<p>If school size doesn’t matter then go to Penn State and save a lot of money. Re the 44 percent who went to private high schools, look at the 2013 frosh profile for USC, it’s all there. I’m more qualified to opine what USC needs than all ten admins. And the only thing sneaky is the way in which the USC admins increased the size, but we’re on to them, aren’t we?</p>
<p>Repost:</p>
<p>After some research, I retract my statement about reducing the student population. USC’s 9:1 student faculty ratio is extremely impressive for the size of the university. </p>
<p>Per US News (University, US News Ranking, UG Student Population, Student to Faculty Ratio):</p>
<p>University of Southern California, #23, 18316, 9:1
Carnegie Mellon University, #23, 6279, 11:1
Georgetown University, #20, 7552, 11:1
University of Notre Damn, #18, 8475, 11:1
Rice University, #18, 3848, 9:1
*Cornell University, #16, 14261, 9:1
Johns Hopkins University, #12, 6153, 10:1</p>
<p>Below is a list of universities with Student Faculty Ratios just slightly better than USC:</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology, #7, 4503, 8:1
*Dartmouth College, #10, 4193, 8:1
*Brown University, #14, 6453, 8:1
Washington University, #14, 7259, 8:1
Vanderbilt University, #17, 6796, 8:1</p>
<p>Below are the top public universities ratio’s with similar sizes to USC. You will see they dont even come close to USC’s number.</p>
<p>University of California, Berkeley, #20, 25774, 17:1
University of California, Los Angeles, #23, 27951, 16:1
University of Virginia, #23, 15882, 16:1
University of Michigan, #28, 27979, 16:1
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, #30, 18503, 14:1.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the below universities are large private universities with some prestige, but you will see their student body ratios are more similar to public schools.</p>
<p>New York University, #32, 22498, 10:1
Boston University, #41, 18306, 13:1
George Washington University, #51, 10464, 13:1
Brigham Young University, Provo, #62, 31606, 23:1</p>
<p>Because of the above data, I am no longer worried about USC’s size.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information, Modern man. I’m more convinced than ever that USC is too large. The student faculty ratio is an insidious and dangerous statistic that masks the adverse consequences of large and impersonal student bodies. I urge all USC alumni to voice their concerns over USC’s out of control growth that is eroding the undergraduate experience at USC.</p>
<p>Seattle thanks for convincing me you’re a ■■■■■. There is no need to worry about USC’s student body size if their endowment is large enough and their faculty to student ratio is low. </p>
<p>Like the prior posters said, if a student is looking for an intimate sized university, then the Claremonts would be a great fit. </p>
<p>Lol, no offense taken but believe it or not, USC was a better institution decades ago when it was smaller. And if your only rejoinder is an ad hominem attack, then all the more reason for me to protect the USC undergrads who value a more personal interactive collegiate experience.</p>
<p>Seattle, to be fair, you went to USC in the 80s and for you to in any way whatsoever make the claim that “USC was a better institution decades ago when it was smaller” is downright laughable. Your claim that you were admitted to Stanford and chose USC - in the 1980s - has never passed the smell test with me.</p>
<p>I have heard that criticism from older alumni that USC is now a much bigger school and while that’s undoubtedly true (and I can’t stand the ballooning of the grad student population either because I think it dilutes the brand), USC is a radically better school by any number of metrics since you went there. The school is far more selective, has exponentially better students, conducts far more research, has much better facilities, etc. There is an annoying generation gap between students and alumni between those who could’ve gone anywhere versus those who went to USC when it was basically Cal State Long Beach with money. I once worked with a guy who was able to enroll 2 weeks into the fall semester, and he was the typical USC student of the day who grew up in Hancock Park and had been kicked out of several different area prep schools before finally graduating from Fairfax High (read: they couldn’t kick him out) and no other school would take him.</p>
<p>Just to add, I think that the real criticism is not so much that USC is too big (although there I agree) but that it varies so much school by school. When you go to USC, you don’t necessarily go to the overall university. I went there for the film school, but other friends of mine went there for the business school, the law school, the engineering school, etc. Each school within the university is completely different and offers a completely different experience. With the notable exception of my critical studies lectures, my film classes were all 6-20 students with rock solid professors, the majority of whom I am still in contact with to this day. It’s been great to go out into the world and cheer for friends of mine as they’ve built careers of their own and to see them succeed.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that institutions rise and fall over time. Some (USC) improve while others decline (city of Detroit). The mid-tier mid-size private school you attended no longer exists. That’s Pepperdine, or the University of Miami. USC wants to be Stanford or Harvard (and Chapman wants to be USC) so there’s no going back. Instead of railing that USC should be like it was when you were there, you might just want to make peace with the fact that you’re not 18 anymore and might not have chosen the same college. One particular alum I know who made the size comment has a daughter who’s a sophomore in high school and she has no interest in USC, not because it’s a bad school but because it just didn’t feel right for her. The mom of course also said that it no longer felt right for her, either.</p>
<p>Hmmm, where shall I begin? To start with, yes, USC was better in one fundamental way back in the 1980s when we had one fewer “class” than we do today: I felt a part of something exclusive, something not too small, yet not too large. Yes, even then, despite the fact USC was composed of A, B, and C students from high school (mainly B students), we felt our educational experience was superior to those attending “better” schools, namely, UCLA and Cal. That was mainly because we attended a less impersonal place than those state schools. And guess what? Dozens of students from those particular schools, as well as the relatively obscure LACs, like Pomona (yes that one), Occidental, and others, transferred to USC because size (and with respect to the LACs, name recognition) does matter. 
