USC Merit/Acceptance in January - What? When? How?

2018
New first-year students 3,401
USC Mork Family Scholars (full tuition + stipend) 10
Stamps Scholars (full tuition + stipend) 6
USC Trustee Scholars (full tuition) 96
USC Presidential Scholars (half tuition) 440
USC Dean’s Scholars (quarter tuition) 143
Recipients of other USC merit scholarships 96
National Merit Scholars 265

The thought is that the NMF scholars are counted within the other scholarships, particularly the Presidential. Which makes sense because they post there are 200 Presidential awards on their scholarship pdf. So the difference of 240 accounts for the NMF scholars they list.

https://admission.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/USC-Scholarships.pdf

@socaldad2002 read the OP, it explains it all. Short answer: Only 1200 get letters in January saying they are being CONSIDERED for merit. That’s out of 40,000 who have applied in time to be considered for merit.

^^but do they give any other merit to students accepted in March?

Just a few residual Deans that they determine by yield of this first round and smaller departmental or organizational scholarships. No biggies in March that make a good dent in that large COA. (Except the NMF.)

@CAtransplant Love that Big O!

^^ Paging @CADREAMIN re @socaldad2002’s question. My instinct is no unless your student is NMSF but she can answer better.

@socaldad2002 My daughter was accepted in March and received the USC Associates Scholarship ($18k, so between the Deans and Presidential). That one only goes to about 10 kids per year. It was a very pleasant surprise after she didn’t get the interview for Trustee/Presidential. So the answer is yes, it is possible to get other merit scholarships. Most are smaller scholarships though.

@TreeAlum So glad you posted, I was thinking about you and that scholarship, but couldn’t remember exactly who got that and what it was and when…it is a rare bird indeed! I do remember what a great surprise it was! Are you back in the race again this year?

@CADREAMIN One nice perk was an invite to the USC Associates tailgate at the first football game. A very fancy tailgate at that!

For full pay families with little chance at merit, 320k is a lot of money. I thought they might throw some merit their way (kinda like the way Tulane does)?

@CADREAMIN I forgot to answer - no, no kid this year, just was following along here for when the merit comes out!

@socaldad2002 - when you look at the data in the freshman profile for this year and previous years, it seems about 21-22% get merit. USC seems to use merit to draw top students to the school vs just discounting the tuition for any full pay.

@TreeAlum ya, USC is pretty much the expert at fancy things. I bet that was great!

@socaldad2002 I feel ya (4 college kids here and full pay except for merit). Unfortunately it’s not like some private schools where a 4.0 or other high gpa/test score/threshold will get you the Chancellors or whatever they call it scholarship.

Hoping to hear good news this week but realize the competition is steep! Does anyone know the dates of the scholarship interviews yet?

@fabulous5 this was posted by someone else
Scholarship Overnight Dates
February 14–15
February 21–22
February 25–26
February 28–March 1
March 4–5

Thanks so much @astute12 ! It sounds like our sons have a lot in common - mine would probably try to double major in math, as well. Here’s hoping they have a chance to meet eventually!

Does anyone know if national Hispanic scholars get any sort of scholarship?

@solarique im in the same boat as you and no there’s no NHRP sort of connection with USC

and yes USC has sent out white boxes, students from my school in California have gotten their white boxes for half and full tuition scholarships

If anyone attended the USC Explore event, can you please post some updates and your experience here. We are going for the last one on March 4/5. Haven’t seen any post on the explore event. Is there a separate thread? We are super excited to learn more about USC next week. Best wishes to all!

Just back after spending fabulous 2 days at USC. For those who are in WBB, we got the update regarding the Presidential scholarship. The Presidential 50% off tuition is carried over across the universities and is applicable at USC, HKUST, and Bocconi although the amount will vary based on the tuition of that particular school. National merit 50% tuition waiver will be only for USC and will not be applicable for HKUST or Bocconi. But any amount given by NMSC for the scholar to the university will be available to the student. Hope this clears the cloud a bit. We got mixed information from Financial aid and the admissions team. Finally, we received the final clarification/confirmation from the WBB team. Best wishes to all those who interviewed for the scholarships. Fight on!