<p>Does anyone know how many candidates USC invites to interview for the Trustee Scholarship (full tuition) and how many are actually selected? In other words, what are our chances??</p>
<p>It is my understanding that USC has the reputation of being very sophisticated in their use of enrollment management techniques. The Trustee award interviews are the carrots used to entice students and their parents to the ExploreUSC events with the hope that these highly qualified students will ultimately enroll even if they are not awarded the Trustee scholarship. </p>
<p>The numbers I have seen recently are that about 350 students are invited to interview for the Trustee. The USC financial aid website indicates about 100 Trustee scholarships will be awarded. Most who receive the award seem to come from the Trustee interview round but some also come from the Presidential round where a few students are ‘bumped’ up an award level. Roughly, on the surface, a Trustee Scholar interviewee seems to have about a ‘1 in 3’ to a ‘1 in 4’ chance of receiving the award.</p>
<p>But there are a lot of unknowns in the award process. For example, if you are not also a candidate for financial aid, your chance of receiving the Trustee is possibly less than those stated above. (The reasoning being if USC is going to award financial aid dollar$ to an interviewee, USC might as well throw the money into the scholarship part of the equation. In other words, an interviewee qualifying for financial aid may have a better chance at the Trustee than a student not qualifying for financial aid.) Also, the Trustee awards are parceled out and awarded by the schools/departments, so there may be some difference in a student’s chances depending on the intended major. And there may be other factors influencing a particular student’s chances, including (and maybe most importantly) the possibly false assumption that each interviewee has an equal chance at the award when they sit down for the interview.</p>
<p>So, my advice (unasked for, I admit!): Wow them in the interview but have other options if the Trustee scholarship does not come your way.</p>
<p>Your advice was welcome!! Thanks for all the info. My son was accepted and asked to come interview for the trustee; however, we live in Florida and he will just be coming back from an audition trip to Eastman/Rochester and we weren't really sure we wanted to make the trip to LA. He has other schools he is more interested in than USC, so if the trip could be for naught, I am not sure we will go.</p>
<p>cjm-The trip might not be for naught. Although some may not get a scholarship award, I think most Trustee interviewees are at least offered the Deans level award and may have the pot sweetened above and beyond that award with departmental awards. For what it is worth, some posters have implied in the past that the chances for the Trustees award are closer to 1 in 2. However, I still suspect the interviewees are not equal going in the door if for no other reason than their application packages are not equal. But, maybe your son has one of the better packages. While I can understand the reluctance to fly coast to coast if USC is not high your son’s list at the moment and you have scheduling conflicts, he won’t get any merit money if he doesn’t interview (unless he is NMF, and that is a different ballgame.) </p>
<p>So, I’ve sort of argued both sides (lol) and am no help whatsoever… Good luck to you and your son!</p>
<p>I personally don't think that the trustee is a way to attract highly qualified students. </p>
<p>not to be bragging or anything, but my stats are very high and I am aming at ivys and I only applied for USC as safety. I wasn't even offered a interview for the trustee and my friends with much lower gpas, sat, less ECs were offered it. Same thing happened with some of the students from my school last year who ended up going to harvard, yale...</p>
<p>totally agree with the above poster. they seriously need to reconsider whom theyre alloting interviews to</p>
<p>I guess I should defend my son who has a 4.0 uw gpa and a 6.2 w and high SATs, AP is in IB. He is also a very talented musician who was also invited out to audition after the prescreening cd. He also teaches piano and plays for church services. So I think he was an appropriate and justified Trustee Candidate.</p>
<p>fwiw: a friend's son who did not require need-based aid, had a 4.0/240/2400, 4x800, 5-5's, Intel-semi, peformed on the State orchestra, attended one of the most competitive high schools in SoCal, was interviewed, but did not win.</p>
<p>bluebayou, where did that person end up going?</p>
<p>and cjm I am sure that your son is amazing at what he does</p>
<p>Perhaps as part of managing admissions, USC offers those full rides to those most likely to accept. And maybe those amazing kids who did not get offered did not communicate an appropriate level of enthusiasm for USC in the Trustee interviews. I know my son's friends who are interviewing are top candidates for every level school, from the Ivies down. (Perfect grades, IB, great EC's, everything!) One loves USC and will go there no matter what and the the other, who applied at higher ranked schools, is really warming up to the USC and will turn down "better" offers of admission if she gets the Trustee award. So, perhaps their method of dealing with yield works for them. At any rate, good luck to all who are interviewing. Those who get it will be very lucky indeed!</p>
