<p>lonelybottles, thanks for all the info. I recall you said you were going to check out Gateway - did you do that and if so, what did you think?</p>
<p>Collegemom, </p>
<p>USC doesnât help with finding programs. I did my research and found NYU has a program for spring admits at other universities in Florence. Expensive, but a great experience. Also so glad i didnât end up going to NYU the administration is terrible. There are freshman there from NYU, Franklin and Marshall, USC, and WashU. And then upperclassmen NYU, Duke, Wake Forest. </p>
<p>Classes were pretty easy. USC spring admits are considerably smarter than F&M and NYU kids though so that was sometimes annoying being in the same class.</p>
<p>Thanks ukfcra for the info. Right now she is planning on going to CC in the fall partly because sheâs already signed up to go to Spain for 4 weeks this summer to study Spanish. If we had known she was going to be a Spring Admit we would have done this all differently! Since she wants to major in international relations/global business sheâs trying to figure out what language to study after Spanish. Sheâs thinking German, French or Chinese so those would be the places sheâd want to study. Iâm sure there are programs in those countries, weâd just need to do more research.</p>
<p>Thanks lonelybottles for the info also. We are going to the Admitted Students Day the 28th. I hope itâs fun and informative. I canât decide if you have a better chance of bumping to fall if you are all gung ho USC or if you are on the fence and they know you may go elsewhere unless you get a bump to fall? Does anyone know how they choose the fall bumps other than by school? My D is all set to go to USC Spring or Fall although she is on the waitlist at ND. Although USC is her first choice, after the Spring admit thing, she would have gone to ND if accepted (her Dadâs first choice). Now she doesnât want to get off the waitlist!</p>
<p>Thanks also to Madbean for the info. Iâve never worried my D would not make friends as she is very outgoing. My freshman year of college, I made freinds with all my dorm mates. Sohpmore year my frosh roomate and I pledged a sorority and made more friends. I have a friend who transferred to USC (many years ago) and joined a sorority for the social life. I donât know if my D will join a sorority or not but thatâs always an option. The housing worries me a bit but Iâm sure sheâll make due with whatever she gets. Also, the facebook site is up and running. Part of the reason my daughter is happy to go to USC, even in the Spring, are all the great people sheâs met on FB. They are already planning football games, etc.</p>
<p>Snowdog,</p>
<p>Yes, we checked out 2 options. I think the gold standard (as others have already suggested) is University Gateway, at the corner of Figueroa and Jefferson, right across from the University. Great location, super amenities, nice rooms, lots of food options and services on the ground floor, and in my mind, the real clincher: a ready-made January to May lease, so you donât have to sub-let from another student, you deal directly with them. They also include utilities in their lease. The other place we checked out was Tuscany, at the other end of campus on Figueroa across from the Coliseum and the science exposition buildings. Rooms were nice and a bit larger, but amenities and location werenât as good, and they only have one lease (August to July) so you have to sublet from another student. Costs between the 2 are close (depending on how you value certain packaged amenities), but it seems like if you step into a lease at Tuscany you will likely have to pay through July. (On a per square foot per month basis, Tuscany is cheaper.) Gateway said if you let them know by August there is absolutely no problem with getting a room, if you wait till December it could be tough. Donât know how much of that is a sales pitch and how late you can wait, but it is a big facility.</p>
<p>CollegeMom48,</p>
<p>I donât think letting the Admissions Department know your daughter is considering going elsewhere will have any impact on her chances for Fall admission. And they are going to guard the âbumpâ decision making process as carefully as they guard the admission decision making process. There is no way of knowing (that I can tell) what your chances are of getting moved up to Fall. Of course youâre free to try and influence their decision if you like. Our approach is to take them at their word that they donât want parents attempting to lobby for Fall admission.</p>
<p>Great information, thanks again. If we have to go the apartment route we will be renting sight unseen so that helps a lot. She already has a few lines on possible roommates so this should all come together either way. The only thing definite is that she will not go to community college, if not bumped to fall then she will find something productive, interesting, or both (it is hoped) to do in the fall.</p>
<p>collegemom: Within moments of opening her packet, my daughter was banging out an email to her regional rep (who is an associate director in the admissions office) letting the rep know that she was also admitted to UCLA and had a merit scholarship from a third UC campus but would make USC her first choice and definitely enroll if she were moved to fall. This was before we even had a chance to read the fine print - saying donât harass us to move up to fall - and the answer she got was, all you can do right now is send in the yellow card. Which we did.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure USC admissions staff are well aware that none of the spring admits is in that pool by choice. Theyâve asked not to be campaigned so we are going to sit tight.</p>
<p>Snowdog, OMG! Welcome to the family. 
