USC Class of 2027 — Regular & Early Action Decisions

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
1148

Apparently, this is a new stance from USC Admissions and a direct result of the application pool augmenting to 80K+ in total between EA and RD submissions.

I do not recall such statements from USC back in 2014 or 2017, when my two daughters were applying. Back then, a direct quote from the head of Admissions was as follows… “Students often ask me how they can let the admission office know that USC is their first choice. It’s simple: Just tell us. Tell us in your application, over email, telephone or in person. And we make note of that. We add these things to your files if you ask us to, and we keep them in mind as well.” Times have changed though it seems, and now USC Admissions is trying to not become overwhelmed via applicant updates. And that does seem to be a reasonable request on their part.

My daughters simply followed the prior advice. They did each send one short email to their assigned AO in mid-February re-confirming their interest, stating that USC remained their first choice and committing to attending if admitted. They were both eventually admitted in March, and each did in fact enroll. Both have since graduated from USC.

If applicants are receiving contrary advice from Admissions now, then they are each free to proceed as their own thoughts guide them. In my family’s case, I think that my daughters would have always regretted not stating what they did in writing had the admission decision gone the other way. So, they at least wanted to make it known clearly. Knowing them, they would likely still send that one email… even under the conditions of USC’s new guidance.

But every applicant moving forward needs to decide for themselves. Maybe they should consider things like… How crucial would an update or statement actually be? Do you really feel compelled to send it? And if so… Would USC Admissions actually disqualify an applicant that they were planning to admit already for making such a commitment or for simply supplying a crucial update? Or… could such a commitment or update be the difference between being admitted or not for an applicant on the bubble?

I personally see no harm in making a short and sweet commitment within such an email… if true. It is after all also an environment wherein 90%+ of all applicants will fail to achieve that coveted admissions offer. If an applicant does not do so… and if an offer of admission does not come… that applicant might always wonder if it could have made a difference. But, it is clear that USC is asking applicants to no longer do so. So, the decision is yours. Every applicant needs to reflect and decide for themselves.

Good luck…

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1149

They said something similar at the info session we attended last summer but ended on a different note — that students could now indicate their particular interest in USC by applying early action. They have said so many times to deferred students not to submit anything other than the deferral form and midterms, I think that sending anything else, even a love letter, would not be taken as a positive.

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1150

Gosh, after the MANY times USC admissions has said not to give anything else other than midterm grades and the deferral form, I would not recommend a note, phone call, or email indicating continued interest. My sib is a current applicant and he and I are seeing this with our own eyes. It’s a big message, and I feel it would hurt an applicant.

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1151

My student is a 3rd year and the emphasis when she applied was just tell us in your application. There was never mention of calling or emailing an AO.

Prior to applying, they did note that my student attended when a USC rep visited our HS and that my student clicked through an email link to request additional information. After applying, they noted that my student attended webinars and asked questions during the webinars.

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1152

I’d like to say that this process is truly opaque and you should definetly not feel bad about a USC deferral. A huge deal is reliant on fit.

I was just deferred from 3 state schools - UMich Engineering, Georgia Tech and UIUC Computer Science + X. Before these state schools I was straight up dealt a rejection from the Arts and Sciences (Not Wharton) school of UPenn.

USC had a lower early acceptance rate than all these schools and they somehow wanted me on campus. So don’t feel bad - nothing is set in stone and deferrals don’t reflect anything negative on your part.

