Are you in?
I think you know my son. Same school, different conservatory. 
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Actual more people are full pay. Loans are considered financial aid. So because we had our kids take out Stafford to have skin in the game (around 25K of about $300k) we are counted as those that get financial aid. LOL. I remember the number being just over 50% full pay but that was a few years ago, so it may be lower, but someone has to fund all their stuff. I hope they people getting in keep up the donations level, or they will have to adjust some more.
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We were shocked when my daughter was applying and getting FA packages. We got $0 aid ($7,500 research grant from Vanderbilt) from all schools and we could’t afford private school tuitions… to college FA’s eyes we were full pay.
@California2021 I see this EA is just the same Merit Scholarship round acceptance like my DD experienced in 2020. National Merit Scholar, ACT35, highest rigor all AP throughout HS, SAT chem 760 SAT math 790, brand creator, highest (paid professional) level extracurriculars. It was as simple as “not chosen as a scholar” decision in January. I don’t remember if USC did but other colleges gave acceptances to those who were close to scholar consideration. She ended up getting accepted RD but went to a school who picked her as a scholar during this Merit Scholarship round in Jan-Feb.
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Your post was understandable. FA decisions (and regardless of the college making them) can be a shock to many families.
And USC will be no exception for those just admitted (and later for those admitted in March)… as many will be astonished by the eventual FA offering. It accounts in large measure for the yield rate at USC only being circa 40% in recent years. 4900 or so of the eventual 7900 admitted to USC this cycle by March will end up enrolling elsewhere. And financial considerations will be the primary factor for many of those eventual decisions to pass on USC.
When it comes to financial aid offerings, most colleges and universities operate with the same guiding principal that they will lower any grant money being offered as an offset to account for any new scholarship money that they are aware of. Basically, once they know of new scholarship money available to a new or returning student, they readjust the perceived need for money given their calculations of a family’s ability to pay. And that calculation is what can vary widely by school.
Most schools will expect families to convert assets or equity into available cash for college expenses. They evaluate both parents, whether still married or not, in terms of all known or disclosed personal and business assets versus all known or disclosed personal and business liabilities. If there is perceived net worth there… whether liquid or not… and whether individually owned (in terms of divorced parents) or jointly owned by a married couple, they do expect you to pay utilizing some if not all of it, even if you have to borrow against non-liquid assets.
It simply comes down to what they know about your family situation in total and how they then calculate your “ability to pay”. And that of course often does not correlate well with the family’s perception of their own ability to pay. And this calculus can vary widely given the parameters being used.
For example, some schools do not think that a student should have to go in debt with loans, some say that a family should not have to pay tuition for their student if the combined income is below a certain threshold, etc. But even such declarations are not iron clad if schools are also evaluating perceived net worth and available assets that could be used in some manner… whether liquidated for cash or borrowed against.
And even if a family’s ability to pay is calculated to be very low, schools like USC will expect the student at least to have a work study job and utilize student loans to contribute toward the cost of attending.
So, in the end, scholarship money and grants will not stack as most families would hope. The only real prospect for a more favorable FA offering will come from that “ability to pay” calculation.
Before an admitted applicant panics after receiving an unexpected FA offering, maybe ask yourself as a family some key questions… Does the college or university truly understand your financial situation fully? Have you actually listed every known or projected liability? Have you made them aware of every recurring monthly or yearly expense? Is there a medical condition that they need to be made aware of… or an obstacle with your family business, if applicable, etc? Is your income situation somehow untenable moving forward, possibly reducing your projected income?
Any extra potential relief from the cost of attending for a family will come via an analysis of income, assets, liabilities and the like. So, just make sure that they fully understand your family’s financial condition now and projected moving forward before you abandon all hope.
Good luck on that front to all of those admitted this month to USC who are still trying to work out the numbers via merit (hopefully) and FA…
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@CADREAMIN Has there been an announcement as to how many applications USC has received this year for RD? I think there were 48K EA apps. I’m just curious since this is the first year they’ve done an official EA. As I recall, the year before the college admissions scandal, there were 66K applications, then the following year there were 59K (drop-off was somewhat explained by scandal), then it was 71K last year. So, I’m curious about how many USC will get this year with the addition of EA.