</p>
<p>I think I posted somewhere else about Gateway. S1 lived there Fall junior year (he did study abroad in the Spring) and frankly, he loved it. Somehow he very luckily was put in a room w/o a roommate so had the luxury of lots of space and his own bathroom. THe furnishings, amenities, etc are pretty top end for student housing. There is also parking in the building (costs extra) if your student has a car. This might be looked at as a safety feature? And the ground level is filled with very nice new eating places (Seattleâs Best, Chipotle, and a cool Fresh 'n Easy market so shopping/cooking is rather fun and very healthy). In fact, USC has taken space at Gateway for their new Thornton practice rooms. </p>
<p>A lot of students have had issues with Gateway, as it is very $$$ and last year (1st year) they adjusted their rates downward as it was clear it would not be full. Early signers were frustrated to be paying higher rates. Before you sign a contract, you should do some research to make sure you are getting the lowest rate and ask if there will be incentives, lowered rates in a few more weeks. Summer would be the time you might see free parking thrown in, or?</p>
<p>I know there has been concern about lobbying the âpoorâ ad reps. But⊠if there is some new award, honor, EC accomplishment, rank moves up, ANYTHING to report (especially if it enhances their major!!), I would suggest your S/D send an email with notice to their admissions rep with a reminder they are a spring admit and perhaps this might be considered if there are openings to move up to fall. I do not suggest phone pleas or multiple up and backs, but new information might be looked upon as a good thingâafter all, USC is proud of all their admits.</p>
<p>I agree lonelybottles and snowdog that the information sent clearly stated that they did not want to be bothered . My daughter wrote a polite letter to her admissions rep asking some questions about her AP credits and community college credits. She added that she was delighted to be admitted but preferred to be moved to fall of course. So far weâve left it at that. Part of my motive for flying out to the admitted students day was to show them her interest. However if I were an admission person, I might think âok we have this one no matter what, lets bump up someone on the fenceâ. Anyway, really just thinking outloud. My D wants to go only to USC and at this moment is grudingly updating her application with addtitioal awards, 3 quarter grades for ND (Dad insists). USC has said they do NOT want additional information so we wonât send it to them. If I were an admissions person, I would put a pest or someone who couldnât follow directions on the bottom of the pile also!</p>
<p>Madbean - Good suggestion to try and get MFN (most favored nation) language built into your lease in case they do adjust their rates, although I donât know how successful you would be. Itâs at least worth a try. For Spring admits, youâre only talking 5 months, so the risk is pretty low in any event.</p>
<p>Gateway gave the best incentives, including free parking, its first year. In its second year there were free cruises to the first 50 newcomers (we actually got a cruise voucher, but frankly, I would have preferred cheaper rent!), but then things were âstickerâ until the last few weeks of summer when they were left with just a few vacancies. My sonâs going staying for Gatewayâs year 3 (Sâs second year there), and this time, the best incentive seems to be a group rate (a group of students signing up together). However thatâs not going to help a Spring admit.</p>
<p>But this might - there are two ways to sublease at Gateway (as in the last 5 months of the standard 10 month lease). One is going through a student whoâs subleasing on their own, advertising via one of the USC class FB pages, etc.; the other is through Gateway (and they charge a fee to the person whoâs âgetting out ofâ their lease). So if you can do it the first way, you stand a great chance at a great/discounted deal. Right now there are several listed for summer, and no doubt come fall, there will be many for spring.</p>
<p>I inquired about the oversees programs through NYU and this is their response
âWe recently changed those programs, and now only NYU freshman students participate in our programs (no visiting freshman students). I apologize for the inconvenience.â</p>
<p>My son was a Spring Admit in 2012. We hoped he would get âbumpedâ, but that didnât happen. We hoped he would get on campus housing in January, but that didnât happen either. It seemed that everytime he turned around he was getting hit with another disappointment. We were beginning to wonder if he had made the right choiceâŠ</p>
