USC in 10 Years.

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
21

<p>USC’s ranking at #23 according to US News is EXTREMELY generous. The administration at USC has figured out how to play the rankings game; and as such, the university is ranked much higher than it really should be. </p>

<p>USC is definitely not going to pass schools like Northwestern or Rice anytime within the next 50 or 60 years. Those are smaller, much more elite and not even really considered USC’s competition. </p>

<p>All in all, a university’s overall ranking doesn’t really matter. There are MANY schools that are technically ranked lower than USC that are actually much better. Michigan, NYU, UT-Austin, UCLA and maybe Virginia and UNC come to mind.</p>

<p>I’m honestly not trying to bash USC or anything. I got accepted there and I really do think it’s a good university. It’s gaining a lot of momentum…but so are most top 50 schools. USC is not the only university out there that is forward progressing. USC can be ranked whatever, it’s not really going to improve the reputation or recruiting that much. When you look at top recruiters (Wall Street firms and MBB-level consulting), they’re not really recruiting at USC any more or less than they were 10 or 20 years ago when USC was ranked in the 40’s. Michigan, Texas, Virginia, UNC, NYU, and many others that are technically ranked lower are equally as prestigious and have the same, if not better recruiting.</p>

22

<p>“Even more curious does anyone see Stanford changing in 10 years? Maybe NYC campus either fails or thrives.”</p>

<p>In 10 years, I’d expect Stanford to stay about where it is in the rankings. </p>

<p>They’re competing with lots of other universities to put a campus in NYC, and even if Stanford is awarded the rights, there’s a really interesting vibe on the Palo Alto campus that won’t transfer. This would be purely a money-making enterprise for Stanford. NYC would do better to go with a nearby university like Columbia or Princeton, and have them build a dedicated science and engineering campus in town.</p>

<p>I went to USC in the late 80’s for my graduate degree, so the following observation may be obsolete. But having worked at, and taken classes at Stanford, my initial thoughts on comparing the two schools was that you went to USC if you wanted a good job with a company, while Stanford students are expected to start their own companies.</p>

<p>I will say that lots of people at Stanford now view USC as a rival along the lines of Berkeley, which I get a kick out of. It means USC is taken seriously.</p>

23

<p>

</p>

<p>i’m not sure how much i agree with this. Stanford’s endowment has been increasing at an insane rate. i think they’re endowment is the third highest right now; they passed yale pretty recently, and they’re still behind princeton but i expect them to pass it soon. In 10 years their endowment might be just as high as harvard’s. In 10 years i see stanford passing columbia, maybe yale, and possibly princeton as well.</p>

24

<p>andrew787,
What you posted about where SC stands today is strickly your opinion. There are others who disagree with you. Since you are a student at the University of Texas, how would you know about the changes and improvements that are going on at SC?</p>

<pre><code> Here are some statistics that may indicate why SC is ranked above Texas. The information given here is from the Texas and SC websites for 2010. Texas has not published 2011 data as of today. Some statistics are from 2009 as I was unable to find them for 2010 for Texas. SC has published their 2011 profile.
</code></pre>

<p>Undergraduates</p>

<p>Texas-31,022
SC-17,000</p>

<p>Student faculty ratio</p>

<p>Texas-17/1
SC-9/1</p>

<p>ACT Composite for freshmen 2010</p>

<p>Texas 25-31
SC-29-33</p>

<p>SAT Scores for 2010,enrolled</p>

<p>Texas-CR 530-670
SC-CR 620-720 </p>

<p>Texas-Math 580-700
SC-Math 650-750 2011 670-770</p>

<p>Texas-Writing 530-670
SC-Writing 640-740 2011 650-740</p>

<p>Graduation rank 2009
Texas 52nd
SC 31st</p>

<p>Freshmen retention percentage 2010
Texas-91.7%
SC-96% 2011 97%</p>

<p>Faculty resources 2009
Texas-96th
SC-29th</p>

<p>Selectivity rank 2009
Texas-44th
SC-23rd</p>

<p>Acceptance rate 2009
Texas-45%
SC-24% 2011 23%</p>

<p>Financial resources 2009
Texas-82nd
SC-36th</p>

<p>Alumni giving rank 2009
Texas-92nd
SC-4th</p>

<p>Funds raised in last 12 months
Texas ? (Please add this)
SC $1.2 billion</p>

<p>National Merit Scholars in freshmen class
Texas ? (Please add this)
SC 247</p>

