wow! very impressive! did your son start a business? or what was his strong ec may i ask?
Hi @tgd !
At this point SMU is the front runner for TTP transfer. She received the Founders’ and is a Pell grant student, so the Access SMU program might (hopefully!) meet full need. That of course makes TTP even more interesting.
At this point she’s definitely planning to do TTP. If successful, we’ll see how FA pans out. If it doesn’t come close to what she may have at SMU, she may stay. She’ll be a Fashion Media major in Meadows, attending Destination SMU next week.
Rooting for them both!
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S23 Rejected for CS
1540/4.0/4.6
California- Bay Area
Large public.
@CADREAMIN Reporting back on the FA question mentioned upthread.
S23 withdrew his USC application the end of February. However, we received 4 or 5 emails this last week from USC requesting FA documents. Last emailed received 1:00 am Friday. It would seem that FA and Admissions are indeed independent.
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Well that’s interesting! Thank you so much for letting us know that! Best to him wherever he goes! Thanks again.
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Any news on Town & Gown?
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Outstanding! We really like SMU. It reminds me of USC on a smaller scale.
My daughter is a sophomore in the WBB program at USC. She loves fashion like your daughter and is hoping to work in luxury fashion on the business side. We seem to have a lot in common!
We’ll be attending Destination SMU April 14. Private message me, and let me know how it went!
So I guess it’s Pony Up and Fight On??!! haha
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Thank you! USC was his top choice for as long as I could remember. If they had ED, he would have done it. Sigh. It was SO hard withdrawing that app. But after an EA deferral from his other top choice school, he converted that app to ED2 and was later accepted. It was meant to be. He has moved on & is super excited. Thank you for all of your help & guidance. And virtual hugs to all on this crazy journey!
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To Forum Champions, current Trojans and parents of Trojans…I would love to hear more about your experience and opinion on the safety of USC. My daughter loves USC, but comes from a small very safe little town on the Central Coast. Her aunt who lives in LA already told her she “won’t be visiting her” as she’s too afraid to drive through the surrounding area. So is it really that bad? I understand it might be safe on campus, but what about leaving campus? Will she be living on a secure island surrounded by a not so secure area?
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Apology in advance for the length!
For me personally, I was nervous (maybe terrified) about it with my first one, even though he is a 6’2" athlete. But the more I personally spent time there (and I have been there a lot) the worry subsided greatly to where I didn’t worry about safety, just the other regular stuff when they leave home. The neighborhood surrounding USC, if not students, is working class families, but primarily students, and it is bustling all the time. The bad element tends to be from other areas, not the surrounding area. Would I want my daughter there in the summer walking blocks from school at night by herself? No, but that is because there is way less people and security around then. But during the school year I don’t worry about it. They had campus cruiser and free Lyft to ensure they aren’t walking a lot outside of campus alone. Having said this, we did choose to house our girls close to campus when they didn’t live on it, (paying more of course) and one did stay through the summers with no problem. When you get out to the border streets outside of campus, there can certainly be some colorful characters and not the great kind, but mine didn’t ever feel threatened by them. It’s the usual caution required when off campus - don’t walk blindly staring at your phone, don’t leave your laptop on the table when you get up to get your food, lock your bike, common sense stuff.
The one thing I can add is that I see great benefit in learning how to navigate a city area surrounded by 40,000 other students doing the same thing. You want to know if they take a business trip solo after graduation, they know how to handle themselves. One of mine spent their very first weekend with a new friend at USC catching buses and trains and a subway thing (didn’t know they had them) to get to Disneyland. Glad I didn’t know, but they figured it out and had a ball doing so. It’s a time for them to grow, we have to let them.
My students left USC fully adult capable and are now able to travel the world (and I mean the world) without me worrying about them in new potentially sketchy situations. If they never leave Mayberry, they may not need these skills, but most are likely to go places unfamiliar and we want them to be confident handling themselves when they do. College is a great time to get these skills.
Sometimes I wished they could have been at the campus set in the pretty story book town, and not in such a grungy urban setting, but that thought was fleeting and USC gave them a lot of skills they wouldn’t have got if they were. And let’s face it, USC campus is crazy beautiful and SoCal is a gorgeous playground - there are so many great things to see and do over their four years there.
