<p>USC gets tons of applications from unqualified students, whereas far fewer people apply to Northwestern that honestly have very little chance of getting in. This can be attributed to the huge football program at USC and the allure of the SoCal location (which is about a mile away from my HS and in the middle of a heavily polluted, congested city…it’s actually a terrible location for a school, in my opinion, even though the L.A. area itself is pretty amazing). Northwestern doesn’t attract the sports fans as much, and they also use the waitlist less than many other top universities, making their admit rate higher (i.e. They received 5000 additional applications this year but accepted roughly the same percentage of students, since they figured that the increase in applicants would simply result in a decrease in matriculation yield; if they had accepted the same number of students as last year, their admit rate would be in the upper teens instead of at 25.)</p>
<p>Northwestern is clearly a better school. From personal experience, the students at USC are generally not very intellectual. There exists an elite group of USC students, though, who I’m sure are comparable to the top students at Northwestern. But if you’re talking about the overall campus atmosphere, Northwestern’s is much more intellectual and geared for success I’d say.</p>