Like some of the Trustee and Faculty-in-Residence Scholars I lived with, I did get into Stanford (when its admit rate was around 13 percent), as did two of my buddies (one a Stanford legacy, the other a Trustee Scholar); two of my roommates got into Princeton and Harvard, respectively (both on scholarships), and one transferred from UCLA because it was, in his words, a “huge, commuter school” where he had no friends. Everyone in the FIR residence hall in which I lived got into “better” schools, but we chose USC in part because of what it offered: a distinctively private school environment with diverse programs and opportunities, a very strong school spirit and cohesiveness and, of course, money (i.e., scholarships) and football (that was a huge draw for me, along with the school spirit). Because I had graduated from a small private high school, I wanted something larger than a LAC. USC offered the best of both worlds. I loved my freshman orientation at Birnkrant and will never forget entering my very first both-sexes restroom, lol. It was just like MTV’s “Real World.” Is it still in use?</p>
<p>And let’s chat about where we went, for the moment, and this is only from my perspective being a political science major. One of my friends got into Yale Law, another buddy Stanford Law, one Columbia Law, another Northwestern, and Georgetown, USC, and other good or top law schools, blah, blah, blah. Our upper division classes were pretty small (under 15), and it was EASY obtaining substantive faculty recommendations because our professors knew us personally. To be honest, we graduated near the top of our class, but we met each other in philosophy and poli sci classes; not all of us were in TO or the FIR or other such programs. USC has always attracted top students, just not as many as today, to be sure, which is a great thing. But to suggest we were like any Cal State is grossly missing the mark, despite USC’s lower academic reputation at that time. The one thing we all wanted, even then, however, was for USC to get better and more exclusive academically, because we were secure enough to recognize that we wanted an even smarter class year after year after year. So since graduating, many like I have volunteered in our respective cities, helping grow local alumni chapters, recruit top students, host SCend-offs, give money, etc. It’s a continuous process and one that I hope all of you adopt as your own.</p>
<p>I’ve attended a large state school (Michigan), and in the 1980s it was regarded as higher ranked than UCLA, more along the lines of Cal, and certainly leagues above poor little USC; HOWEVER, as my private schooled law school buddies used to observe, “where is the prestige,” especially when you have thousands upon thousands of undergraduates lining the halls to enroll in classes? Even at USC before the internet, the administration went out of its way to make us feel special and appreciated. (Thank you Dean Joan!) The larger USC grows, the less appreciated each undergraduate will feel. Thus, when it comes to other USC alumni who are complaining about how USC is growing too large, I am in very good company.</p>
<p>@SeattleTW </p>
<p>I’m mystified as to why you would cite elite boarding schools as an example of who is attracted to USC without having attended one. Because frankly - if what you held is true, those same boarding school recruits wouldn’t have held that a local private school was comparable. And clearly - the majority of students at boarding schools (by each school’s own statistics) are full pay and partial pay students. Boarding schools are a microcosm of the extremely wealthy. Citing that as a peer group is problematic. Those boarding schools budget $60,000 per student and - unlike the old days when they were feeders, elite universities are now bringing in a wider selection of students. Thus making for a more dynamic student body.</p>
<p>If we were to accept your thesis - that USC is too big and that it should recruit more narrowly, that would leave a lot of gifted students out in the cold. My child’s friendship base includes students on both (and sometimes extreme) ends of the spectrum, as it should be. That’s the real world they face.</p>
<p>As it is - your opinion is as valid as any one else’s. But my experience as a parent is that the educational quality is fine, the campus is comprehensive, and my child is thriving. No school is perfect. But I’m thrilled with the expansion - especially in opening a school of dance and expanding the Business/Music department.</p>