Just wanted to put that out there :slight_smile:

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1153

I concur that within this new admissions environment that applicants should think long and hard before initially submitting their application. Back at the beginning of this thread, I stated that… “My main advice to future college applicants, and especially to those seeking USC, is to start the application process early and to ask the important questions now and up to the time that you actually submit the application. The time to gain some potential insights and to work out your own unique and specific approach to applying is now and up to your submission date… and not thereafter.” And hopefully most applicants did make everything crystal clear within their application itself… crafting a well-researched and well-defined Why USC? reasoning that may let the readers understand what USC may be gaining by admitting the applicant specifically. But, updates do also occur within the life of a high school senior after hitting send in the fall. It’s inherently unfair to those with new significant accomplishments or positive changes. It’s also incredibly unfair in general that over 72,000 applicants will be turned away. Literally tens of thousands of well-qualified applicants will fail to receive that coveted offer of admission. 90% of all legacy applicants and circa 4K applicants with 4.0 unweighted GPAs and test scores in the 99th percentile will be among them. The eventual differentiators being used to make those final decisions would also likely appear rather random and arbitrary to most viewers if we were allowed to actually witness the selection process. I feel for these applicants and their families. The challenge that these applicants face in trying to stand-out among such a huge applicant pool is beyond daunting. It is especially so if USC wants to also constrain those applicants further with an arbitrary cut-off date as to updates or new accomplishments. But, so it seems. Hopefully USC chooses wisely and is able to craft a well-rounded and diverse freshman class of individuals with a strong affinity for USC who will be uniquely contributing to the greater USC community if admitted. And USC should have great respect for that process that becomes more challenging with each cycle itself and especially for the candidates simply striving to reflect their best summary argument as to why they belong there.

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1154

Whoa, that yellow ACT border around the page here on my desktop is a bit much early in the morning.

Just want to say good luck on housing app. Just do your best to complete it and get time stamp, don’t go down any rabbit holes -adjustments can be made later. Hopefully you all spent time looking at options. And in the end, there really isn’t any bad housing at USC so it will all work out great.

And you EA folks will have easy time getting what you want. The earlier time stamp could just help those wanting singles.

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1155

It is a relief to not see a # of posts here today about logging-in issues with the housing portal. Such was not the case in the past. That is likely the EA difference, as far fewer people were needing to access it this morning. I recall the gridlock and complaints from past cycles. Hopefully those are all in the past now, and it will be smooth for RD admits too later.

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1156

Do you have any Recommendations for housing?

1157

For others to recommend housing options, we would likely need to know your priorities. USC offers traditional dorms, suites and even apartment options for freshmen. And there are many potential differences among those three types… like having a private bathroom versus public within a residence hall (dorm), A/C vs none, kitchen vs nothing, # of roommates, location on or near campus, etc. Dorms, suites and apartments vary widely by all of the various potential features. It is thus likely best to just see all of the options online. You can see floorplans and features and locations for each. All available housing options are described well at New tab (usc.edu) . Additionally, there are a series of excellent videos available at Housing Videos | USC Housing .

And post 1086 via @cadreamin is an excellent recap of her take on it.

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1158

Are we just in a waiting game now for the next two months?

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1159

Yes. The vast majority of current USC students and also USC alum were admitted in late March versus in January or February, and the same will be true this cycle. Another 5500 or so of the circa 80K who applied EA or RD in total this cycle will be admitted in around seven weeks. So good luck with your efforts to distract yourself until then.

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1160

Are all NMSF and NMF guaranteed acceptance to USC? Someone told me that this was the ticket in. Is this true? If not, is there a statistic on how many apply and how many get accepted each year?

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1161

Certainly not guaranteed. You can imagine how many NMF apply since USC is one of the most generous of schools fo NMFs. (Likely thousands of the 15,000 NMFs.) It is safe to say that while many NMF are accepted, the majority of NMFs that apply do not get in, it’s just an issue of space. We know this from the Presidential figures…There are 350-400 Presidential’s in total, which include NMFs and non NMFs as well. Of course, NMFs likely have other great options.

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1162

As I understand it, USC received approximately 40,600 applications for Early Action admission and merit scholarship consideration. On January 20th, USC offered admission to approximately 2,400 students of those 40,600. An additional 40,400 students applied for Regular Decision. So circa 81K applied to USC this cycle in total. USC plans to admit another 5,500 in late March. So, the total admitted this cycle will be roughly 7,900.

