<p>The definition provided for those institutional grants is</p>
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<p>So it includes athletic scholarships (most of which will be partial), and we don’t know how much these grants are - they could be as low as $100, I assume (maybe even lower if someone simply received a “fee waiver.”)</p>
<p>Regardless, the collegeboard data still show that only 38% of the freshman class received need-based aid. It is unclear to me how to interpret the two sources of information together.</p>
<p>Though I feel Collegeboard is a useful source for consolidated information for thousands of schools all in one place, I have found that the specifics for each school are often out of date and/or incorrect in terms of dates, deadlines, cost of attendance, etc. For that reason I have never used Collegeboard for specific information and always recommend that potential applicants go to the individual school websites for specifics.</p>
<p>Something new this year for most colleges and universities offering financial aid is that they provide a net price calculator to get an estimate of how much that school will cost a particular applicant. Applicants should take the time to “run their numbers” through these calculators for all the schools to which they apply. It will not only give them an idea of what to expect, it will help them to gather the information and documentation they will need to submit their financial aid applications. Here is USC’s: [USC</a> Financial Aid - Planning for USC](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/fa/applying_receiving/undergraduates2/netpricecalculator.html]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/fa/applying_receiving/undergraduates2/netpricecalculator.html)</p>
<p>Certainly, anyone who checks my post history will see that I am a big fan of USC - not only for the incredible education and opportunities the school has provided my child, but for the financial aid and scholarships they provided her that made what we thought was an impossibility possible. I can tell you anecdotally from my time on College Confidential fielding financial aid questions that financial aid packages for low income students often meet the full cost of attendance with grant components well over $40,000, and that USC offers aid for all students including transfers and those who did not apply their first year. USC also stands ready to replace the Cal Grant for students receiving that grant from California if it is eliminated (as has often been proposed).</p>
<p>What you can’t see from that history is MY history, and that I am also a huge fan of and product of California’s great public university system. I fully acknowledge that the subsidy provided to California students makes those universities a bargain even without aid or scholarships for many California families, and that COST should always be a consideration. Parents should be discussing financial realities from the time the kids start high school, and in my opinion every California senior should be applying to at least one UC and/or CSU.</p>
<p>It is all about options, and anyone who has USC AND UCLA as their options next April has a great choice. Best of luck to all.</p>
<p>…which is not easy to decipher, but from what I can discern, only 21% of the freshman class received need-based scholarship or grant aid.</p>
<p>I agree with your assessment of the two universities, but I do think it is relevant to determine the truth about the socio-economic composition of the student body of each campus to get a fuller picture of the campus culture.</p>
<p>The point of my exercise was to show the differential is lessened significantly in how each report the numbers. I would guess, though, after normalizing one to the other, that USCs would probably be higher at the 50% median and definitely at the 25th. </p>
<p>It may be beyond your comprehension, but I invite you to read my first post in this thread and get back to me. One of my chief points is that UCLA makes exceptions for poorer kids wrt scores, often rejecting 3.8 uwgpa/2100-2200 kids from top-notch public high schools (which I dont believe it should, not that it shouldnt make exceptions for poorer kids). </p>
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<p>I cant dispute this, but USC is roughly half and half, between grad and undergrad enrollment, actually more grad students of its roughly 36-37K total. Grad classes are smaller, so a great portion of faculty is educating post-bac students.</p>
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<p>Why is it shrinking, what have you heard, read? And neither has an overwhelmingly large endowment.</p>
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<p>I dont think UCLA nor USC are Nobel magnets. Your second listed here would be the reason for UCLA. But as ThisCouldBe’s spreadsheet would probably show, this is a very small proportion of faculty members. </p>
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<p>UCLA has much greater grad school prospects to M, L, & B school … more UCLA students point toward grad professional school and seek more education on the average in comparison with USC grads, about 65% seek post-bac degrees -> greater eventual job prospects. USC grads tend to enter the workforce in greater %s with their undergraduate degrees, and USC does have excellent undergraduate trades and good connections in LA, though the size of USCs undergrad B school does hinder job placement %s for Marshall.</p>