<p>If you’re an alum, you can always vote yea or nay with your alumni donations. But maybe recognize a larger campus gives more students an opportunity to have the benefit of the education that you received.</p>
<p>Years ago I compiled data about how many freshmen matriculated from elite boarding schools and the results were impressive. All I did was click on the websites of each school and count the numbers who went to California schools. Without exception, USC and Stanford are the only two colleges in California that consistently attract graduates of the very top boarding schools, including Exeter and Phillips, etc. It can be one, two or three for USC each year, but it’s still an impressive draw. I discovered similar results when canvassing Southern, Midwestern and Western boarding schools too. I did this research in response to those who said USC lacked prestige. My argument was that these kids do perceive of USC as offering a private school experience to which they are accustomed generally. I met quite a few boarding school types my freshman semester, and some were uber wealthy. Many more were like I who went to decent private schools. Then there were others who went to upper middle class high schools in Palos Verdes, Orange County, San Francisco, etc. Has USC changed in those respects? I doubt it. Surely you appreciated your own privileged education. I don’t want USC to lose its private school vibe.</p>
<p>First of all, when you focus narrowly on boarding schools - Exeter, Andover, Choate, Miss Porter’s, etc. - you are confusing wealth with quality - not surprising since when you attended,USC was despised for having wealth without quality - University of Spoiled Children, University of Second Choice, etc. A counter-example would be, for example the North Hollywood Highly Gifted Magnet, which draws a wide socioeconomic spectrum of students from all across Los Angeles. Other good examples would be the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies or Oxford Academy and Whitney High in northern Orange County / southern L.A. County. Those are all schools with superior test scores that draw students from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds.</p>
<p>Nowadays, USC’s biggest feeders on the private side are schools like Harvard-Westlake, Oaks Christian, Punahou (Hawaii), Chaminade, Loyola, and the like. The biggest public school feeders are top publics like University High in Irvine, Palos Verdes, Palo Alto HS, San Marino, Arcadia, etc. No surprise as those private and public schools generally have both size and quality, meaning that they send larger numbers of fantastic students to top schools all across the country.</p>
<p>The important distinction - and the reason why schools do holistic admissions - is because they care less about where you come from (thus need-blind admissions and financial aid programs) than about where you are capable of going. The difference is between meritocracy and aristocracy - between talent/work and breeding, and it makes all the difference in the world.</p>
<p>Beyond that, frankly, your arguments about school size don’t really resonate with me beyond a certain point. I looked at schools based upon rankings and quality in my particular interests and majors (film/television/media, English, computer science, etc.) and an extra-curricular. I didn’t really care about the size issue, beyond how it would affect my major and my classes, and there USC was fine. They don’t get enough credit for one thing they constantly try to do, and that’s to make a big school feel small. Friends of mine went to state schools of a similar size and while they always felt like a number, I never ever did and still don’t.</p>
<p>In one of the university’s promo videos, the 2007ish Rhodes Scholar Reed Doucette said what I had said - that in every field he was interested in, USC could offer something that was at the top of each of those categories. He majored in mechanical engineering and minored in business while playing on the basketball team. That was exactly the kind of experience I had, but with a different mix. In the meantime, USC’s growth has largely been on the graduate level with master’s programs that churn through students in 2 years, many of whom either take out loans or are full-pay. They don’t have to deal with financial aid, and the university also gets cheap research assistants for its growing research programs.</p>