<p>there is no doubt that all schools that offer merit aid use sophisticated enrollment management techniques to attract the kids that they want to build next year's class. </p>
<p>teal: he was offered full rides to several top schools, including admissions to combined BA-MD programs. He matriculated to the combined program that offered a full ride.</p>
<p>which combined program bluebayou? I applied for a lot of BA/MDs too.</p>
<p>tealover,</p>
<p>It saddens me to read kids who think that stats are the only thing that matters to a college. There is so much more to a person than their numbers. My s has a 4.6 gpa, 2290 sat, will graduate with 12 AP's (and he's earned 5's in all 7 so far). This is where he is MORE than just great stats... he has leadership positions, volunteer hours for many many years (not just for college apps), a job, plays soccer. He also has a heart and loves to hang out with people. He's well liked at school and has lots of friends. I put his stats up not to brag, but to show you that almost everyone on CC has your stellar stats. It is the other stuff that sounds like you are lacking. I wish you the best, but don't put down others.</p>
<p>i wish your son good luck with everything, but I dont' think you have any iea what I have to deal with and take care of at home. I pay for all family bills and take care of all family matters because my dad works out of state and my mom doesn't know english. There are much more stuff I have to deal with at home, that I don't feel comfortable posting on a forum, so if there are more to it than must stats, I think USC missed that with me too</p>
<p>I also grew up with a mother who didn't speak a word of english and my father left us, I also had to help the family. I'm sure it is very difficult for you. I'm sorry for your situation and will pray for you! God will take care of you and you will go to the perfect school that He has prepared for you.</p>
<p>I think USC often offers Trustees Scholarships to students who they really want and/ or fill a specific nitch. It might help if a student has expressed a specific interest in a major that USC needs students for. My son initially was asked to interview for the President's Scholarship, but after his interview with a professor in the major he was applying for, he was awarded a Trustees scholarship. I think it also helped a lot that he had done an internship in his soon to be major for 2 years, and had a very strong letter of recommendation written by the scientist he worked for. He was a top student in HS and USC was his "safety", but he had expressed a real interest in going there in his application essay.</p>
<p>guitars101, I must forewarn you so that you don't make such presumptuous statements. Why do people automatically assume that kids with the "best" stats lack personality? I don't flaunt my stats, and I know perfectly well that I have a personality. It may not have come across well enough in my long essay, but it was definitely there in my personal statement and my short essays. I love both school and non-school stuff. Throughout high school, I did my very best to remove myself from the nerd stereotype, with great success I must say. I tried many new activities that were not "all-school." I also broke out of my own bubble. I guess that USC just has its own hack standards that no one can understand. It just astounds me how much someone like you can over-generalize about others.</p>
<p>My friend got it. She is awesome in all her stats, and she has several siblings in college. She is also low-income. Applied to top schools - Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, etc. Interested in entering the medical field as (probably) a physicist or researcher. Has done research in the past in a training program she entered in 7th or 8th grade and continued for the past several years. Hispanic.</p>
<p>I think she wants to go to Stanford (where her brother just graduated from) or another school. For her, USC was considered a safety, and I don't think she will end up going.</p>
<p>spidey,</p>
<p>You obviously didn't read my post correctly. I am very clear in stating that just because someone has outstanding stats and scores, this does not make them an "automatic" show in for any scholarship or award. There is much much more to a person/candidate than just scores/gpa's/stats. It is very arrogant of anyone to think that just because they have outstanding scores they deserve go get scholarships/awards. My comment was to the poster who stated that they "deserved" a scholarship/award because they had outstanding scores. This is all they listed on their post. That is all I had to go by. If they wanted to show ALL of their qualities then they should have listed everything and not ONLY that their stats were outstanding.</p>
<p>I got a trustee interview invitation yesterday even though I withdrew my application after getting accepted elsewhere. I feel pretty bad for taking a spot from somebody else at my safety. :(</p>