<p>USC is obviously a great school. This is reflected by the achievements of its students and faculty as well as the low acceptance rate and high average test scores/GPA of its admitted students. And I believe that USC is on a steep upward trend, quickly on its way to surpassing many, more established universities. However, it seems that USC is always ranked relatively weak on college rankings.
This is besides the USNWR ranking (which is commonly the most trusted) in which USC is ranked in the top 25.</p>
<p>Just to name a few
Forbes ranking: 63.
Shanghai Ranking: 32
USNWR Top 400 Universities in the World: 134
(which I am curious about because many schools that USC is ranked better than on the "national universities" outrank USC in the world ranking).</p>
<p>As an example on the QS rankings SC is ranked below Purdue, Pittsburgh, Maryland and Penn State. With respect to these universities, would readers in the U.S. rank those institutions higher than USC?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Spring admits-their sat scores arnt counted ( i met someone with a 1850 score…) Its not just one or 2 its hundreds</p></li>
<li><p>Size-a school with tens of thousands obviously has less resources per person than a school like Pomona.</p></li>
<li><p>Sports -I never understood why usc develops varsity athletic facilities when academic majors like German are cut. Seriously…top tier school? What other basic majors will usc cut? If usc ever wants to be in the same league of other CA schools like stanford, it cant sacrifice academics for sports. I LOVE football, but I LOVE academics more.</p></li>
<li><p>Transfers-no other school that is top 25 lets in as many transfers. USC needs to at least evaluate sat scores but doesn’t even consider them for junior transfers. I dont think sats mean anything, but when the peen battles in academic rankings occurs, these 4 factors do hurt peoples perceptions of usc, this hurts alot. People know USC is exceptionally easy to transfer into from a california CC, where students get straight A’s using rate my professors as a bible. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>This has personally affected my academic experience at USC. A transfer in a chem lecture would consistently waste the time of hundreds of students with questions on concepts that were obviously covered in chem 1 last semester. Looks like his community college A’s were really deserved.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Low endowment. Yes, USC has a high total endowment but anyone with a brain can figure out that number distributed by 25,000 students is tiny. I think USC isnt even top 50 for endowment per student. </p></li>
<li><p>Weak alumni contributing. Even schools like washu, emory have higher endowments TOTAL. And those schools are TINY compared to USC. The alumni base for WASHU is 1/10 of the size of USC, but it contributes more in per person values and total.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>@ brojan and siddysidsid transfer admissions have nothing to do with a schools ranking. You can call various admissions counselors from different schools and they will tell you this. Those rankings are for freshman.</p>
<p>@stanx, he wasn’t referring to transfer admissions and scores, but perhaps suggesting that the overall quality of students at the school is lowered by admitting so many transfer students that don’t perform as well.</p>
<p>USC underperforms in many of those other rankings because its research footprint is still very small. The school is not a powerhouse in the sciences or in its medical school. It’s only had I believe one professor win a Nobel Prize while on staff (around 1994) whereas schools like Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and Harvard have had a half dozen professors win Nobel Prizes in one academic year.</p>
<p>This is where USC’s real peer institution is NYU and not UCLA or Stanford or whatever. USC is a powerhouse in the arts and in the professions, but professors who teach music and business administration don’t necessarily lend prominence to a university in the way that physicists and chemists do. Many of those other rankings focus narrowly on scientific awards (Nobel, Fields, etc.) and publications and that’s not USC’s strength.</p>
<p>To illustrate the point, as a Pittsburgh native, yes Pitt is not nearly as strong as USC on the undergraduate level, however its medical school generally ranks as one of the top 10 in the country. UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) is a world-class medical institute on par with UCLA’s medical center and has been one of the main drivers in that city’s post-industrial redevelopment. You don’t see that on the undergraduate level, but it is definitely a factor in the overall reputation of the university. Same thing with Purdue - its engineering programs generally rank in the top 5-10 across the board nationwide.</p>
<p>This goes back to the idea that different schools have different strengths. FWIW, the Hollywood Reporter this past week again ranked USC’s film school as #1 in the world.</p>
<p>USCAlum05, yes there is truth in that statement. USC closest peer to date would be NYU. However, USC health system is one if not its top priority. Recently, they have had numorous success by recruiting most of their faculty from UCSD, Caltech, UCLA, and Harvard. </p>
<p>USC has only just begun to start the build itself up as a top tier sciences school and unlike any other top 25 school, USC has the most potential to become elite.</p>
<p>I love when people blame USC’s rank on the transfers. Anyone who has ever made that claim doesn’t know anything about rankings. You all need to keep quiet.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that some people don’t have the money to attend USC for four years, but I’m more sorry that there are people who are actually offended by this and chalk it up to laziness or stupidity. Privilege is funny that way.</p>
<p>I’m an incoming transfer student. I’m awesome. I earned my admission by pouring every ounce of effort I could muster into two outstanding years of community college (earning my A.A. in the process) <em>and</em> working two part-time jobs.</p>
<p>FYI, the average GPA for the incoming transfer class was above 3.8 and that is from an admissions staff that doesn’t honor grade forgiveness policies from other institutions. And not inflated high school GPA numbers either.</p>
Top professional schools including TV, communications, therapy, dental, music…
Top Football and overall sports program in NCAA and Olympics,
Top $endowment(along with Harvard, Stanford…)
just would count anything? in the academic ranking calculation
then could help a lot.</p>
<p>BUT since all the above strengths would count almost NOTHING in the academic
rankings methodology.
and those rankings are usually primarily based on grad research on “pure”
academic fields, pure sciences, and nobel prizes(nobels USC had only one and bought a
couple others?), then it would still take a long many years to see any real improvement
on the rankings.</p>
<p>why would anyone care about rankings?
meaningless numbers. everybody knows that.</p>
<p>UCLA is as hard to get into as going to mars have a nice lunch with your 130 year-old grandmother and be back before sunset, still have time to watch twilight and enjoy it. yes its ranked high but the atmosphere doesnt feel anything like that.<br>
i personally youd love to my undergrad engineering over at USC. Its my dream to study at MIT, Stanford or Berkeley and i see USC as a great path to get there.</p>