USC Honors Admission

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of South Carolina
1

I am a rising senior and I plan on applying to USC honors in the fall and was wondering about my chances of being admitted into the program. I am an out of state student in NC and I go to a private high school where the curriculum is extremely difficult. My stats are:

GPA: 5.02 weighted last time I checked last semester, could be off a little
SAT: 1300 (Math: 610/Reading and Writing 700)
ACT: 30, superscore: 31
Major: International Business
AP’s: US Government and Politics, World History, Language and Composition, Environmental Science, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and I plan on taking Art History, Literature, Calculus AB, and US History senior year. All A’s in each class
EC’s: Student Government Treasurer, Newspaper, Yearbook, Science Olympiad, FBLA(won 1st place in state competition), Math Club, Chapter President for local volunteering organization, Science Olympiad, I went to Summer Ventures last summer(prestigious state run academic program) as well as I will be attending Governor’s School this summer. I also work a part time job. I do not know exactly how many volunteer hours I have but it should be a fair amount.

I think probably my weak spot is test scores but im hoping everything else will help that out. My letters of rec should be great my counselor says the teachers write stellar letters. Also I was wondering if anybody could tell me more about the IB program and admissions into that, especially the IBEA cohort. Thanks

2

Hi jnc127,

I think you should be solid for USC (of course) and the SCHC, and potentially some out-of-state money. Your GPA is great, scores are right on the threshold, course rigor is solid, EC’s are good, and if your recs are as good as you say they are, you should be set.

I would caution you to take extreme care with the SCHC essays – they really do look at those, and the essays are what will bump you to the top of the list for upper-end out-of-state scholarships, including the McNair Scholarship ($15k + in-state tuition, essentially full ride).

I’ll note that I was an out-of-state applicant in 2012, with similar stats:
GPA: ~5.06, SAT: 1260, ACT: 32, similar AP’s, similar EC’s, except more geared toward athletics.

My scores were actually toward the median of SCHC, but I ended up with the McNair Scholarship likely due to my rec’s and essays. I just graduated this past May and couldn’t have picked a better institution, I definitely recommend it!!

Good luck!

3

@CockNotTrojan Are these GPAs on a 5.0 scale or 4.0?