This year, USC is working with the company Veri-Tax. Everyone receiving financial aid from USC uses this. I received an email from them asking to send a 4506 form. I am hoping this is a sign of early acceptance since not many people received this, and it costs USC money to send to work with this company. Did anyone else receive this email? If so, when, and do you believe you are qualified enough to be accepted to USC?
First year applicant here myself. I received an email from Veri-tax around the 1st week of March. Stats: 1280 SAT 570/710, 3 AP classes out of 7 offered at my school (along with all honors and dual enrollment courses), 4.304 weighted GPA, 4.0 UW. I would say my “Why USC” email was fairly strong, mentioning about how the opportunities are endless in LA for mathematics teachers (what I plan on pursuing). I also mentioned I would be interested to complete USC’s Rossier School of Education’s MAT program.
My entire application focused around mathematics and education, along with two internships I underwent teaching while in high school. As for EC’s, I was captain of the math team, yearbook head editor, a select group of 40 individual leaders part of an organization in my state, while also balancing a job. For awards, I am the Corresponding Secretary for my NHS, September Student of the Month, along with Superintendent’s List all 3 years of high school.
I have demonstrated interest to my Admissions Counselor, along with emailing a mathematics professor at USC and emailing a director part of the MAT program. I’m really hoping that will all of this, 1st generation student, and insanely strong recommendation letters that I have a shot getting in (the only thing I’m nervous about is that 1280 SAT)!
I have a hunch that the email may be an indicator of acceptance but we never know! Also, a 1280 sat is one small aspect of your application, which is wonderful. In the class of 2024 thread, someone said the email could possibly be an early indicator so let’s hope for the best
My daughter received the Veri-Tax request during the second week of March. It’s interesting that we submitted CSS much earlier, which already had tax info of year 2018.
Overall, I think it’s a good sign based on two arguments:
- it’s late in the admission cycle, and
- it’ll cost more to USC to verify more applicants .
The second argument may not work though if the pricing package of Veri-Tax is not on a per-applicant basis.
Who knows? The result will be out in a week.
@gggqqq also, all applicants that receive FA use veritax, which could also be a good sign. And hearing only a few people received the email, maybe that is another good sign.
Hello fellow applicant! I did not receive the Veri-Tax request; however, I had certified copies of my Dad’s IRS transcript, entire tax return, and my IRS confirmation of non-filing which I uploaded to FAST the day it was activated. I was kinda ahead of the curve in that I uploaded those items, my Dad’s tax returns, and a signed statement that I made a few hundred dollars babysitting, and a couple of other documents prior to any request from the school.
My cousin applied to USC (Viterbi) last year, and FA emailed her in late February 2019 requesting tax docs. She completed the Veri-Tax submission and ultimately was not accepted to USC. I don’t know all of her stats, but I do know that she had a 1490 SAT, 4-5 science-related APs, a high GPA in the high 4-range, several circulars, and like me first in the family to attend college. No sports, no legacy.
I did not see her USC application to know how comprehensive it was, but she was accepted to and now attends UCLA (Samueli SOE), if that were to infer anything regarding the strength of her application.
Veri-Tax is a contracted service and the university does not pay-per-student. I would not consider it an early indicator. Historically, USC is highly protective of its administrative process around admissions. Admissions and FA do talk to one other and operate under mutual common goals.
The USC administration has designed the application and decision notification process to be a riveting, and suspenseful process - if only to further memorialize USC’s decision day for those accepted. That said, USC would NOT allow FA to engage in an administrative process that would circumvent their entire Admissions Office ‘rivet and suspense’ covert notification process model - that would smack of poor decision-making from an administrative standpoint.
Best of luck! One week to go!
