<p>USC doesn’t have an admit floor. Georgia, if you’re going to say 80%+ students at USC are top-10% hs that would be wrong. It’s more like 50%. This is easily provable: look at uw grade distribution of USC’s 3.7 mean. There’s no way 80% of USC students could be top-10%.</p>
<p>This means USC can fish for SAT’s from lower ranking students. USC admits ~ 40% from private school, and private school students can better “buy” a good score because of wealth.</p>
<p>The reason UCLA discounts SAT so much is because it realizes there’s a corrrelation between wealth and high scores. Add that scores are temporary achievement compared to the longer term achievement of grades. </p>
<p>From specific good-excellent high schools UCLA matriculants stats are higher than USC’s. Two examples above. If I’m looking at the ~ 46 students from both high schools USC admitted (enrolled), I would have to say that USC has to superscore.</p>