USC Must Reduce The Student Population

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
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<p>I wouldn’t take too much credit for the edit inasmuch as I caught the oversight several minutes before your response and not in reaction to it. For the record the number I used was Cal’s number.</p>

<p>That said, except for a very few number of administrators, and our forever illustrious Dr. Norman Topping, most of the senior USC administrators did not attend the college or similar elite private schools and are therefore unqualified to opine as to why USC is too large at the undergraduate level. 70 percent of the top administrators went to public colleges, including UCLA, Georgia, San Diego State, UCI, and Oklahoma. Those universities have undergraduate student bodies vastly different than USC’s and those administrators had vastly different experiences than their USC undergraduate-educated peers. Is it any wonder such administrators believe it’s okay for USC to grow in unchecked undergraduate size? These public school-trained leaders have hijacked USC for their personal benefit and care little about the undergraduate experience.</p>

<p>I don’t want USC to resemble UCLA, Cal, UCI or Oklahoma! That’s why we pay to go private: we demand smaller classes and a more intimate collegiate experience. Until USC has a majority of administrators who were educated at private elite peers, USC will continue to enlarge its undergraduate student body, to the students’ detriment.</p>

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<p>What factual evidence do you have that proves a larger student body is detrimental to a school’s performance when they have the faculty to balance it out? The last time I checked, USC does better and better each year with a constant student population and their faculty is continuously growing. Also, what evidence do you have that says rankings determine quality of education? (which is what your alluding to after all)</p>

<p>Your OPINIONS are misguided at best.</p>

<p>If you want to go to a school with a small population, try a LAC. Otherwise, you will deal with USC’s large and impressively diverse population.</p>

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<p>Sigh…let’s see, the top schools in the country are all private and did not achieve undisputed elite status by having a student body the size of Georgia or Oklahoma. If the opposite were true your points would carry some weight. To achieve elite status USC needs to become more exclusive, which simply means smaller. But the will to do so starts at the top. Of the top ten USC administrators only one graduated from USC and the other from Stanford. This is a systemic and fundamental problem for USC to overcome.</p>

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<p>a) Top what? Top 10? Top 25? Top 100?</p>

<p>b) Correlation =/= causation. You’re saying USC would do better with a smaller population but you have no way to prove that. USC is significantly different from all the other places you mentioned. So even if you could establish a causal relationship it wouldn’t matter because USC is completely different from each and every one of those schools in its operations.</p>

<p>c) Prestige and rankings mean nothing anyway when postgraduate employment statistics are similar for every ‘elite institution’ right now.</p>

<p>d) You can’t factually prove that: USC is underperforming compared to their goals as an institution, the reason for said underperformance is directly due to a large population.</p>

<p>Like I said, if you don’t like the way they do things at USC, go pursue your degree elsewhere.</p>

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<p>Top ten, compare the metrics, average class size, student faculty ratios, number of transfers, size of endowment, acceptance rates, etc. The template for greatness is there (HYSP) and USC needs to use it not ignore it. </p>

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<p>You’re rooted in your opinion so there’s not debating this with you. I just have one last question: If you think HYSP are so great then why don’t you go to those schools? I’m sure that with your disdain for the general population at USC, they all feel the same about you and you’d be better off at HYSP (which seem to be the only 4 schools you think are ‘great’ based on arbitrary numbers)</p>

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<p>Obviously @SeattleTW has some concerns, but it seems the “my way or highway” posters have gathered against him as usual. If you look deeper rather than just trashing him, he pointed out that problems are occurring because of the growth. I can tell you that kids are having trouble getting classes, and in a group of say 4 teachers who cover the same class, one is considered amazing, the rest students hope they don’t get. Those are issues worth questioning relative to growth and USC/student success.</p>

<p>Alamemon you are it again, turning into the Czar of this forum, let people ask questions and discuss them, you are over-policing everything in your need to be the powerful Oz. When did you have a student attend there? In the last couple years? It has changed dramatically in the last 5, but you need to have a student enrolled there to understand more than what USC pitches. And quit making everything about money and not seeing beyond your limited fiscal world view, really, you encourage a kid to use a motorcycle over a car in LA because it saves parking fees at USC?</p>

