Hello! I’m an international sophomore student, studying in India, with a British passport. I am highly interested in pursuing medicine or computer science as a career. However, my main extracurriculars, and hook/spike are music-focused (I am receiving my completion diploma for the Indian instrument “tabla” by the end of junior year, my Grade 8 Plectrum guitar certificate in guitar, the lead guitarist of my school band, and performed several times). When applying to USC, with the goal of getting a full-tuition scholarship (my academics are pretty good: got a 1360 in the PSAT 8/9 last year (out of 1440) and have mostly As, A+s and A-s in school), should I be applying under music or the science school (I don’t have any significant extracurriculars towards science) . Please help!
USC is not generous to international students … if you want a full scholarship your wasting money on USC plus you really need to make sure your high school subjects are heavy science and math. Remember your applying as international and based in India your in a competitive pool. Having a British passport helps in the bucket.
@airway1, they do have merit scholarships don’t they…
Yes, they do. And yes, it doesn’t hurt to apply if you can afford the app fee. But understand it is a lottery ticket you are buying.
I recommend focusing a lot of time and effort in other more realistic choices than on this. Absolutely, go got these merit possibilities, but understand the odds. They turn down kids with perfect scores, particularly those who need financial aid , especially from countries where they get so many applicants.
Very few schools are need blind and meet full need for international students. To accept an international student who can’t sffird to come here is a waste of time because they have to show how they are going to pay for the years here in applying for the student visa.
I do encourage anyone who wants to give these lottery tickets a try, but to be aware that these are highly unlikely s d to have affordable sure things in place as well.
USC gives away about 100 full tuition scholarships per year. Just be aware, that even with a full tuition scholarship, USC is likely > 20,000 USD per year for an international student. This is for housing, food, books, transportation, medical insurance, etc.
Apply to USC and other schools which offer those great programs plus music! After you pass pre-screening auditions, then consider if you really want to invest money to travel to US for live auditions. Live auditions are pretty much required if you are looking for large merit / talent scholarships. USC gives bigger merit scholarships for academic and probably 50% at most for music-only merit scholarships. So, combining your academic merit and music talent has a chance of getting larger scholarship. However, I agree with most of them here, it is very competitive to receive a huge merit scholarship and it is like a lottery or a gamble. And “full-tuition scholarships and “full-ride scholarship” are different by $20K-$30K / year. Good luck!
Hello, fellow USC full-tuition hopeful! USC DOES give full tuition merit scholarships, as noted above (my sister was awarded one) to a very select number of top freshman applicants. However, I’m fairly certain these awards are given by school, so you would probably do best to apply as a science major (if science is really what you want to do) and write in your supplement about music.
One of the reasons I say that is this: You may or may not be aware that USC’s music school, Thornton, really is among the best of the American music conservatories. It is extremely competitive and only the best get in. If your main focus is science but you also want to study music, tell them that. USC loves double-majors and interdisciplinary focuses, and quite a few non-music majors do take advantage of Thornton’s world-class music offerings.