Really hoping for presidential… althought I’m not NMSQT USC will only be realistically attainable for me if I get half off over other in-state UCs
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USC alumni and I currently have a sophomore there, class of 2025. The extra several hundred students in my son’s class have put a strain on resources, especially on-campus housing, so I can see why they are accepting less. I think one of the reasons they did EA was to boost the number of applications they receive, which they obviously did. Applications actually dipped a few thousand last year to below 70K from the 71K they received in 2021. It was surprising that they took so few students EA though. They are many students and parents I know who were disappointed that they were deferred, but I told them to not lose hope since the majority of students will be accepted in March. I think by just having RD they lost out on many students who wanted to apply elsewhere EA or ED, so they joined the club. Besides the UCs, the vast majority of colleges offer one or both, and USC didn’t.
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@California2021 Good point. Since the Common App came into existence, a lot of schools have seen a big windfall in revenue from applications. Georgetown doesn’t use the Common App right now, and, consequently, it only has about 27K applications – which is about 20K fewer apps than a Vanderbilt or a Northwestern, which are similarly ranked schools. So, that’s a lot of money to leave on the table for these schools (probably around $1.2M-$1.5M for the extra apps).
I agree. It does not make sense. It seems like USC wanted to keep admissions the same, but also wanted to have an “early” offering to appease the public. Thus, we ended up with the process this year.
If yield rate was a driving factor, it seems like an ED option would be the best way to go. There could still be an early scholarship date… lots of schools do this.
Also, it seems like they are losing out on great candidates by pushing most of the class to wait for RD. You can love USC all you want, it can even be your first choice, but waiting until RD to hear from USC in the year 2023 just isn’t a gamble a lot of kids can make.
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It was so stressful to wait it out until the end of March for USC and the UC decisions. Most of my son’s classmates already knew where they were going by then. Not many more kids were accepted through EA this year than when he applied for the class of 2025, so the majority still have to wait for March. Having a lower acceptance rate will also help USC move up in the rankings, which had fallen due to the admissions scandal in 2019.
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Seems like an increased yield rate would help them more.
The mental fatigue of the long college app process is truly real. Many started last summer. My son and many of his friends are losing/lost steam. They just want it to be over. They all know they are going to school somewhere. They just want to know where.
Waiting until the end of March to get decisions, comparing their options, then trying to make a decision, and even go back and visiting in a month time frame is A LOT.
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I’m not sure how US News and World Report ranks schools, but lower acceptance rates and higher yield rates probably help. USC was tied at #20 with UCLA and Berkeley but dropped to #28 after the admissions scandal, so I am sure they want to raise their rankings. Good luck to your son. I tell my son he is so lucky he got into USC and the Marshall School. So many good, accomplished students like him didn’t get in when he did, so it almost seems like luck at these very selective schools.
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Thank you! He is lucky to have some great choices so far. And good luck to your son! Sounds like he landed in an amazing place.
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Agree, I though things would be easy once all apps were in, but the waiting is worse.
Hi, does anyone know how easy/hard it is to switch majors from Price School of Public Policy into Dornsife? My kid was accepted EA into the Price School and wondering if it’s possible to explore majors in the Dornsife college and maybe switch majors into that college after starting freshman year.
Number of applications may have been impacted by the admissions scandal but the shift in rankings was likely from other factors. In 2019, USNWR changed their methodology for ranking schools. This change favored state schools and all UCs moved up in USNWR rankings that year.
U.S. News added two new indicators to reward schools that are successful at graduating students from low-income households, which can promote social mobility. As a result, economic diversity measures contributed to 13 percent of the 2019 Best Colleges rankings formula
To factor social mobility, U.S. News analyzed graduation rates of federal Pell Grant recipients, which are given to students from families with a household income that is typically less than $50,000 annually, though most Pell Grant money goes to students with a total family income below $20,000.
Note that acceptance rank was removed from the calculation in 2019
Eliminated acceptance rate from the Best Colleges ranking formula. U.S. News dropped acceptance rate – which previously had a weight of 1.25 percent – from the Best Colleges methodology altogether to give more weight to outcome measures.
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Very easy to move into a Dornsife major generally speaking. He will have GEs to take initially and other classes that will overlap the different majors, so he has plenty of time to explore switching. Trip to advisor and discussion is pretty much what’s involved.
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I remember seeing that acceptance rate was removed from the calculation, which I think is good. I don’t think yield was ever one of the measures? Maybe indirectly influential in terms of how peers rate an institution.
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Ya, putting way too much weight on the admissions scandal and ranking when it involved 8 different universities, 50 families, and 11 coaches/administrators. The scandal didn’t seem to hurt Stanford, Yale, or UCLA, etc., who also had coaches and parents in on the action. (Some of it very big $, I think Yale guy pd $450k for daughter to get in - yikes!) Actually, while not a good thing or look obviously, the scandal was interesting from a PR perspective for USC, and in the end just made it seem more elite to many. But affecting ranking, no. US News uses many factors to rank - graduation rates/first year retention/faculty resources & compensation/ % faculty full time/faculty with higher degrees/student faculty ratio/class size/financial resources per student/alumni giving rate/Pell grant recipients and grad rates/HS standing of incoming students, and a zillion other things, which btw, are reported by the colleges themselves. Buyer beware any rankings. 
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From 2018 to 2022 USC fell from #21 to #27 while other private schools in the same range, like Carnegie Mellon, Emory, and Georgetown, stayed relatively the same. The ranking is currently at 25, so it is moving in the right direction. The scandal did affect many universities but USC seemed to be the focus of Varsity Blues on Netflix and was in the news more since it involved children of celebrities. Hopefully all of that is in the past.
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"Visit USC with a travel stipend! We are happy to assist with a portion of the travel costs for you to attend an Explore USC event in April. "
I got this on my portal. Any other EA admits get it?
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Curious how much it is now, let us know if you find out. It was $200 bucks, helpful if from Norcal, but east coast, not so much.
I think one should only consider rankings if they know the criteria measured and how they are determined. As a former PR exec that use to “buy” rankings for our tech products to get the number one spot in various publications, I give virtually all college rankings zero weight and instead relied on our own factors that we personally considered important. Never considered US News rankings for anything - have seen them of course but wouldn’t use them for any valid data. Rankings just cluttered the search process with data that wasn’t specific to what we were looking for. But that’s us, I get some people think they are something, especially international shoppers.
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Thanks! So just to clarify, do all USC freshman have the same GE requirements across all colleges (Dornsife, Marshall, Price, Viterbi, etc) and majors? Appreciate your insights!
$200! When I click the red button that says “Reimburse my Travel” the first sentence says “Congratulations on your admission to USC – come for a visit! We are happy to subsidize travel for scholarship recipients to attend an Explore USC event in April.”
Does this mean I got a scholarship? By extension, does it also mean that I have not recieved presidential or trustee, since those require interviews (and I’m not national merit)?