<p>Based on finances I would go with Texas A&M or SMU but those aren't the friendliest places or campuses.</p>
<p>I'm sure you have visited USC. It is a beautiful campus, but is located in one of the worst areas of LA...seriously. I'm from Dallas, but have spent months at a time in LA and am pretty familiar with the area. I would not want my child staying at off campust apartments near the campus...other parts of LA yes, but not near that campus.
Again, it may be more about where you want to be when this whole thing is said and done...also, rates of admittance into law school as that seems where you are headed. The LSAT will be crucial as will your grades from college, but will "name of school" factor in?? That is what you should research. If you want to live in Texas...any of the three Texas schools are great. If you want to be anywhere on the west coast...I'd think USC better choice. Good luck.</p>
<p>lulupony -- I was not an RA but I did notice (at least at Stanford) that the RAs can make it a 10-15 hour/wk job, or it can easily mushroom into 20-30 hours if you don't have good boundaries and don't know how to keep your interactions effectively short. Some kids look to the RA as a surrogate parent/uncle type of deal, and that is really unhealthy for everyone and saps your time quickly.</p>
<p>Couple of things:</p>
<p>USC is not made up of rich people. Based on data compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education, among private universities, USC has the 11th highest percentage of students on Pell grants with 16.4%. SMU ranked 20th with 14.7%. UT and TAMU with 21.7% and 17.2% were ranked numbers 8 and 21 among the publics respectively. Also see this somewhat older article from USC: Exploring</a> the Myth of Privilege.</p>
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<li>USC Is not in the worst area of LA. It is near downtown in the West Adams/Exposition Park neighborhood. The area around the school is slowly becoming gentrified, and is currently filled with students and working class Hispanic families. The university itself is gated.</li>
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[quote]
but is located in one of the worst areas of LA...seriously. I'm from Dallas, but have spent months at a time in LA and am pretty familiar with the area. I would not want my child staying at off campust apartments near the campus...other parts of LA yes, but not near that campus.
[/quote]
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<p>I used to work near LAX which is about 10-15 miles from USC, USC is no worse than comparing to other big cities like NYC, Boston, DC. When I took the tour at the ExploreUSC day, I thought it was much different from what everybody make it out to be. But I think the sterotype of USC stuck. The whole area surrounds USC is now owned by USC. USC is going through major make over.</p>