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<p>This seems a bit high because cc students tend to graduate in 2 years instead of 4, so if youre estimating enrollments based on transfers-in against high-school matriculants in a one-year snapshot, youd have to make this correction for the total student body.</p>
<p>But with this said, the impacted majors at are probably harder to gain admission to UCLA from cc in comparison to high-school admits:</p>
<p>gpa from community college or other four-year:</p>
<p>USC likewise takes many cc transfers. If USC takes a bit less than 3K undergrads, lets just say, 3K, then 3K x 4.1 years = a bit more than 12K of 17K undergrads. </p>
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<p>You got me on this one, but I really couldt care less.</p>
<p>Alamemom #21:</p>
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<p>UCLAs unweighted is 3.81 and USCs ~ 3.7. An approximate .1 gpa difference is significant. This would be like scoring a 2200 v 2100 on the SATI.</p>
<p>The way the UC gets around race, besides peeking when it shouldnt, is by culling the demographics of each high school in Ca in a very detailed manner and seeking more from these lower-performing hss that they know have a lot more Hispanic students … so race-based admissions at UC is alive and well, though filtered through a disadvantaged economic background angle. Afro-Americans are still second-class citizens in these targeted hs efforts, at least partly because there are so many Hispanic students and lesser AA students in CA. </p>
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<p>I agree. My main point, again, was to show that SAT median presentation can still be under or overstated by various us as shown on my example here of how a public and private school, UCLA and USC, present things on a CDS because the former would indeed look less stringent based on how LDN101 presented things.</p>
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<p>Sorry, for the mixed message. Most of my message was for LDN101, except solely for that part where I addressed you. I addressed you in very lightly passing with little or no intent towards you because I generally like your posts, and I didnt want to give you the impression that I was countering whatever you had to offer in your prior post. You are undoubtedly a very important contributor to this board, and I respect your posts highly. Im just about one thing primarily … UCLA … and thats it. Hopefully I offer some perspective of the Us admission policy based on it being perhaps the most transparent U in the country, and that it would rather understate things rather than overstate them to help the pscyhe of poorer kids. </p>
<p>UCBalumnus #26, #27:</p>
<p>Regarding your link to the Palos Verdes Peninsula High Schools database in which you participated in a CC discussion on the high-school board, stating that UCLAs yield is not very high from this school … you have to remember that these things run yearly. The link you showed was only a one-year snapshot. Prior year in 2010, UCLA took 23, Cal 23, and USC ~ 16.</p>
<p>Also, I would be wary of the stats posted on this site. They appear off, especially for scores. How many of these students scored 800 on one of the three parts of the SAT? Too many, along with a disjointed exceedingly low score on the written portion versus the math and verbal parts. I think this database appears to be a work in progress. </p>
<p>Of all the major universities in the nation, UC values scores less than the vast majority of them in the nation. Of all the major us in the country, UC is probably closest to waiving the necessity of requiring it, following Clarks lead.</p>
<p>Class rank is undoubtedly a very hard thing to measure. There are some public high schools in the state of CA like Palo Alto and Gunn HSs in Palo Alto that have > 3.9 uw gpa at the 90th percentile. And undoubtedly at some, usually underperforming ones, a 3.6, or even lower would be at that same level. </p>
<p>But there is no way that UCLA has 97% in the top 10%, and as I said probably more like ~ 80%; there is no way that USC has 86% in the same top decile based on the high schools databases that Ive seen similar to the ones you linked above, and based on the fact that USC will often take 10% of the graduating classes from certain private high schools which would probably -> the average class rank from students of these feeders to USC would be ~ mid-level grads.</p>
<p>Agreed, though, we can only guesstimate, which is why I forwarded the info with ~. </p>
<p>I disagree highly that Cal is more holstic than UCLA. UCLA has to engage holistics to admit from the large amounts of underperforming, poorer high schools that encompass most of LA. And admitting those with poorer stats and from these bad high schools is more of a local UC concern -> UCLA has a larger burden to admit from the predominantly bad hss, moreso than any other UC. And this is why UCLA has the most extensive tutoring dept in all of UC to get these students up to speed.</p>
<p>pickwick #32:</p>
<p>I dont necessarily disagree with your primary message, because USC is diverse wrt economic background, but this is at least partly wrong:</p>
<p>[Having said all that, UC’s are in serious economic trouble and I’m certain you’d have more luck “getting” your classes, having smaller classes, and graduating on time, at USC than UCLA.