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<p>blueskies2day–harsh! OP routinely sounds the alarm bell that USC is not moving in a direction he wishes it would. He’s entitled to his opinion. However, so is every other poster here, including alamemom who has certainly had a student at USC in the past couple of years. Nor did she encourage anyone to use a motorcycle over a car, but simply answered the question posed, and then pointed out (winkingly) there was a small savings. I say winkingly, since there is hardly anything low-cost at USC. I find most of her advice really sound. She is not an apologist for some nasty corporation and I was offended reading that inference in your post. But even if you disagree with her points here–refuting mistaken info on size and then questioning unsupported allegations of trouble due to size , why not make your own points, bring up your own opinions, share your own (or your student’s own) experiences and let the great CC readership judge for themselves? I am interested to hear that your student has not gotten into classes s/he needed, or was unhappy the well-regarded prof’s sections were filled. I would also find that unfortunate, and would grumble about paying high tuition to have the feeling one was “settling” for a less-wonderful class. I suspect these sorts of concerns (not enough “favorite” profs for each class) may vary from School to School within USC. I think it may take a bit of savvy for any college student (in any college?) to get the perfect class schedule, ideal times of day, and top rated professors. Yet it is a worthy goal. Students at USC do fill out evaluations on all their profs–and I’d be interested if these are used to promote and/or deny future contracts to non-tenured teachers. </p>

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<p>

Thank you! I have put a lot of time into helping applicants on this forum, so it is nice to get some recognition. Of course, I wield no actual power here at all - all I can do is offer my opinion which in no way restricts others from offering theirs. It seems I haven’t yet achieved real fame, however, as my name is still being misspelled. Maybe someday…

Thank you for asking! Like any parent, I am bursting with pride about my kids, so it delights me when others show enough of an interest to ask about them, AND it gives me a chance to talk about their exploits. My USC student graduated Phi Beta Kappa in May of 2012. In her time at USC she participated in Thematic Option, study abroad, research at USC and research overseas as a Provost’s Undergraduate Research Fellow. Since graduation she has moved from a fantastic first job (which came as a result of an internship that she got thanks to one of our College Confidential parents* - my endless THANK YOUs to that parent :slight_smile: ) to her next step and she is filled with passion for what she does and is rapidly moving up. We could not have asked for more!

No worries there - the information I have passed on here on College Confidential is and always has been coming from me - not my student (except for passing along her comments that her Thematic Option classes were among her best classes). If it was relevant in the past, it is relevant now (though I certainly understand that a particular poster has never found my contributions relevant - no problem!).

The thing about College Confidential is that we are ALL entitled to our own opinions - even me. I will continue to post my opinions, even if you order me to “quit.” If you find my views limited, I can recommend the “ignore” function of College Confidential - then you won’t see my posts at all.</p>

<p>As for the motorcycle question, there was a question about motorcycles which was left unanswered for a day and a half, so I stepped in with the information. I did not endorse motorcycle use, I simply answered a question. In researching the question I discovered the incredibly low price of a motorcycle permit - I had NO idea! If you have strong feelings about the subject, by all means post your opinion on that thread! The OP has asked for additional opinions and would surely appreciate it.</p>

<p>Again, thank you so much for asking about my student - I love an opening to talk about her! Let me know if you want to know more.</p>

<p>*A note to the kids on the forum - you have NO idea how very accomplished many of our regulars on this forum are in their fields. I have had the great pleasure of meeting a number of them in “real life” and am blown away by how amazing, successful, brilliant, kind and helpful they are. Keep that in mind!</p>

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<p>Having read Seattle’s rants on this topic over the past year, the common thread across all of them is prestige. It has nothing to do with him being concerned with the undergraduate experience.</p>

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<p>Smaller class size + larger endowment per student + lower acceptance rate + greater percentage of out of state student body + fewer transfers -> greater student satisfaction, better educational experience, higher graduation rates and higher academic prestige.</p>