<p>Beyond that, if you want to talk about the size issue, the place where it really impacts people is in housing - and there USC doesn’t have nearly enough, and what new housing is going up is the garden variety overpriced luxury housing, with $2500 a month dorms. As with L.A. as a whole, there is a dearth of affordable housing for striving, upwardly mobile kids who work 2 jobs outside of school and inhale Ramen Noodles for food but never let any of that get in the way of maintaining an A average.</p>
<p>Bravo, @USCAlum05. Bravo!</p>
<p>My discrete focus was in response to a post by a Cal grad regarding the issue of whether USC has national prestige and I explained, based upon my research, how USC had, in fact, gained a national reputation that attracts boarding school grads, many of whom could attend any other school of higher rank. Why boarding schools? Because, in fact, they are feeder schools to HYSP, the gold standard for prestigious colleges in America. Yes, USC was both derided and envied for having wealthy students, but USC was not, as many have suggested, a weigh station for the idle rich. As USC college alumni, we want to protect the more intimate student body we enjoyed then, especially, as you allude, with respect to student housing, which is a critical and integral part of the overall undergraduate experience. USC’s uncontrollable growth is eroding that experience.</p>
<p>1) USC’s rise in national prestige:
- Boarding school grads are one metric,but far from the only one
- U.S. News rankings
- Relevant 21st century programs (film school, video game design, world bachelor’s of business, encouragement of diverse areas of study through Renaissance Scholars Program)
- USC offers merit aid and relatively few top schools do
- Location in Los Angeles and California at the dawn of the Pacific Century
-Dynamic younger school contrasts with established older eastern schools - Test scores, faculty publications, etc. contribute more to reputation than the matriculation of a few boarding schools
-Many top students, even wealthy ones, don’t attend boarding schools
-600-800 of the kids in this year’s freshman class had completely perfect high school transcripts (means a lot more to me than just recruiting rich kids) - School finally got its act together to act as one cohesive university rather than as 17 (now 18) individual professional schools and a liberal arts college
- Population shift within U.S. from Northeast to West/South means larger natural applicant base nowadays for USC</p>
<p>2) Boarding schools:
- Highly overrated
- You never attended one
- Many parents prefer to keep their children close to home
- Boarding schools generally cater to the wealthy and have 5 inner city kids on scholarship to convince themselves that they’re a meritocracy; almost zero middle class representation (much like top universities are becoming)
- Great students come from EVERYWHERE both geographically and socioeconomically
- Majority of Fortune 500 CEOs attended state schools; University of Wisconsin (quintessential Public Ivy) is represented more than Harvard
- It takes far more grit and determination to succeed in an overcrowded public school than it does to succeed in a prep school / boarding school environment where all the teachers have Ivy degrees and class sizes are small; thus holistic, socioeconomically sensitive admissions. Top schools nowadays still have far too many painfully average students from wealthy backgrounds, and that’s in part to recruit their parents as donors.
- Boarding schools are now <strong>NOT</strong> exclusive feeders to HPYS in the way that they once were. Witness the Bush family - George W. went to Yale but younger brother Jeb went to UT Austin. Look at their matriculations and you will see a MIX. Many kids who previously (see the Bushes) would’ve gone to HPYS are bumped down the selectivity spectrum but can still somewhat buy their way into lesser schools as full pay students.</p>
<p>3) HPYS as “gold standard” for “prestigious colleges”:
- Excessively narrow focus (you ignore Oxbridge, for example; many students now look globally for schools)
- Many truly great schools; witness how Berkeley, UCLA,and Caltech all rank in the top 10 GLOBALLY for their total institutional output
- Those are all research universities; what about Amherst, Williams, Swathmore, Pomona, etc. and the service academies?
