<p>Maryland, I think your D sounds like a great match for USC. Her interests and majors are so well suited! And while I can imagine letting your dear D go so far from home, to a state you are not familiar with, must be a daunting challenge to the entire family, a young lady who can manage the Tokyo subways on her own will LOVE IT HERE. She’ll thrive and grow and be so happy. And you will have the perfect excuse to come visit in the cold months. Sounds great! Good luck to her and to you all on making this important decision.</p>
<p>Listenkid, you shouldn’t delete your account - it will give you more credibility next year when others are asking those same questions. </p>
<p>Not everyone knows from a snippet of information that a school is for them - not even when it is USC. I was only vaguely interested enough in USC to apply. I was a bit more interested when I went to Explore. I was even more interested when I was accepted to Thematic Option. I took a very close look when they offered me a scholarship, but then I chose another school. I spent a week (without submitting my SIR or deposit) telling everyone I was going to Berkeley. On April 30th, I was about to commit to Berkeley, and suddenly I pulled up USC’s website and grabbed my Mom’s credit card and submitted. It took until about 3 weeks into my first semester that I finally stopped holding my breath and hoping I did the right thing. </p>
<p>I did.</p>
<p>Take your time. Make your visits. You’ll end up in the right place, too.</p>
<p>(And I’ve been reading your posts all along. You get more Trojan-like every day.)</p>
<p>Listenkid- not sure if I understand your methods- your attitude has tempted ME to flame you but I’ve held back! But I’m glad to hear you recognize that. Whatever works for you- I do wish you the best in your decision.</p>
<p>Fight On!</p>
<p>In response to the discussion about USC’s neighborhood: When I went to visit a couple of months ago, my friend and I walked beyond the walls of Troy to go eat a couple of blocks off campus late at night on the weekend. Honestly, I felt absolutely no threat of possible danger. On the weekends, there are plenty of students walking around outside of the campus. The most threatening incident that we came across was a bum asking us to spare some change, and being from Chicago, that was something that I’ve encountered many times before. </p>
<p>Furthermore, our visit off campus helped me appreciate the school spirit of USC. As we were walking down the street a couple blocks off campus, a car of 30 some year old men passed us. My friend and I were both wearing USC shirts, and the men screamed Fight on! at us out of the windows of the car. On top of this, on the way back we must have had 2 or 3 similar incidents with students beyond the campus walls telling us to fight on and holding up the sign. That was one of the moments when I realized that USC was for me.</p>
<p>There is no ONE school which is perfect for EVERYONE, which is why there are over 4000 Us in our great nation. You will honestly probably do great at many schools so just do your best research until you are comfortable making a decision that is best for YOU and then make things work. If for some reason, things are really MUCH different than you expect, there is always the option of transfer and/or grad school, where you can try again.</p>
<p>Visits can be helpful but can also confuse, depending on which profs/students you happen to meet during your limited time as well as weather, your mood, random strangers, and other things that really do not bear on what your time at the school would be like.</p>
<p>It’s great to have wonderful choices–you can’t go wrong when you have good options and do your best to figure out what will work for you & be within your & family’s budget.</p>
<p>I decided to jump in here since I am an alum of the Cinema school and I have a D who is making a college decision now. On the plus side, if your daughter was indeed admitted to the Cinematic Studies program and is interested in pursuing a career in film, there is no better place to be in the world. The resources are unparalleled in this field. I ended up working at CBS while still at school, and later for a major movie studio in corporate affairs in NYC when I relocated. The contacts can’t be beat and there is no better place than USC/LA to spend four years learning your craft.</p>
<p>On the downside to Maryland: if film work is not her thing and she doesn’t want to stay in CA, I feel the name recognition of USC outside of the west coast is not yet there, at least not in NYC. I still have to explain what it stands for. </p>
<p>On the crime: It was there in the 70s and 80s and it still exists in a very different way than other cities. (I have a brother who lives in the new revitalized downtown, and he hears about it all the time, even when they keep it on the lowdown in the news.) Within my first week at SC years ago, I had heard about a random shooting on the Row and within my four years of school, I was held at gunpoint in a masked robbery at the McDonald’s on Figueroa while there at 8pm for a midterm break. No kidding. It’s not about drunk kids wandering the streets where they shouldn’t in the wee hours. Most of the social activity is on the Row or surrounding streets so there is no way to avoid it. It’s almost impossible for the SC police to patrol all of these streets as they are vast and that Patrol shuttle takes forever to come. Most people just start walking. I was there in November and visited my sorority house. They told me they have all had to hire 24 hr. security guards at the front doors of the houses-- problem is that doesn’t help getting to campus and back for partying or even for night classes of which there are many. Just be prepared.</p>
<p>thanks for the different perspective, but what do you mean by “in a very different way from other cities.”</p>
<p>I mean that LA is a driving kind of town so it is different from Columbia or NYU or UChicago where people are always walking everywhere or hopping a cab or jumping on the subway. When you are on campus at USC, albeit a beautiful campus, you really need a car to get to downtown, hollywood, the beach, etc. There are no taxis or public transportation that USC students use to connect them to parts of the city as it’s a really spread out place. There’s the campus and the Row/student apartments nearby, but there is no other activity (or shopping/restaurant district) or foot traffic as you would find in a NY or Chicago or even DC so hard to compare to those city’s urban schools. It’s a big city (and a beautiful one if you factor in the constantly perfect weather) but one that really relies on driving to get from location to location.</p>
<p>One of the cool things about this is it is about to change! The expo line has been going in over the last few years, and once that is running it will be much easier to get around Los Angeles. There will be a station right at USC, and it will be easy to get to Downtown LA, Hollywood, Pasadena, and even Universal Studios without a car. I’ll never get the perks of the new line, but students enrolling now will!</p>
<p>Here is the website- [Metro</a> Expo Line](<a href=“http://www.metro.net/projects_studies/exposition/default.htm]Metro”>http://www.metro.net/projects_studies/exposition/default.htm)</p>
<p>Actually, there is now a DART bus system that can get kids around for about $.25/ride. S says it has a pretty extensive route and serves USC quitet well. There is also a newish light rail system that you can get to from the DART bus that takes you a bit further. I admit it is handier having a car, but my kids do NOT have a car tho have friends/acquaintances who do. This helps them do things further from campus but you can walk for quite a distance as well, particularly with friends.</p>