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<p>USC students dont graduate at a higher rate than at UCLA, and graduation rates wont be affected because UCLA (and Cal) are in a better place than the rest of the UCs.</p>
<p>Said another way, 'SC emphasizes test scores more than UCLA, which is a given. USC literally pays for high test scores (by discounting tuition to NMSF’s).</p>
<p>That’s undoubtedly an element of this, but also:</p>
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<li><p>There’s a larger pool of applicants that USC will consider for admittance by lowering the floor wrt gpa requirements and in turn seeking high scores, which UCLA cannot likewise do.</p></li>
<li><p>There is a more favorable (higher) SAT presentation by USC over UCLA in the CDS.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s a correlation between higher scores and wealth. </p></li>
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<p>—UCLA has a good amt. of rich kids to be sure – the proportion of UCLA students who come from $1M & > abodes has to be pretty high because the top feeder schools to UCLA are still Arcadia, Torrey Pines, Diamond Bar, Beverly Hills (though students there have to jump through hoops first, SMC), San Marino, La Costa Canyon, PVP, PV, and some of the other beach schools, the Peninsula Bay schools as well as the wealthier parts of East Bay (though “rich” by parents’ dwelling place does not mean rich by disposable/discretionary income, especially in CA where mortgages are extremely high)-- and USC does a good job of admitting an economically diverse student body – but still there are obviously a good deal higher % of poor kids at UCLA as shown by the Pell %'s the others have linked.</p>
<p>Where I’m from UCLA is regarded as one of the best schools in the US, and USC is just another state US university full of dumb rich kids. I’m not sure if that has changed now. </p>
It has changed now; USC and UCLA have a roughly equal reputation in the United States but UCLA is a far bigger name internationally, even bigger than Berkeley in Europe according to a recent survey polling European executives.</p>
<p>I don’t think UCLA is a bigger name than Berkeley in Europe. I’m Italian and educated in England, and from my experiences, the opposite is true. The UCLA brand name isn’t quite up to par as to the Berkeley brand name. The more qualified European students would rather have a Berkeley diploma than a UCLA diploma. Berkeley has employed staff taking care of all their European applicants because it’s been getting traffic lately when Berkeley opened its doors to international students.</p>
<p>Really? I wasn’t aware that USC was releasing it’s Common Data Set. Do you have a link?</p>
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<p>Well yeah, USC pays for high test scores (as does any other school offering significant discounts to NMSF’s). High test/low gpa + legacy is also a big boost. (UCs can’t use legacy.)</p>
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<p>UCLA (and Cal) could, and in fact does for students it wants (low income, overcoming 'adversity), but chooses not to for the middle class.</p>
<p>yes, RML, the general idea historically is that kids who couldn’t get into UCLA could get into USC if they could pay the tuition. It was that way for a long time. Then USC started a program to improve academic reputation (someting Duke had done before them I’ve read?) In 2004 at least one prep school class was told not to reply on USC as a safety any longer as selectivity had increased.</p>
<p>Oh whoops, sorry about that! I knew we were talking about the “real” USC ;), and it was nagging me that I couldn’t make the CDS numbers match up to the Collegeboard numbers after I was the one who said that is where they came from.</p>
<p>I cannot find USC’s CDS data, but I note that Collegeboard’s numbers for the Gamecocks match up exactly with their CDS numbers, so I assume that the Trojan’s do, too. Which again, means that 38% of Trojan freshmen received need-based aid, leaving 62% who did not.</p>
<p>^ Well, I didn’t say I have the same view the others, or that I believe them. But believe it or not, a lot of people thought USC is a state university.</p>
<p>Right, which gets into the “and why should anyone care what people who don’t know what they’re talking about think”? I don’t know why we’re supposed to care about the perceptions of ill-informed people.</p>