Maybe I’m being hopeful but we received the email in March when decisions are made and not in February. Maybe that makes a difference? But it seems like veritax is really nothing @empirenative
The FAFSA verification process in prior years was done via the FAFSA retrieval online tool that connects automatically to the IRS and then has them verify into your FAFSA report the IRS filings details. It had numerous glitches last year according to FA though. We were one of the families affected… leading to a delay in disbursements. This is the first year, as best I can tell, where USC engaged Veri-Tax to verify IRS filings for them instead. It certainly was never requested by FA in the last 6 years for our family. I never even heard of Veri-Tax prior to FA emailing us in January 2020 the following:
WHY WE ARE WRITING YOU: We know that submitting information for financial aid has been time-consuming in the past, which is why we’ve listened to your feedback and are improving our process for collecting your tax information. You will soon receive an email from Veri-Tax, a company that is going to help us obtain your tax data directly from the IRS. (Please note that you might receive more than one request, one for your information and one for your parents’ information.)
Sincerely,
Financial Aid Office
University of Southern California
@WWWard According to the post above yours, this is not the first year veri-tax is being used. This most likely means the email serves no purpose.
@empirenative was the veritax submission your cousin submitted a short 1 minute form or was it lengthier? maybe there were different forms. I am wondering because USC updated information about veritax on their financial aid page in 2020 and not 2019.
Understood. But I have been on USC threads since 2013 and have never heard of Veri-Tax until Jan 2020. If it was ever mentioned on CC, I do not recall such. In prior years, I only recall USC FA requesting use of the IRS auto retrieval tool within FAFSA to verify the tax info filed there. Per FA, the use of the company Veri-Tax is new this cycle.
@WWWard I agree with you. USC’s website updated veritax information in 2020, and you, being very involved in the process, did not hear of it. maybe veritax was used for something else last year? if you don’t mind, can you find more information. I am just very curious, but if not, that’s okay. I can wait a week for decisions.
@biochemmajor11 Looking at last year’s applicant thread here on CC, I found no mentions of Veri-Tax at all. Maybe someone did mention it on a different thread or maybe it was used for something last year… or it could also just be that people are simply confusing it with the tax verification methods previously used… the IRS data retrieval tool or certified docs requested by taxpayers and then sent by the IRS itself. I will be curious to learn in a week if this means anything at all. If so… USC FA will clearly have to rethink using it or start using it for all applicants (if they are in fact not doing so now - which I still do not know that answer).
@WWWard do you think this kind of unclear situation with admissions is caused by the situation of COVID-19? Or do you think this is the start to a new way of admissions for USC?
@CindyLeuWho Clearly, COVID-19 is having its impact regarding admissions, especially in terms of the slight delay and a conversion to portal updates only. But, my prediction was always that they would mail out the packets on the 23rd with a portal update to follow 2-3 days later. So, the only real change is that they are not mailing out the packets first. The portal update would have been occurring around the same date anyhow. But, I do suspect that this will likely lead to portal updates as the initial method for announcing admissions going forward.
@WWWard i know for a fact not all applicants received the veritax email. I’ve asked 50+ and 5-10 received it
When we attended ExploreUSC for admitted students, the Viterbi Dean said that engineering school was more selective (choosing kids with higher stats) than many of the other USC colleges. It’s just very competitive. That was for class of 2010. I suspect it’s even more competitive now that they’re part of common app.
@Fapersonified hey, I know I submitted every form. I checked with my friend who didn’t receive the email and we had the same forms submitted. That is unless usc wants me to submit a separate form (the 4506-T form from veri-tax)
@biochemmajor11 Unfortunately, that then sounds like it “could” mean something. That pattern seems eerily similar to last year’s percentage of acceptances versus the total who applied. Of course, your small sampling size is hardly scientific enough to establish anything definitively. And we also do not know the full circumstances of each applicant’s FA file. But if true that only those being admitted were asked to use Veri-Tax, this would be a significant shift away from the established theory that admissions and financial aid operate on separate and independent paths. So I remain skeptical that there is a direct correlation to only those being admitted. In six days, we may know for sure… assuming that a # of those not admitted are willing to also confirm that they were never asked to use Veri-Tax to verify their tax return filings.
@WWWard i think you’re right. USC is too clever with admissions to make the veritax form a sign of acceptance.