- Save for Stanford, those schools are all (as I understand) fairly weak for engineering; majority of elite engineering programs are at (oh the horror) state schools
- Great schools can still have mediocre departments (Harvard and engineering); mediocre schools can still have great departments (USC and film, historically)</p>
<p>4) USC was derided and envied for having wealthy students:
- That’s still the case
- Enormously frustrating for those of us who worked hard in school, filled out reams of financial aid paperwork every year, and got plenty of scholarship help along the way
- Most of my friends and I have taken a page from the Harvard alums we know and don’t even mention where we went to college in social settings because it’s such a double-edged sword; some people are amazed but I’ve also had my USC credit card skimmed at a restaurant by a waiter</p>
<p>5) USC was not a weigh station for the idle rich:
- Stereotypes often exist because they’re true (University of Spoiled Children)
- Longstanding cliche in California: if you have brains and no money, you go to a UC; if you have brains and money you go to Stanford; if you have money and no brains you go to USC; and if you have no money and no brains you go to a Cal State;
- Look at the older USC alums at a football game, and “money and no brains” is a LOT of what you’ll see
- Even 30 Rock got in on the action: <a href=“30 rock slams USC - YouTube”>30 rock slams USC - YouTube;
- Lackluster test scores for several generations</p>
<p>6) USC college alumni:
- Most of you couldn’t get in now (you said that your class had a mix of A, B,and C students; 600-800 of this year’s freshmen had perfect transcripts in high school)
- University has more constituents and stakeholders than alumni (state/region, employers, citizens, faculty, current students, trustees, donors, etc.)</p>
<p>7) More intimate student experience then:
- School is bigger now but I said I never felt like a number; majority of film classes were small and my class was small
- A lot more to the university than just Dornsife
- Huge demographic bulge means more qualified students applying from all over the world
- THE GROWTH HAS BEEN ON THE GRADUATE LEVEL WITH MASTER’S STUDENTS IN PROGRAMS LIKE VITERBI, <strong><em>NOT UNDERGRAD</em></strong></p>
<p>8) Student housing:
- University is working on it
- L.A. as a whole has a housing shortage which is part of what drives real estate prices and has driven the growth of the Inland Empire
- Problem is primarily AFFORDABLE housing; L.A. has a surplus of luxury housing. It’s a great place to live if you make over $125K to start which, ahem, most students don’t
- Historically nearly every California school was a commuter school, save for a school like Chico State (isolated in northern Central Valley with lots o dorms)</p>
<p>9) USC uncontrollable growth:
- How so?
- Student body growth on graduate level; I’d be more concerned about diluting the brand with online degrees
- Growth is highly planned and highly controlled
- Still subject to constraints of endowment, permitting process,and politics of neighborhood and broader city
- When’s the last time you visited campus?
- Universities are organic institutions and they either keep growing or they start dying</p>
<p>All right, that’s more than enough (ugh).</p>
<p>I got bored after the first paragraph and skimmed the rest. USC cannot compete against HYSP if it resembles Wisconsin in size, as you suggest. </p>
<p>Hmm - first off you know that Harvard is harder to get into than get out of. That’s been known by anyone in the HYSP system for years. Second, with close to 52,000 applications, I’m not sure USC is suffering from any lack of reputation. </p>
<p>So suffice it to say - they don’t have to fix what appears not to be broken. I’m pretty pleased with their expansion in terms of campus and degree programs.</p>
<p>If, as our illustrious president proclaims, USC intends to enter the “pantheon of elite universities,” then it must compete head to head with the elites, namely HYSP. That means offering college students at least the same intimate environment found on those campuses. USC cannot do so if it resembles UCLA or other publics in size. And neither can they.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Herewith Exeter’s graduation issue with its list of colleges attended by this year’s graduates – bubbling over with Harvard, Yale and, yes, USC.</p>
<p>Some sort of reasonable level of quality there, don’t you think? And, like USC and Harvard, Exeter offers full rides.</p>
<p>Exeter also offers a very high degree of training and discipline in the “Harkness method,” where everyone is required to argue, debate, and speak up in class – surely a useful trait in large classes at USC where people might hide away. We need the ones who speak up!!! Glad to see Exeter represented at USC.</p>
<p><a href=“Graduation 2014 by The Exonian - Issuu”>Graduation 2014 by The Exonian - Issuu; </p>
<p>Sorry.</p>
<p>@makennacompton, I’m an Exeter alum and I still think USCalum05 is making a valid point. So you have to see it in context. SeattleTW did not attend a boarding school but used it as a litmus test for the types of schools that would indicate USC is at the top of the heap. And we maintain those schools are seeing USC as an attractive option. </p>
<p>It’s one of those “outsider looking in” things that bugs the heck of out me. Because he, himself, came from a day school but doesn’t use it as an example. Instead, SeattleTW hints that he’d have USC focus only on recruiting at those schools and shut everyone else out in the name of a smaller school and in the pursuit of more prestige. </p>
<p>Exeter is an amazing place - but it is also extremely wealthy and filled with a lot of kids whose parents were able to give them advantages other students didn’t have even before they entered. Having said that, Exeter teaches a value system steeped in service and it runs counter to the “exclusivity” that he proposed. Frankly, if USC was just an extension of boarding school it would not be as diverse or as attractive.</p>