<p>I saw this comment on one of the post in the thread talking about where people saw the 2013 application rate going. I started thinking about it: Could USC just be a private version of a UC. Throughout it's history USC has had well over 50% of its students be from California, and until recently is has hovered about 50%. I read somewhere that last year's class was one of the first ones to just make it under 50% California residents. University of Michigan which is one of the top public schools and often competing with USC kids on this board has about 60% in state students. Most top schools have about 20% or less of in state kids. USC also has a very large amount of in state community college and other Cali public school and State school transfers that I haven't really seen at any other University of its rank. On the Facebook Class of 2016 page, there were several comments such as "what part of California is everyone from" and also "Is there a carpooling system where we can find rides to take us home on the weekends" (there did in fact end up being a car pool system). </p>
<p>This is in no way an insult to the university, but it was just something that I noticed and wanted to hear from you about.</p>
<p>Of course not. You have to keep in mind that California makes up 2/3 of the West Coast proper and 11% of the entire country’s population. Of course a large, major university is going to draw a large percentage of its students from that state.</p>
<p>Beyond that, USC has many of the advantages of a private school, like much smaller class sizes, dynamism, lack of bureaucracy, and much less tolerance for B.S.</p>
<p>California is a major state and even Stanford has a large percentage of CA residents, around 40%. The only colleges that have a low in-state percentage - to my knowledge - is the Claremont Colleges.</p>
<p>I agree with the OP completely and much as I hate to admit it, USC resembles Cal in terms of its student body makeup. USC’s endowment is relatively small for its size and historically we have relied on transfers and football to help meet payroll. This dependency is changing year by year and we are witnessing USC’s transformation. One positive byproduct is our large and very loyal and very generous alumni.</p>
<p>USC is the dream school for many California students and L.A./Southern California is a top choice for those who know it–a vibrant city with warm weather year round and beaches a short drive. I expect the proportion of applicants to USC from California far exceeds the proportion selected. </p>
<p>I do not think USC is as well known for its academic and overall excellence outside of California, less so the farther east you go. My personal opinion is that many have not caught up with the change in USC over the past few decades. Some resist it and continue to promote long-outdated stereotypes of USC as seen regularly in posts on this site. Unless you actually visit the university and talk with faculty and students it is difficult to comprehend the vibrancy and desirability of USC vis a vis other top universities.</p>
<p>If geographic distribution is your only criteria then virtually all schools are private versions of in-state schools.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>As USCAlum05 points out, California is a big state (more than 900 miles between Mexico and Oregon) with a lot of people.</p></li>
<li><p>When it comes to college, whether because of familiarity or influence of family, most students stay close to home. If I put Notre Dame (41% from the Mid-West), Northwestern (48% Mid-West), Boston College (53% New England + New York), Emory (54% Southeast/Mid-Atlantic) or Rice (47% Texas) at the center of a 900 mile wide circle I suspect all those schools would be overwhelmingly ‘local’. Even fair Harvard gets 13% of its student population just from Massachusetts. </p></li>
<li><p>As for transfer students I suspect the same things are at work. People stay close to home. Why would a California community college transfer consider applying to Texas or Florida? If you’ve spent that long living in your home state it seems unlikely that you’ll make a change.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Stanford’s california matriculants were around 40% and its regional matriculants (i.e. west coast) was about 50%, whereas USC’s California matriculants is at about 60%, and its regional matriculants was at about 65% west coast</p>
<p>You see that Hopkins, Georgetown, and Carneggie Mellon all have strong regional pulls at 60%, 50%, and 50% respectively. So USC’s strong regional pull isn’t that unusual.</p>
<p>All in all, USC should be proud of itself. It didn’t become a top private through a large donation like Duke, Emory, Stanford, and Chicago did. And i’m sure there are others. </p>
<p>Arguably, USC’s biggest problem is probably its greatest asset: its alumni. Due to USC’s “trojan for life” mentality, and its alums wanting their students to be trojans too, USC has been forced to undertake a HUGE student population. USC has nearly 14000 more students than the next highest elite university. That university is Columbia at 22k total enrollment, of which USC has 9000 more undergraduates than. I think it’s going to be really hard for USC to persuade its alumni that it needs to reject some of their kids to improve its ranking. That would probably be a PR nightmare for USC.</p>