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<p>@SeattleTW Here’s my three words to you; SMH.</p>

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<p>I’m shaking my head too, buddy :slight_smile: Fight On!</p>

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<p>Seems this is now being discussed here: <a href=“Will USC be an academic power house in the future? - University of Southern California - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1654814-will-usc-be-an-academic-power-house-in-the-future-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I’m glad people are calling out the ridiculousness, but I’d like some clarification from seattle:</p>

<p>“At 18,000+ undergrads and counting, at least 40 percent did not matriculate from high school.”
What?</p>

<p>Admin “are therefore unqualified to opine as to why USC is too large at the undergraduate level”
People with decades of experience at many different kinds of universities are unqualified? And you’re qualified because you spent 4 years at USC?</p>

<p>While some of your points are worth consideration, you need more facts and less unbased opinions.</p>

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<p>“Having a comparable research budget, faculty salaries, and per student endowment as other elite universities will greatly assist USC in its academic priorities and further propel itself into elite status.”</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Having the status of “elite” doesn’t change the quality of education. It just changes the status of it. Which means literally nothing.</p></li>
<li><p>If having a large endowment means so much to you, why don’t you become a millionaire so you can become a huge donor?</p></li>
<li><p>Hypothetically speaking, then every single university in the world should decrease the amount of students so they can increase the available funds per students and to become elite.</p></li>
<li><p>Wonderful! Let’s just try to find the most arbitrary ways to increase the gap between the wealthy and the poor.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>The most significant factor in determining the ability of anyone to give an unqualified opinion about anything is first-hand, personal knowledge, not observations of others going through such experience. The latter, while relevant, carries far less weight, and is a poor substitute when there are so many otherwise qualified individuals. Applying that principle here, only four of the nine senior administrators are qualified to opine about their undergraduate experiences at private colleges. The others cannot, and more significantly, cannot fully understand or appreciate why having a small student body is preferable to what they experienced at larger state schools, based upon their personal undergraduate experiences. Also factor in the fact over 40 percent of USC freshmen attended private high schools, including elite prep schools (Andover, Harvard-Westlake, Exeter, Choate, etc.), and the differences between USC and public colleges are even greater. USC deserves a senior administration that reflects its private school roots.</p>

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<p>SeattleTW - are you a boarding school grad? Because I am and I can say that this isn’t a black and white issue. My alma mater’s admission rate has become exceedingly tight and I - along with other alumni - aren’t totally enamored with the elitist direction it demonstrated when I was last observing on campus. It has a 10% acceptance rate compared to USC’s 20%). So it tends to lean towards students who are already at the top of the food chain academically (i.e. will make them look good in matriculation stats) than those who would most benefit from the enhanced facilities which alumni dollars (including mine) create. </p>

<p>Although you are right - smaller gives more advantages such as more dollars per headcount and my prep school did begin to lower the cost of attendance to zero for middle class families making less than $75,000 similar to what many colleges are doing. The current tuition for that high school now approaches $50,000. </p>

<p>Having said that, Prep school students live in an unusual “bubble” not representative of the rest of the world. It’s pretty much skewed towardsn a campus filled with the ultra wealthy as evidenced by the majority of families who pay the full $50,000 annual costs.</p>

<p>On the other hand USC offers the best of all worlds - a well endowed private university that pulls in a large number of students matriculating from private high schools AND a large number of students from public ones (by your own statistic the latter is 60% of the campus). There are also students transferring from other elite universities, and many from community colleges. The size of USC created an advantage in terms of cultural mix that smaller colleges we looked at did not.</p>

<p>It also opened opportunities for a larger number of students who - if USC started following current prep school model - would be blocked from it. Prep school campuses average 300 on the low end and 1,100 on the Exeter/Andover end. That’s still pretty tiny.</p>

<p>And yes - getting into certain popular USC classes can be a bit of a pain, but it’s not much different at my other child’s college which is also private and much smaller. If anything, a smaller campus environment is not without pitfalls including the risk of fewer social opportunities for students who don’t fit easily into cliques.</p>