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Has she visited USC? If so, what does she love about it? Is she ready to get out of the small town and live in a big city? What are her other options?
If her aunt is driving to USC, she takes the 110 freeway to Exposition and, when she exits to the west, she has Exposition Park to the left and USC to the right. If she exits to the east, that’s the area she is concerned about. Don’t drive that way. Students don’t live in that direction. Your daughter won’t need to go there for anything.
If your daughter is in the dorms, there is visiting parking on campus. There is also parking in the Village (2 hrs free with validation from Trader Joes or Target).
No she will not. She will be living in a big city. There is much more crime than you have in your very safe little town. There is nothing stopping people from the not-so-great areas from walking the streets around campus. Your daughter will need to be street smart and aware of her surroundings. She will learn not to walk, bike or skateboard alone. She will learn to put her phone away and keep her eyes up. She will learn to lock her door and make sure she doesn’t leave her valuables (phone, earbuds, laptop, backpack, etc) unattended. Students at UCLA and Berkeley learn to do the same thing.
USC Department of Public Safety posts a Crime Log if you are interested.
We also looked for housing early and found a secure building close to campus. The building is more expensive but our student is sharing a room which cuts the cost.
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Not for everyone. We received nothing today.
Popular Music Performance / Vocal
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So, if you are a legacy and apply for Viterbi and get rejected, would you receive a TTP or Viterbi Pathways? What is the difference between the two?
I have the same question for TTP too. How many students are in the TTP program and how many students successfully transfer?
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How is USC able to accommodate spring admits and sophomore transfers? Do many students leave after their first semester or after their first year at USC?
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Spring admits generally fill spaces left by study abroad. Most sophomore transfers don’t get housing on campus.
My son is a sophomore from USC and grew up in a small-ish midwestern town. We have visited him several times at USC over the past 2 years and overall, I have been impressed with the safety presence on and around campus. I agree with CADREAMIN’s post about using common sense and typical “safety precautions” when navigating campus and the areas around it. And there are definitely “life skills” one can develop by navigating school in an urban setting.
There is tight security in terms of getting into the dorms – you cannot just waltz into the dorms and access the living areas, even if you are a parent with your student. You need to register/leave an ID with the front desk and check in and out. My younger son (17 yo) went out to USC this fall to visit and stay in the dorms with his brother. We received a phone call from campus police the day after to be sure that we, as parents, knew he was there and that it was ok with us. I was impressed by that.
In terms of driving to campus, you literally get off the highway and are there. You don’t need to navigate the neighborhoods to get there if you don’t want to.
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We did not get any news yet too, Flute Performance.
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I had at least one child at USC from August 2014 forward through May 2021. As for the issue of safety on or near USC’s campus, I too was of course concerned as a parent sending one and then two daughters across the country from Florida to L.A. But… based on my daughters’ accounts and on my own visits over time, my fears lessened greatly. Parents are especially always going to worry… and no matter where their kids go to college, but the DPS safety zone around USC is rather large and well monitored with safety patrols, etc. They also provide campus cruisers and even free Lyft rides.
Here is a link to a variety of topics related to student safety at or near USC:
https://dps.usc.edu/patrol/
There are of course areas outside of the USC DPS patrolled zone that should be avoided… just as there are areas to be avoided in most major U.S. cities. The Niche college rankings puts USC’s safety grade at B as I recall and is based on dozens of public data sets and on student, alumni and faculty reviews.
For those curious… USC compares quite well in terms of safety with other elite colleges and universities… for example, in terms of safety - here are others’ grades for some of the colleges and universities ranked higher than USC via Niche:
MIT B, Stanford B-, Harvard B, Yale C, Princeton B+, Penn B, Columbia B, Duke C+, Brown B-, CalTech B, Wash U in St Louis A-, Rice B-, Northwestern B, UChicago B-, Vanderbilt B-, Dartmouth B. So only Princeton and WashU are ranked higher than USC in terms of safety.
I suggest actually visiting the main campus and the USC Village. Ask lots of questions. Tour its facilities and housing. If you cannot visit in person, scour the internet for virtual tours online. There are scores of them available. Make a proper comparison with your other admitted options, and then choose the right school for you.
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