According to USC (posted above in this thread)…
Applications EA: 40.6K
Admitted EA: 2.4K (this past Friday)
EA admit rate: 5.9%
EA applicants deferred: 38.2K
Additional RD applicants: 40.4K
Will admit 5.5K more by late March from the combined deferred/RD pool of 78.6K, for a total of 7,900 or so admitted this cycle.
TOTAL applications: 81K (up from 69K in 2022)
Total admitted: 7.9K (down from 8.3K in 2022)
Total admit rate: 9-10% (down from 12% in 2022)
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The CSS doesn’t go into this great of detail (i,e, not account for cost of goods sold for the self employed!) So it looks like we’re sitting on a pile of $$. The ones that require extra IDOCS like 1040s at least get a full pic of what’s going on. Harvard is amazing at this and their financial aid page is FULL of great info for anyone out there. ALL schools should use them as a guide. (Yeah, Harvard but, yeah, Harvard.) SUPER helpful.
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It seems that USC gives the scholarships out to students who need financial aid to begin with. My son didn’t even fill out the FAFSA since we knew he wasn’t going to get any money. He got 50% scholarships at his safety schools, but at any school with less than a 20% acceptance rate like USC, we knew he probably wasn’t even going to get merit even though he was in the top 25% of their accepted stats. USC is not known to be generous with aid and is in the top 10 for most expensive schools unfortunately.
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True.
But USC requires FAFSA + CSS profile + all tax returns / schedules + anything and everything else that they wish to request or even think that they may need. As I recall, their requests became rather extensive and even repetitive over time.
Over all, my family was content with USC’s FA offerings, which allowed both of my daughters to attend USC, including one overlap year.
But USC does also allow for the submission of explanations and supplements. There is also an appeals process. So, if an applicant’s family does not believe that USC FA or any other FA office has a full and complete understanding of the family’s financial situation, it is incumbent on the family to educate them. Otherwise, they will render their FA decision solely based on the info provided.
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Why would a 22 year old be ready to work at Google or a top finacial firm but not be able to evaluate an essay and follow a rubric for scoring it?
I read scholarship applications for a top university (not USC). The university that I read for provides very specific qualities and attributes that they are looking for. I am given detailed instructions on how to score the essays. In many ways, I think a 22 year old would have better understanding, insight and perspective than a 62 year old.
Note, I can only score what a student tells me. It is more likely that the student didnt go into enough detail about their leadership, than the fact that I didnt score them fairly for that leadership.
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When did they ask for 1040s? Was it after acceptance? (Some schools do this prior.) USC didn’t appear in our list of schools requiring additional docs after submitting CSS.
Thank you!! It is hard not to get discouraged, at this point we figure it will be just as hard if not harder to get in RD so we are mentally and emotionally moving on from seeing USC as an option. Ironically it seems that NMF status may in the end not be an advantage since USC wouldn’t want to accept all NMF students and perhaps they all end up competing with each other in that pool.
Historically, that does not seem to be the case… at least not exclusively. There have been many posters receiving merit scholarships from USC over the past many years who would have been full pay and who also did not even apply for financial aid. Instead, the motivation in selecting merit recipients seems to be an effort by USC to try and lure away those 800-1000 applicants from other top schools with the early enticement of a merit scholarship. And they do so regardless of need. Clearly, there are many 1000s more applicants who would qualify for such merit scholarships based on stats or accomplishments, but they are using their own determination as to which ones to offer such scholarships to. Some merit recipients also receive need-based assistance from USC.
So, it is not the case that USC is only offering merit scholarships to applicants exclusively from one category - those who need aid. In fact, there are many enrollees each year that receive more in university grants than what would be available via most merit scholarships. Those admitted students do not need merit scholarships to entice them. Some even receive more in university grants alone than the equivalent of full tuition. Some get full rides via need-based grants alone.
On average, two-thirds of each new class at USC receives some form of financial assistance, whether that be via direct grants, work study or loans. Only 20% or so receive some form of merit scholarship.
