it use to be that way) rather than on the main page where other major info usually is.
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@NS2003 One way to get a sense of program size is to look at the last few years of Commencement programs. For May 2021 Commencement, 4 students earned a BM Composition from Thornton.
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