<p>He moved into his USC owned âoff campusâ apartment on January 2nd - and has LOVED every minute that he has been there. He has enjoyed his classes, joined an organization, attends on campus events, and will be living on campus next year with 3 other Spring admits that have become his great friends. </p>
<p>In the fall - when all of his friends were running off to their dream school - he had to be willing to make a few sacrifices, but he will tell you that it has been worth it. </p>
<p>He may have missed out on ONE semester at USC - but he will be a trojan for life!</p>
<p>SwillâŠwhich apartments does your son live in? thanks</p>
<p>Swill, to follow up on Snowdogâs thought, Iâm figuring there is little to no chance for my son to end up in on-campus housing. So itâs hard to know whether one should take the sure thing (i.e., Gateway) or hope the off-campus USC housing is actually a better experience. At our session they told everyone to apply for housing as soon as you could come July 1, but they didnât tell us when we would be notified. When did your son find out where he was going to live?</p>
<p>I believe there was another âSpring Previewâ yesterday. Did anyone attend? Any updates for the spring crowd worth sharing? We will be at Admitted Student Day next week. My D hopes to meet fellow spring admits!</p>
<p>Yes, my daughter and I attended yesterday. Check in was 12:30, âtalkâ began at 1:00. They had two male students (one was a spring admit, one was not) speak about their experiences, and a representative from admissions facilitated and spoke. She reiterated that housing has not been a problem in the past and that they try to do their best to keep spring admits together if possible - no guarantees as to where or what the housing would be. The question of âbumping upâ to fall came up and we were told it varies year to year and they donât yet know how itâs going to shake out this year. We spoke with a fao later in the day who said just last week they had âover a thousandâ people deposit, and said they are concerned there will have âtoo many people acceptâ their offers (which doesnât seem to bode well for being bumped up, or for a more favorable fin aid package)!</p>
<p>In general, one we were surprised about was that, other than our tour guide (who was great, but NOT a spring admit) having each student announce their name and where they are from while we were walking with the tour group, there was no effort to try and connect them in any way. Given that it was a smaller group, I think it could have been easy to do an ice breaker as a way to promote some sort of cohesiveness. So the talk and q&a was an hour, the walking tour was an hour and then we went to a classroom to hear specifically about the college, and another student answered questions as well, which was another hour. </p>
<p>Good information, no real surprises to anyone who has done their research about USC. Iâm sure the admitted student day on the 28th will be much more extensive than the spring admit preview. Hope you enjoy it!</p>
<p>The regular admitted student day in Honolulu on 4/2/2006 didnât even have anyone say their name or where they were from or what program they planned to pursue. It was basically sort of a pep rally with slideshow, talking about the USC network & family, as well as highlighting some of their great programs. S & I were disappointed but hopefully it will be better than that this year. At least when itâs at USC, you can see the campus and perhaps the dorms.</p>
<p>For our D, she came to brotherâs parentâs weekend in October when she was going to start school that January. It was good for her to connect with her classmates that had started in August and she had a great time re-establishing her connections. </p>
<p>She went to also went to Spring admit orientation at USC that was held just before spring term started & was able to register at that time.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update. We sent in card but have not put a deposit down because it says its not due till Sept. Wondering though if they only âbump upâ the deposited ones?</p>
<p>iâm also a spring admit, and planning to take courses in the fall. Does anyone know if I have to take it at a CC? what about Cal State Long Beach University? Also, just a wild question, is it possible for a person to go to UCLA for 1 semester in the fall then go to USC in the spring?</p>