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<li><p>Spring admits-their sat scores arn't counted ( i met someone with a 1850 score....) Its not just one or 2 its hundreds. People with lower academic standards are let in through spring admits.</p></li>
<li><p>Size-a school with tens of thousands obviously has less resources per person than a school like Pomona. Cut size= less revenue, but most resources for each student. This allows each student to be nurtured and achieve max potential. Furthermore, this is MUCH better for graduate school admissions. Small schools like Swarthmore have an incredible amount of students go to top 5 grad schools. In the long run, this is what make the trojan family strong-not sheer size. </p></li>
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<p>For example, while Princeton has a tiny class and small numbers of alumni, each member is highly connected and well off. Quality>quantity.</p>
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<li><p>Sports -I never understood why usc develops varsity athletic facilities when academic majors like German are cut. Seriously...top tier school? What other basic majors will usc cut? If usc ever wants to be in the same league of other CA schools like stanford, it cant sacrifice academics for sports. I LOVE football, but I LOVE academics more.</p></li>
<li><p>Transfers-no other school that is top 25 lets in as many transfers. USC needs to at least evaluate sat scores but doesn't even consider them for junior transfers. I dont think sats mean anything, but when the peen battles in academic rankings occurs, these 4 factors do hurt peoples perceptions of usc, this hurts alot. People know USC is exceptionally easy to transfer into from a california CC, where students get straight A's using rate my professors as a bible. </p></li>
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<p>This has personally affected my academic experience at USC. A transfer in a chem lecture would consistently waste the time of hundreds of students with questions on concepts that were obviously covered in chem 1 last semester. Looks like his community college A's were really deserved.</p>
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<li><p>Low endowment. Yes, USC has a high total endowment but anyone with a brain can figure out that number distributed by 25,000 students is tiny. I think USC isn't even top 50 for endowment per student. USC's endowment is about 1/4 of Stanfords...whats that say about Trojan alumni?</p></li>
<li><p>Weak alumni contributing. Even schools like washu, emory have higher endowments TOTAL. And those schools are TINY compared to USC. The alumni base for WASHU is 1/10 of the size of USC, but it contributes more in per person values and total.</p></li>
<li><p>Public school kids- USC has affirmitive action of many public schools in ghetto areas in california. These kids also waste the time of hundreds of students with high school level questions. I know this is harsh, but USC needs to take more % of its students from private schools if it wishes to catch up to schools like stanford in academics.</p></li>
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<p>Again, I as well as many kids from my lecture have been robbed of valuable lecture time with high school level questions (such as about wohler synthesis). I have always made an effort to meet these kids after and offer help, and low and behold -all from public schools from the area. I have never met a kid from Harvard-Westlake waste my time. USC needs to take even bottom level kids from to private schools, rather than try to bolster it's diversity with pity admits from public schools. </p>
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<li>Less regulation of parties. Even registered parties have been shut down by DPS this past year....</li>
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<p>Other than these factors, I believe the momentum USC has is truly great. I believe the administration really needs to implement some radical changes for USC to be on par with a school like stanford, but it absolutely can be done.</p>