What's Bad about USC?

<p>“6) USC has a lousy history of anti-Semitism. During World War II, its president Dr. Von Kleinsmid was rumored to be a Nazi sympathizer, which of course worked wonders for the university’s relationship with the Jewish community. One of the past presidents of the board of trustees was Stanley Gold of Shamrock Holdings (affiliated with the Disney company) as an effort to help mend that relationship, but historically the Jewish community has sided with UCLA rather than USC for that reason.”</p>

<p>@USCAlum05‌ </p>

<p>This is a bizarre criticism. Besides the fact that you could only mention one example (an alleged rumor about a guy who was the university president eighty years ago) of this supposed ‘anti-semitism’, you clearly are not familiar with how common anti-semitic sentiment was in those times. It was the norm. If I recall correctly, even the US government during that time wouldn’t accept jewish refugees from Europe. USC has one of the largest jewish student bodies of any university in the country (and certainly higher than UCLA’s). </p>

<p>Legitimate criticisms of the school- it’s not a very intellectual place and because of the nature of the university, a lot of students are pretty vapid. There is a significant frat/sorority scene. The student body is too large and USC feels too much like a state school.</p>

<p>I’ll say that the positive aspects of the school more than make up for these though</p>

<p>@TeamUp‌ … I am not sure I get the knock on transfer students or spring admits, especially on the heels of misspelling “horde.” Unless you mean the synonym for stockpile, which is equally silly.</p>

<p>I have to agree with team up, USC is too large and becoming ever more so.</p>

<p>Since when has having “hoards of transfer students” a bad thing? Also, this thread is not very objective. Just because one student doesn’t like the social scene of USC doesn’t mean another won’t. I could see if the social scene at the school was causing problems but it’s not (at least that I know of).</p>

<p>@SeattleTW… Quantity is an entirely different argument and one that may have merit depending on the major. But I rarely have a class with more than 13 other people outside General Education requirements. I can’t really complain. But I gather mileage will vary depending on program. I never feel like the campus is “too crowded.”</p>

<p>And even within a General Education course, where you’d likely to be stuffed into a lecture hall with 100+ students, there are usually accommodations setup for one-on-one help. I’ve never had difficulty getting a hold of a professor and I’ve been honestly surprised at how inviting administrators at both Bovard and my school have been.</p>

<p>@RandomNewGuy‌ – if I may ask, what’s your major?</p>

<p>The bicycles. I know they can be useful, but it is dangerous to have as many as they do in such a compact and crowded area. At busy times it is stressful walking through campus avoiding the bikes. </p>

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<p>I like how the mods sticky a thread telling eveyrone that their posts can’t be deleted, so be “careful,” when posts are regularly deleted by the mods anyway. </p>

<p>If USC cared as much about the rankings as you say they do, they would go to ED like schools who are obsessed about rankings do (hello, Penn, knock knock). Even Harvard now has “EA” so trying to capture early mindshare, and Stanford doesn’t let its EA applicants apply anywhere else EA or ED (same with Georgetown), so it imposes limits on applicants that USC does not. If USC wanted to decrease its acceptance rate from it current 17.8% to less than 15%, it could easily do so with EA or ED. At this point, it doesn’t.</p>

<p>@TheWeaver … I’m a journalism major.</p>

<p>@CADREAMIN‌ … I totally agree! Ronald Tutor Campus Center becomes a sea of steel at lunch, as you navigate between solicitors and students who decide to ignore the “Walk Your Bike” signs. Once you make it past this perilous maze, you get second-degree burns from the radiation reflecting from the hundreds of steel frames parked in front of the food court. You can literally fart across campus. Every student does not need a bike.</p>

<p>My son tells me the cafeteria food is terrible. </p>

<p>@makennacompton: Your post contains lots of misinformation.</p>

<p>I’m not sure you are singling out Penn. What about Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Duke, JHU, CMU, and the tons of other schools that offer ED plans? Also, I’m sure USC cares just as much about its rankings as these schools (some would argue that it cares more and needs to care more since USC is trying to improve its standing).</p>