<p>Agreed that USC is far too big altogether, and the university has been running into the problem of unqualified children of alumni being denied.</p>
<p>That said, the one other thing worth mentioning is that it’s not an apples to apples comparison to look at in state students at USC versus schools in the Midwest and Northeast. California is a HUGE state both geographically and in terms of population, so when a school like Harvard has X percent in state and X percent out of state, keep in mind that Massachusetts is a dinky little state, to say nothing of Rhode Island or Connecticut. Schools like the Ivies, save for Cornell or Columbia (NY state) or maybe Penn, don’t have much to say in state versus out of state.</p>
<p>Also, the fact that USC is a private version of Cal is a testament to how far the school has come. It used to be Cal State Long Beach with money. Still a long ways to go, but the progress is nice.</p>
<p>In fact, the children of our alumni are generally a very smart bunch and comprise about 20% of the fall class. Those kids - whose parents are successful Trojans - come from upper middle class backgrounds, and used to go elsewhere. We call these legacies Scions. They do not comprise the majority of the transfer classes. USC relies on transfers for additional income to make up for our modest endowment. That is changing slowly, however, as demonstrated by our $6B campaign.</p>
<p>Current USC parent from the Midwest here. From my perspective USC is rapidly growing in popularity especially since it offers generous need and merit based scholarships. This year’s USC entering class will have three students from our high school’s class of 250 graduates. One student turned down Columbia for a full ride at USC. Oddly enough, many here in the Midwest think UCLA is private and USC is public.</p>
<p>Not a worthwhile education here at USC until it provides the benefits of a private university… USC provides classes that have over 200 students… might as well call it a UC… Swarthmore students at least get to enjoy their small classes of 20-30. No wonder their graduates have a 98% acceptance to medical schools.</p>
<p>^ Not very accurate at all for either USC or the UC’s. Classes are around 200 students for the intro science classes-- but all have labs and discussions with around 20 students. Why would you need the lecture part to be for 20-30 students? Back in the day as a Stanford freshman, I had no problem with intro level classes with 250-500 students. </p>
<p>Moreover, MOST classes at USC and at the UC’s are not this large style lecture type class. D’s non intro science classes have been less then 20 students at USC.</p>
<p>I’m not sure exactly why UCLA is considered private by some, but i’ve heard this by at least a few people. I obviously know it isn’t a private university, but i can sort of understand why some might think so. I get the same sort of feeling from UVa. </p>
<p>I think UCLA has to work especially hard to promote that its a public university (much harder than berkekey.) It goes out of its way to admit Los Angeles students which have typically had low admit numbers at the university, and to promote ‘diversity.’ It also has the highest number of pell grant recipients.</p>
<p>At the same time, they were the first UC to have a privatize a part of itself (Anderson) and probably have the lowest California admit rate of any public school in the state (17%). It also probably doesn’t help that the university is located in one of the most affluent areas of Los Angeles.</p>
<p>UCLA’s like private universities with regard to its prestige, donations and fundraising; but it’s like a public in its mission to promote the public good. It’s sort of like a person who works at a non-profit during the day, and spends his nights networking with LA’s elite.</p>
<p>As far as USC is concerned, it being regarded as a public university probably has to do with the other USC</p>
<p>Interesting observation, as I’ve never heard anyone claim or mistakenly state UCLA is private or even remotely exclusive. The student body is composed mainly of public schooled Californians. On the other hand, I can see how many kids in Westwood think it’s private… UVA does have a private school patina, given its smaller and more affluent student body. Ironically, UCLA is more similar to South Carolina…</p>
<p>I wrote this too early to really emphasize what i wanted to say. I guess the best way to put it is that UCLA is like a private university when it comes to things like money. It’s operating budget is huge, (4.8b?) and. it does very well in donations; It also does very well in rankings of the earnings of its alumni.</p>
<p>UCLA is the only US public school here to appear in the top 10. It’s ranked 8 for US schools (11 overall in the ranking.) The second public listed is Berkeley, which is ranked 15 for US schools (30 overall in the ranking.)</p>
<p>beyphy/SeattleTW, you could both be considerate and save us from having to see threads like this once a WEEK by simply messaging eachother directly to debate usc v. ucla. This is really getting old.</p>
/phantasmagoric</p>