<p>As for the admin. I’m not sure why their backgrounds are an issue. The school’s academics are highly ranked, the fund raising is rock solid, and the facilities were better than my own alma mater (one of the top ten universities) for the same price. Certainly more extensive than my prep school which is only marginally cheaper by comparison.</p>

<p>I think everyone here has a perspective colored by their own lens. But it’s important to note that if you’re at USC and looking to isolate yourself to the “prep” school contingent - that’s easy enough to do - there’s enough critical mass on campus. But that would be unfortunate because part of the magic of USC is not only it’s depth of student and faculty backgrounds, but its breadth. That then, should also be reflected in the faculty mix. If the “prep” school background is not represented - that may have more to do with the relative pay given the cost of living in the area. Private sector jobs pay more given the local cost of living. Still, I listed on my prep school’s class page the options for universities and asked for opinions when D was choosing and all of my classmates in the SoCal region ranked USC as an attractive choice.</p>

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<p>Not everyone is a “prestige ho”, and not everyone cares for an LAC-sized student body.</p>

<p>DS goes to an east coast boarding school. The thing about USC that appeals to him is that it isn’t more of the same…</p>

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<p>I did not graduate from a boarding school but I did graduate from a private school. Regardless, you are right, ArtsandLetters, that the administration lacks such pedigree. I don’t believe the admins need to have graduated from prep school. What they lack, however, is a fundamental appreciation for why private schooled kids flock to USC. It’s because they demand a great education in a manageable environment, one that is exclusive enough in size so they don’t feel alienated or disaffected, or too small so they don’t feel like they’re in high school (or LAC). My problem with the administration is that no one is apparently alarmed that the size of USC keeps on growing and growing and growing, without any concern about how that growth will inevitably hurt the undergraduate collegiate experience. It is up to the college alumni to remind the Board of Trustees and administration that USC needs to nurture the undergraduates in order to achieve its stellar and lofty goals. After all, without the college (i.e., Marshall, Dornsife, Vertubi, etc.), USC could not exist. As I’ve said, this is an administration-led war being waged against the undergraduates.</p>

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<p>I’m glad others handled the ‘elitist-ness’. </p>

<p>Provided only four senior admins attended a private college for undergrad, then “only four of the nine senior administrators are qualified to opine about their undergraduate experiences at private colleges” is true. But there’s a difference between them having opinions about previous experience and having opinions about future growth. You, SeattleTW, would be more qualified than five of them to talk about your private college undergrad experience, but all nine of them would still be more qualified than you to have opinions and form plans to improve the undergrad experience at USC. </p>

<p>I’ll throw you a bone. Do you have any experience with education administration? If so, your credibility doubles. If not, you’re just an armchair quarterback.</p>

<p>“The others cannot, and more significantly, cannot fully understand or appreciate why having a small student body is preferable to what they experienced at larger state schools, based upon their personal undergraduate experiences.”
You’re sneaky, because this is true, but only because of the qualifier: based on their experience. However all nine can appreciate the benefits of a smaller student body outside of the lens of their personal experience. This is like saying that because someone has only driven Toyotas they can’t know that a Ferrari is going to drive so much better. Just because they haven’t experienced a Ferrari doesn’t mean they can’t appreciate its superiority. </p>

<p>They can certainly have a “fundamental appreciation for why private schooled kids flock to USC.” They still cater to that but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also make the best decisions for USC’s future.</p>

<p>If the admin wanted a smaller or bigger undergrad student body, then they could easily achieve that. Just admit more or less people. However, they deliberately haven’t. Slow and constant growth over 15+ years is no cause for concern. Unlike you, I’ll post the data soon.</p>

<p>“the fact over 40 percent of USC freshmen attended private high schools” would be a very interesting point, but I can’t remember seeing that anywhere. Please provide your source. Otherwise, I believe you’re making it up.</p>

<p>This war against undergrads is only enhancing their experience, providing more research opportunities, larger networks, higher ranked academics, a great college experience, etc. The only downside you’ve said is a larger student body (fact) and larger class sizes (need data). </p>