I cannot speak to the general impression of USC FA’s generosity, but they are clearly offering adequate aid for many… including my own family.
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I do not recall, but it was before both of my daughters were admitted during March. So, I assume that they asked for such during February or March.
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As suggested previously in this thread above, USC Financial Aid will often ask for things directly. And they expect you to upload them through FAST. They will list within the FAST portal (for financial aid) everything received and everything still needed. Having already submitted them through CSS will not suffice. Often, they request the same item(s) even more than once. Sometimes, they will even invent a new request, meaning that they want you to generate a letter or explanation to upload. The key thing is to simply take it all in stride and supply whatever they ask for… even if you have already submitted it directly to them before. There is no point in arguing or trying to explain that they already have it. Simply give it to them again if they ask for it again. My advice is to just get used to it. We dealt with it for two students and eight FA cycles.
But generally speaking, the FAO will replicate many requests for items already submitted to CSS. And as stated above, your FAST portal can seem complete time after time, but then they may simply ask for something new or for you to replicate a submission. So maybe get used to checking it often. Or, if you ignore it, they will eventually email you too, telling you to check FAST.
And these requests will now ramp up into February and March. This is not an indication of anything related to admissions, if you are still awaiting a decision in March. It simply means that your FA file is incomplete.
Although it seems to defy logic, Financial Aid and Admissions are on two completely separate & independent paths until when admissions announces its decisions. The FAO will basically learn who is being admitted as you and every other applicant are. But until then, they will work as diligently as possible to get everyone’s FA account/profile completed… just in case you & all who applied for FA are admitted.
So, you will derive no hints regarding potential admissions via the FAO or their communications with you. That is just the reality of how they operate.
My son was in the top 25% of USC’s stats for his acceptance year for the SAT and GPA, plus he is a legacy since I went to USC. He got accepted at higher ranked schools, Wash U, UCLA, Berkeley, etc., so he should have been considered an attractive candidate. We assumed he would not get a merit scholarship since he didn’t even fill out the FASFA. There are probably some students who got merit scholarships who did not apply for aid but I doubt they are the majority.
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Historically, only around 9-10 percent of the applicants actually admitted each cycle are admitted with additional merit consideration during Jan-Feb. Additionally, only around 10% of legacy applicants in recent years have been admitted. So, the #s indicate that the majority of applicants with similar stats to your son’s are also not admitted with merit consideration. Many with such stats clearly are admitted eventually… either in the RD round, or this cycle potentially EA, but without merit consideration. Additionally, roughly 90% of all legacy applicants are not admitted at all these days. Many though are offered TTP. The same is true for circa 4K applicants each cycle with 4.0 unweighted GPAs and 99th percentile test scores. Each of them is clearly astonished when they fail to receive an offer of admission.
This is the cruel reality of today’s college acceptance environment unfortunately. With 80K+ applicants to USC this year, and with over 90% of those destined to not gain admission, it is an insane challenge… leading to massive disappointment for far too many extremely well qualified applicants.
Hopefully your son will be admitted in March. He does seem to be very well qualified, so here’s hoping that one of those 5500 or so remaining spots will be ear marked for him. Good luck to him…
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@WWWard I think her son applied in a prior year since the only Wash U decision released to date is from ED1.
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Not necessarily true. We are a full pay (and no loans needed) family. My d20 was accepted with a scholarship. My daughter knows others with Presidential and Trustee that are also in a similar situation. I am grateful USC looked at my kid’s academic record/accomplishments rather than just our financial ability to pay. She earned it!
Edited- we never filled out FAFSA either
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I know these threads are hard to follow on CC. but my son was admitted to Marshall for fall 2021 (he wasn’t a spring admit or a Trojan Transfer) and is currently a sophomore at USC. He is very happy there but it’s difficult to hear that so many great students were deferred to RD like he was. At least he did get in in March 2021. so there is still hope for those 78,000 students who applied EA or RD. I can’t believe the acceptance rate is so low, but that’s the trend at most colleges now.
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