<p>Applications for 2010 freshmen class
Texas-31,022
SC-35,794</p>

<p>Size of freshmen class 2010
Texas-7233
SC-2972 2011 2931</p>

25

<p>What intriges me is the whole USC found out how to play the ramking game excuse. Like it is that easy for a university to raise billions, to get top notch students to commit to the university, to lure distinguished and award winning faculty, to establish a alumni network that encourages donors. It takes a truly amazing and elite university, admin, student body, alumni, and faculty to “figure out how to play the game” and do it well. </p>

<p>If that is what USC is gulity of and that is wrong, theb I stand by USC “gaming the system.”</p>

26

<p>Georgia Girl,</p>

<p>Look, I can throw a few numbers around too!</p>

<p>Endowment:</p>

<p>Texas - $7.2 billion
USC - $3.3 billion</p>

<p>Admissions Yield Rate:</p>

<p>Texas - 52.3%
USC - 35.1%</p>

<p>Not to mention the fact that UT-Austin is ranked higher than USC in EVERY single subject area except film/cinematic arts, accrording to USNWR.</p>

<p>However, this thread is not a UT-Austin vs USC debate, so I’m not sure why either of us are arguing this. These two schools are very similar on many facets. Some will say UT is better, others might say USC. Unlike you, my intent was not to trash-talk USC. All I was trying to say is that:</p>

<p>1) USC does not and will not be competing with schools like Rice and Northwestern within 10 years, as previous posters had proposed. USC is a totally different type of school. Northwestern and Rice compete with UChicago, ivies, and other comparable schools. USC competes with schools like UT-Austin, UCLA, UNC-CH, NYU and UVa. It’s not that NW and Rice are better, they’re just a lot different than large universities like ours.</p>

<p>2) USC is not the only university that is making progress. In LA it might seem like you’re the only one because of all the UC turmoil, but many universities, including those ranked better than USC, are improving as well. </p>

<p>

You’re obviously not exactly up to date on all of the changes, improvements, and new construction going at UT-Austin either. Or really any school other than USC.</p>

27

<p>

</p>

<p>i guess comparing Northwestern (USN:12) and Rice (USN:17) isn’t that big of a stretch. But can you really say that USC (USN: 23) competes with UT-Austin (USN: 45) The difference in rankings between USC and rice is only 6; between USC and UT-A it’s like 22. I also wouldn’t really say that ‘rice’ competes with schools like Uchicago (USN: 5) or the ivies (which themselves vary greatly among their rankings; i wouldn’t say harvard competes with cornell solely in virtue of the fact that they’re both ivies.)</p>

<p>Rice’s peers: Notre Dame, Emory, Vanderbilt, CMU, USC, Berkeley, Cornell, Brown, JHU, and Wustl</p>

<p>USC’s peers: Notre Dame, Emory, Vanderbilt, CMU, UCLA, Berkeley, NYU, Virgina, Michigan, and North Carolina.</p>

<p>we should also remember that we’re talking about two fairly comparable private universities here. We’re comparing Rice and USC; Not Princeton and NYU.</p>

28

<p>^All of this is debatable. </p>

<p>

This is precisely my point. A university’s overall ranking certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. Pick a major, any major, and we’ll compare the two programs between USC and UT-Austin.</p>

<p>

I wouldn’t say USC is in competition with Emory or even Vanderbilt; those are much different than USC - not better or anything, just a lot different.
CMU competes with technology-focused schools like CalTech and MIT, not really USC. But again, this is all debatable.</p>

<p>

In what way are these two polar opposite schools similar?</p>

29

<p>@andrewt787</p>

<p>lol i don’t even know why we’re comparing USC to my safety choice during high school… u giz have an acceptance rate of 40%+ just go back to ur forum k? thnxbai</p>

30

<p>

A good friend of mine also tries to say that comparisons are impossible without some very specific context. I think this is false. Both are universities and that’s what i’m comparing: two universities.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>both are highly ranked research universities with high quality student bodies. Both provide similar opportunities for their undergraduates and probably have plenty of funding for their graduate students. Both are located in large US cities. Both have high quality prestigious professors whom are probably gifted both in research and in pedagogy. I can go on, and on, and on.</p>