<p>Stanford doesn’t allow EA applicants to apply to most other EA/ED schools, since they are an Restrictied Early Action (REA)/Single-Choice Early Action (SCEA) school. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton also offer SCEA. I’m not sure how SCEA imposes limits on applicants. If anything, it gives students more freedom by offering them an earlier application period, while USC does not. These schools offer SCEA and RD, while USC only offers RD. Also there are a few exceptions to SCEA such as applying to any public or foreign universities, rolling admission schools, and scholarships/special programs.</p>

<p>Georgetown does not offer REA/SCEA like Stanford. Georgetown offers EA, which is non-binding, non-restrictive. </p>

<p>Lastly, offering ED increases a school’s acceptance rate since most early rounds have higher acceptance rates. If USC were to offer ED, its acceptance rate would go up, not down (assuming all other factors are constant).</p>

<p>The rate could honestly go up or down. The ED apps will allow more spots to be filled with super high yield. That leaves less spots for RD applicants which would drive the overall acceptance rate/ The question becomes if USC can attract a top tier ED applicant pool </p>

<p>As it is - USC enforces a deadline of December 1st for merit aid candidates - so for top tier students, that pretty much acts as a barrier to applying to REA and SCEA schools which don’t report their own decisions until mid-December. It’s come up on the boards before - students wanting to apply for merit aid in case they don’t get into their “first choice” school, but the early deadline precludes that.</p>

<p>I think USC has been very smart about how they go about this process. IMHO.</p>

<p>My husband’s entire family went to USC. I mean going way, way back, with his grandfather graduating around 1920, his parents, his aunts/uncles/cousins too. So we were programmed to like USC. When we toured with our S2, there were many things we liked, but there were a couple things that really did bother me. The biggest drawback continues to be the neighborhood. Walking outside of campus, we encountered a lot of aggressive panhandlers, and twice saw men urinating on the sidewalk. True. I would have been afraid to walk alone off campus, even in the middle of the day. There was lots of police action, too, lots of sirens at all hours; we stayed at a hotel across the street and heard sirens throughout the night. On campus, there are so many people squeezed into the space, and as someone mentioned up-thread, the bikes and skateboards created a dangerous situation. One of my son’s best friends is currently attending USC. He is glad he is there, but finds the chaos a bit stressful at times. And yes, he hated the dorm food :)</p>

<p>It has a BEAUTIFUL campus, but unfortunately, according to the professors, it sits atop of a very dangerous fault line which could cause an earthquake much more catastrophic than any"Big One" on the San Andreas Fault.</p>

<p>My biggest complaint as a current student?
Easily the lack of late night study and food options.
Our latest on campus dining closes at 11, beyond TroGro which really can’t be considered dining.
Additionally there need to be more 24 hour study spots beyond the disgrace that Leavey is and SAL. </p>

<p>Just an added comment on dorm food criticisms: Everybody likes complaining about dining halls, but the fact of the matter is that USC actually does pretty well here. There are nice salad bars in all THREE of the dining halls that swipes grant students access to, as well as MTO food that changes daily, some grilled item (chicken, burger, etc.) and specific dining halls have things like crepes or a Pasta Bar. If a student can’t find something to eat among all these options then they really are re-enforcing the spoiled child stereotype. Sure, everybody wants to get away from the dining halls once in awhile, but overall they are pretty good spots. </p>

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<p>May I also offer up equally noisesome locales:</p>

<ol>
<li> Yale - New Haven</li>
<li> Columbia - Harlem</li>
<li> UChicago – (don’t know what to call it)</li>
</ol>

<p>collegiatedreams: </p>

<p>My post contains accurate information. The reason why ED contributes to lower acceptance rates is that filling most of the class ED increases yield. You just don’t have to accept many RDs if you have tons of EDs, so on balance the overall admit rate falls precipitously. Thus, since you mention Duke, I will refer to Duke: ED rate = 25%; RD rate = 9%. Over all rate = 12%.</p>

<p>If USC followed the well-trod path of ED, it would most likely DECREASE its admit rate and get juiced. We already witnessed a it of that juice when USC went to the Common App and its applications increased substantially. Next thing it might try is to rip the page from the UChicago playbook and start sending postcards to kindergartners to engage them in UChicago mindmelds.</p>