<p>USC senior Alexander Fullman has received one of only 34 Marshall Scholarships awarded nationally. Marshall Scholars are second only to Rhodes Scholars in prestige. Fullman also graduated from Harvard-Westlake, a prestigious prep school in L.A. He exemplifies what USC is all about: producing high level graduates. Well done, Mr. Fullman and best wishes at Oxford!</p>
<p>This is mildly old news, as Georgia Girl indicated in the other thread.</p>
<p>Sorry, Seattle, but this is where you’re on the other side of the huge gap in the caliber of USC students. One of my best friends turned down Harvard to come to USC (yes, they gave him a scholarship) and plenty of other people turned down other fancy schools, as you and I apparently both did.</p>
<p>USC students have been winning top scholarships consistently for at least a decade. Nearly every year, we’ve had people winning Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, and Fulbright scholarships. I don’t mean to say that to decredential Fullman’s fantastic accomplishment but to highlight the ever increasing quality of USC undergrads. As has been evidenced in other threads, the school that you went to 20 years ago really doesn’t exist anymore. The place has continued to change dramatically (mostly for the better) even since I graduated and to me that simply affirms that I made the right choice in coming to USC.</p>
<p>This thread isn’t about you and your quest to validate your credential given your other comments on another thread I started; this is about one man’s achievement and its halo effect on USC’s reputation. The school I went to 20 years ago has indeed changed for the better and is becoming increasingly better, despite our obvious handicaps as I’ve discussed on another thread. I, along with countless others, have indeed witnessed USC’s ascent, and have given time and money to make sure USC continues improving. Yes, I am very cognizant of Mr. Fullman’s predecessors and similar achievements by others, notwithstanding your suggestion I have ignored or am unaware of what has transpired in 20 years. And I am glad USC is far different from when I was an undergrad; unlike you, however, I want to take USC to a higher level, and that requires radical changes, IMO.</p>
<p>I’m really doing my best not to make any of this personal.</p>
<p>1) No, this is not about me in the slightest. All that I’ve ever said is that seeing the university continue to rise after I matriculated helps tell me that I made the right decision and that others have recognized and are recognizing what USC has to offer. The school still has plenty of issues and things that rub me the wrong way, but on balance I am very bullish about the school and its future.</p>
<p>2) You don’t need to explain what Harvard-Westlake is because HW right now is the largest private school feed into USC. Here it is, directly from the university:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/1213/USCFreshmanProfile2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/private/1213/USCFreshmanProfile2012.pdf</a></p>
<p>As any number of articles will attest, USC has only drawn attention from top top top private schools (Exeter and Andover, not Bishop O’Fondlin Local Catholic High School) in recent years. It’s also drawn more attention from top suburban high schools as well, as high schools like San Marino, Palos Verdes, Scarsdale, New Trier, Palo Alto, Highland Park, etc. previously would’ve only considered USC to be a backup backup.</p>
<p>3) The key word in your post is that you “witnessed” USC’s ascent and you gave time and money i.e. you were an outsider. Those of us on the inside who “participated” in USC’s ascent have had to deal with people asking us why we’d ever want to go to a party school (one job interview), then there was the agent who said I should’ve gone to a better school (reception after hearing a speaker), the UCLA medical student who claimed no one outside of America had even heard of USC (4th of July barbecue)… I can give you more examples if you want. People like me have simply added value to your degree where prior to 2000 if not 2005 USC was basically considered Cal State Long Beach with money. Nowadays, for example, my optometrist’s response when I said that I’d gone to USC was, “Wow, that place has REALLY changed.”</p>
<p>You’re welcome. ;)</p>
<p>4) I am completely and totally committed to taking USC to a higher level. I’d actually like to see Stanford and USC be the Harvard and Yale of the West Coast or have USC and Caltech be to Los Angeles what Harvard and MIT are to Boston. Where we disagree is in our notions of “radical changes,” and that’s where, frankly, as a native of the East Coast, I am less enamored of HPY than you apparently are. You seem to worship the ground they walk on, whereas, as an offshoot of the Northeast Establishment, I was much more interested in a dynamic, vibrant, entrepreneurial, and innovative West Coast school. You might notice, for example, that, tragic quasi-sexist lecture aside, Harvard preferred to fire Larry Summers rather than embrace change. Those schools have reputation and elitism, the latter of which USC has always had and the former of which it is rapidly gaining, but what they do not have is the dynamism that comes from being on the West Coast, which is why nowadays Harvard views its main competition not as Yale or Princeton or Oxford but Stanford.</p>
<p>5) Feel free to read over the profiles of the students who’ve won Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships in the last decade and you’ll notice that more than a few of them were community college transfers, and that’s because they’re looking for Horatio Algiers, among other traits. Before he was president, Bill Clinton was a smart kid who made it to Georgetown from rural Arkansas with an alcoholic stepfather who beat his mother. That kind of thing. They also like students from the military academies and athletes, the former because they want to have permanent relationships with the officer corps of America’s military, and the latter because of the toughness and character that competitive sports builds above and beyond the usual classroom setting.</p>
<p>Lol, USC’s rise has been going on for decades, not just the previous decade. When I was an undergraduate decades ago, I too participated in that effort. Yes, believe it or not we had graduates from Harvard Westlake even then. Our elite students, however, were few in numbers as we had only 25 trustee scholars. And we did have a few from East coast prep schools. President Zumberge oversaw at least one capital campaign that was hugely successful and the student body contributed to building the Lyon Center. As alumni, those like I didn’t sit idly by but rather have given time and money to support the efforts of USC to move upward.</p>
<p>P.S., I’m from Boston.</p>
<p>Quality AND quantity: 11 Fulbrights.</p>
<p>[USC</a> News](<a href=“USC News - University of Southern California News”>USC News - University of Southern California News)</p>
<p>What does this mean for you, SeattleTW? Are you continuing to live in USC’s shadow instead of putting your education to good use? Your school doesn’t define you. You define yourself. Your school only helps you with attaining the knowledge you wish to gain. You don’t even know what an education is and how it should be used for.</p>
<p>You need to stop thinking college is all about making a name for yourself. It’s a lot more than that. People like you are the reason for the downfall of U.S. education.</p>
<p>Au contrare, idiot savant. Where one receives one’s education does matter and continues to be relevant years after graduation. All the more reason to elevate USC’s academic standing year after year.</p>