<p>I can, although it’s harder i think, also compare Caltech and Stanford. Both are the finest universities in california that are probably on the level of the top ivy schools (HYP.) Both offer an enormous amount of research and opportunity to their students. Both will probably land amazing job prospects. Both will have some of the highest quality student bodies imaginable. Both have small student to faculty ratios. Both are close to large cities, etc, etc.</p>

31

<p>andrewt787, with all the statistics Georgia Girl offered, all you can come up with to refute those are endowment size and admission yield rate? Neither of those statistics directly measure quality of students or education. (And according to US News, the UT-Austin endowment is only $2,589,413,402, while the USC endowment is $2,947,978,000.)</p>

<p>Just as I think its ridiculous to consider USC in the same class as the Ivies, Northwestern, Chicago and Cal Tech, it’s wishful thinking for you to consider Texas as in the same academic league as schools like USC, UCLA, and Virgina. (And I do consider USC to be a peer of Rice.)</p>

<p>Texas is an echelon lower, your peers being schools like Ohio State, Florida and Penn State.</p>

32

<p>Number of faculty members in the National Academy of Engineering
114 - MIT
92 - Stanford
91 - UC Berkeley
48 - UT-Austin
31 - Caltech
29 - Illinois
26 - Georgia Tech
25 - Princeton
25 - Cornell
25 - Carnegie Mellon
23 - USC</p>

33

<p>What is your point UCBChemEGrad? UT-Austin has more faculty members in the National Academy of Engineering than Caltech and Georgia Tech, but it definitely does not have a better engineering program than those schools. As long as those faculty members continue to make only minimal effort to pay attention to their undergraduate population and just focus on their own work/research, the number of them will not add to the learning and opportunities that students receive (yup I am referring to public schools).</p>

34

<p>lol just ignore UCBChemEGrad… hes just a UCB noob who keeps trolling around forums with nonsense… </p>

<p>Anyways, it is definitely exciting to see where USC will be in 10 years. By joining CommonApp, USC expects to see a massive increase in applicants by around 30-40%. Also, with the completion of new construction projects and the proposed university village, the university would, hopefully, be able to attract more talented students.</p>

<p>We are currently hiring a lot of great faculty and the academic level of students are jumping every year. All the students I know at SC are amazing, and I don’t think they lag behind students of other top prestigious universities. Most of them came to SC because they were rejected by Stanford, and a lot of them chose SC over other prestigious institutions in the same tier such as berkeley, UCLA, virginia, CMU and georgetown. I also met transfers from carnegie mellon, virginia, UT AUSTIN!!, and especially a lot from UMich and NYU. </p>

<p>The main problem right now with USC is that the school still lags behind other top universities in terms of prestige. A lot of people still view USC with the old stereotypes and, I must admit, our school needs to work on creating a more academically-stimulating environment. But USC is currently one of the fastest growing institutions in the US, and it will take a while for rankings to reflect this rapid change.</p>

<p>The 6-billion campaign is a historical event not only for our school, but for the academic history of the US. If President Nikias is able to succeed in this mission, this will be a huge boost to our academic reputation and prestige. Also, the Marshall School of Business is planning to build a new building with the latest & finest architectural design and technology for undergraduate students, which will also be a huge boost to the already renowned business school. </p>

<p>I think if USC is able to continue this upward trend and build up the momentum, the school will definitely break the top 20 and place itself among universities like Cornell, Brown, WashU, and maybe Northwestern. Just like how Stanford rose to the top thanks to Silicon Valley, USC will rise with the rapid growth of Los Angeles. I expect USC to become known as the “three top schools of the West”, along with CalTech and Stanford after around 10-20 years.</p>

35

<p>

</p>

<p>unless you’re talking private universities, the three schools of the west are Caltech, Stanford, and Berkeley. USC and UCLA, unfortunately, fall a notch behind these three.</p>

36

<p>

Far from a “noob”, I’ve been around awhile. </p>

<p>

Most college/academic prestige is derived from top faculty. My point was in order for USC to raise academic prestige it needs to have more visible faculty achievements (like National Academy membership, Nobel Prizes, etc.). Also, USC needs faculty to gain these achievements while their tenure is at USC. Picking up near emeritus prestigious profs after their glory days will only carry the Trojans so far…</p>

<p>

The problem is L.A. is far from an intellectual environment and its leadership is doing very little to attract business to Los Angeles.</p>