To achieve their goal of 3,000-3,300 enrollees, they are thus projecting a yield rate of 38-41.8%. As this is already in line with the yield rate achieved during the last few years, I am struggling to understand exactly why they moved to this new EA model versus their prior methodology that served them well for many years.

By USC’s own admission, their merit scholarship program is a bit complicated. It seems that they made it even more so this cycle. They did consider all EA applicants for merit scholarships, but they are still offering merit consideration to only 1100 or so. Most of those admitted early will also be informed that they will not be moving forward in the competition for Trustee, Presidential, Deans, and Leadership scholarship funding. Some will however still qualify for National Merit. So, again, the change from last year’s approach does not seem to make things clearer or overall better as I see it. The #s are roughly the same. The key differentiator seems to be that another 1,300 will be admitted early but then still disappointed by the lack of merit consideration.

This month, USC will release additional information about merit scholarships to EA admitted students. Roughly 900 students will be invited to proceed to the next phase of consideration for USC’s top awards: the Trustee and Presidential (full- and half-tuition) scholarships. Their next step will be to schedule their scholarship interview via their applicant portal. After interviews, final scholarship decisions will be released in late March. 200 students will be notified of the receipt of a smaller scholarship like our Deans Scholarship and Leadership Scholarship. Unchanged is the fact that any applicant who is named a National Merit Finalist, offered admission and selects USC as their first-choice institution, will receive a USC Presidential Scholarship worth one-half tuition.

To this point, I thus fail to see the need for USC’s conversion to this sort of hybrid EA offering. What is their perceived goal? If they wanted to raise the number of enrolled students, they could have simply opted to admit more qualified applicants. But, they still insist that their goal remains to only have circa 3,000 fall admits enroll. If it was to admit fewer but to still increase their yield rate, this also does not seem to accomplish anything toward that end. If it is to change the complexion of the freshman class by enticing more early admits to actually commit from the pool of 1,300 or so admitted EA but not offered merit, I am not exactly sure if that calculation will bear fruit. And if they do, they could end up with far too many committing to the freshman class. Their class of 2025, for example, had 3,668 enroll out of the 8,884 (yielding 41.3%), and USC claims that such a # overwhelmed them a bit. A similar yield rate this cycle would equate to 3,263 enrollees, which is still above their goal of 3,000. If more of the 1,300 admitted early but without merit commit, and if the yield rate approaches 45%, USC will end up with 3,555 enrolled for this fall. That of course is very similar to the 3,668 # that they deemed too large.

So, in general, I cannot fathom what new goal or desired outcome was used to justify the conversion to utilizing this form of EA offering for USC. Maybe it will become clearer over time. But, I would have simply opted to leave the time-tested methodology of admissions unchanged. Clearly though, I did not get a vote lol. Can anyone point out what I may be missing… or how this change in admissions methodology could yield some perceived goal that could not have been achieved by sticking to the prior years’ methods?

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1163

I don’t really get it either. Maybe they don’t have a very clear vision and are just trying to test it out?

On a separate but related topic: kids applying for schools with portfolio/audition requirements are considered RD applicants with a Dec. 1st deadline. They are qualified for the merit scholarships too. Do you or anyone else know if this Friday’s announcement will include students from this group?

Thanks!

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1164

Thats a good question. I am not sure, but I would certainly hope so. They deserve to know too asap!

1165

Do you think they will now offer waitlists with this new EA plan? Not sure if this has already been discussed.

1166

No. They never have. They will likely still offer a couple hundred spring admission offers though… as they have before. And TTP as an option too.

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1167

For those interested, this is a pretty good article about TTP… the Trojan Transfer Plan:

How the Trojan Transfer Plan offers some students an alternative path to admission at USC – Annenberg Media (uscannenbergmedia.com)

And here is an excellent CC thread on it…

Trojan Transfer Plan (TTP) - Colleges and Universities A-Z / University of Southern California - College Confidential Forums

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