<p>Every year we like to offer a warm welcome to all of the great new USC students and parents of new students who have just made this excellent decision. Let us help you celebrate by sharing which schools you (or your offspring) turned down to attend USC--and why.</p>
<p>Hey, the decision is over! It's lots of fun and will help students in following years compare all the great acceptances a USC student has to choose from. Fight on! And let us know: which schools did you turn down for USC??</p>
<p>Accepted into 10 other schools (overa-applied a bit) and received bigger scholarships from many of them. The hardest to let go was UCLA. In the end S went with USC because:</p>
<p>1) Four years more possible - quicker to masters
2) Ability to find passion without severe penalty of time (switch majors if want to)
3) Double major or major/minor possible
4) As EE given chance to be sure of major in intro engineering course
5) More collaborative environment
6) “Three Bears” reason - not to big, not too small, just right
7) Strong Alumni network
8) LA (both offered this obviously)
9) Madbean, Alamemom and Viterbistudent (I think Steve?) very helpful!
10) I know S won’t get lost in the crowd and constantly fight for resources/attention
11) Competitive but not cutthroat
12) Fight On is cool battle cry
13) 2 people per dorm
14) It is fun to watch Trojan football in the fall and know they are “your team”
15) It’s USC!</p>
<p>Ya, we over-analyzed a bit. I like kids who go somewhere cause the food is better or something simple like that. This took a lot of time to get to all of this, but worth every minute. Soooo happy it is May 1st - DONE!</p>
<p>D turned down:
NYU
UCI
Sunny Purchase
Hofstra and others. </p>
<p>After attending the SDA open house D knew that USC and their BA program was the best match for her.</p>
<p>D turned down Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, Wash U and others. She is a regent scholar at all three UCs. Her toughest decision was to let go of Wash U. She went with USC in the end as she felt the premed program here would both challenge her academically and also give her the opportunity to develop her other interests, skills and ECs. Another important consideration is she received presidential scholarship at USC.</p>
<p>I turned down Notre Dame, Boston College, UW and UCI.
USC was by far my number one, and definitely couldn’t turn it down after being awarded presidential scholarship, as well as generous finaid</p>
<p>D is very excited to be attending USC where she will be challenged academically while enjoying the complete college experience. Turned down Vanderbilt, Miami (Singer), Emory, Duke, Tulane.</p>
<p>S turned down Northwestern theater, Univ. of Virginia, North Carolina (Chapel Hill), Univ. Texas -Austin (McCombs school of business), and Indiana (Bloomington, with Distinguished Scholar merit $$) for USC School of Dramatic Arts and additional major in Marshall School with a Leadership Scholarship (never heard of this until S got letter!).</p>
<p>DS turned down Northwestern (with a heavy heart…), Georgetown, Wesleyan, NYU, BU, UC Berkeley, UCSB, UCSD, UCDavis (last 2 with Regent’s). It came down to USC and NU, but USC offered a generous Presidential Scholarship which tipped the balance. A lot of the other reasons are well stated above by CADREAMING. Very happy with the choice!</p>
<p>Declined, among a lot (went 16/21 on admissions) Amherst, Swarthmore (very close 2nd choice), Bowdoin, Dartmouth, and Rice.</p>
<p>I received the Trustee Scholarship to go to SCA and study Film. Can’t really beat being debt free and the best film school in the world.</p>
<p>I turned down Stanford in the 80s.</p>
<p>University of Chicago and Tufts. USC felt like home!</p>
<p>Schools I turned down back in the day:</p>
<p>Berkeley and UCLA out of state
University of Chicago
Northwestern
University of Illinois in state
UC Irvine
Cal State Long Beach</p>
<p>Also gave long looks to but did not apply at NYU and Columbia.</p>
<p>Why USC?</p>
<p>1) Film school
2) Academic extra-curricular w/ partial merit aid
3) Location in Los Angeles and California
4) Cutting edge curriculum
5) Culture of community service</p>
<p>The latter - the culture of community service - was really a big X factor that spoke to me about the character of the university. I thought it was great and it still distinguishes USC from a lot of its peer urban schools around the country.</p>
<p>The film school was also nice because it’s a great, smaller program that still gives you all of the resources of a larger university.</p>
<p>Even though USC is the only American school I got into because I only applied to like 3 schools in the US, I 've had a tough time turning down the best Canadian Business Schools:
<p>Turned down a few:
UCSC
Lehigh
Ohio State (Generous $15k in scholarships)
Santa Clara U
UW
Boston Universtity</p>
<p>Son accepted to Duke, UVA, Davidson, Emory and others but USC was always first choice. He couldn’t be happier now, finishing up freshman year as a Trojan.</p>