37

<p>Engineering faculty at SC are members of other prestigious academies. These numbers may be slightly out of date.</p>

<p>American Academy of Arts and Sciences—12
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—18
National Academy of Sciences—6
Academy of Motion Pictures—1</p>

<p>Nearly 1/3 are fellows or foreign fellows of international academies
Winners of Presidential Young Investigatior and Career Awards–60
Winners of PECASE Early Career Awards—13
Turing Prize—1</p>

38

<p>Correction of spelling in earlier post…</p>

<p>strictly</p>

39

<p>

</p>

<p>LA probably has one of the largest collection of intellectuals in the world. Caltech, UCLA, and USC are all pretty close to each other. San Francisco just has Berkeley. And, although stanford is relatively close, it’s not nearly as close as UCLA, USC, and Caltech are to each other; it’s like the distance from LA to Pomona.</p>

<p>Sure, we may not have Silicon Valley, but i’d be surprised to hear someone argue that the people in the film industry aren’t as intellectual as the people in SV.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yeah, i mean, google just opened their new LA office like last thursday. It’s only creating like 6k jobs :rolleyes:</p>

40

<p>The engineering faculty have received other national recognition. These are some of the recent honors earned by faculty members in Viterbi: (In no order)</p>

<p>Alex Dimakis
Received a five year NSFoundation Career Award</p>

<p>Martin Eskijian
Received the 2011 Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award</p>

<p>Liana Golubchik
2011 Diversity Leadership Award</p>

<p>Norberto Grzywacz
Elected Secretary of the Council of Chairs of BME and Bioengineering</p>

<p>Malancha Gupta
Awarded a 3 year NSF innovation grant</p>

<p>Andrea Hodge
Awarded a 3 year Humbolt Foundation Research Fellowship</p>

<p>Kai Hwang
Won the 2011 Founders’ Award</p>

<p>Bhaskar Krisnamachari
Received the Eta Kappa nu Outstanding Young Electrical Computer Engineer Award</p>

<p>Terence Langdon
Elected a Fellow of the Materials Research Society
Received the Nano SPD Achievement Award</p>

<p>Azad Madni
Pioneer Award from the ICSE</p>

<p>Andres Molisch
Elected to the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Co-Recipient of the IEEE Fink Prize
Winner of the Evan Avant Garde Award from IEEE</p>

<p>Donald Paul
Society of Petroleum Engineers 2011 Management and Information Award</p>

<p>Cyrus Shahabi
Named a Faculty Scholar for 2011-2012 from the Vietnam Education Foundation</p>

<p>Milind Tambe
Awarded the Rist Prize</p>

<p>Theodore Tsotsis
2011 President’s Award from the engineering council</p>

<p>Alan Willner
Received the 2011 IEEE Photonics Society’s Engineering Achievement Award</p>

<p>Yannis Yortsos
Elected honorary member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers</p>

<p>Melvin Breur
Lifetime Achievement Award of the European Design and Automation Society</p>

<p>Fokion Egolfopoulos
Elected Associate Fellow of the AIAA</p>

<p>Shri Narayanan
Won IBM Faculty Award</p>

<p>Martin Gundrsen
Sol Schneider Award</p>

<p>Rahu Jain
Won IBM Faculty Award</p>

<p>Yan Jin
Elected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers</p>

<p>Bart Kosco
Elected to the College of Fellows of the International Neural Network Society</p>

<p>Richard Leahy
Received the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Edward Hoffman Scientist Award</p>

<p>Maja Mataric
Elected Fellow of the IEEE
Received the Presidential Award from President Obama for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring</p>

<p>Gaurav Sukhatme
Elected Fellow of the IEEE</p>

<p>Terrence Sanger
Goldenson Technology and Rehabilitation Award</p>

<p>Geoff Spedding
Elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society</p>

<p>Alan Willner
Won the Paul Forman Engineering Excellence Award
One of only four Americans to be named an International Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Science</p>

<p>Interesting note:</p>

<p>Neil Siegel is a Ph.D student at Viterbi. He is a member of the National Academcy of Engineering and holds more than 20 patents. He will receive the 2011 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal. Siegel earned his B.S. and M.S. at SC and is a doctoral candidate in the Epstein Dept. of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He has held the position of VP and chief engineer for Northrop Grumman’s Information Systems sector.</p>