Altamont

do any current usc students know how hard it is to get a smaller scholarship (not trustee or presidential or nmf) if my gpa is only a 3.7 and 2100 sat? USC is one of my top choices but i don't know if i want to shell out 50,000 a year for undergrad.thanks

GroovyGeek

The smaller scholarships are around $2-$4k --- sufficient to matter to most but not enough if you go into this with the "i don't know if i want to shell out 50,000 a year for undergrad" position. If that is truly your first and foremost consideration you have three choices --- in-state public; get enough scholarships from other sources; or apply to a private school where you are in the top few percent of applicants and hope that they throw money at you. Boston University is a good school in a good location that is trying to move up in the world and is willing to spend money on good students. They probably were not too reliant on an endowment to start with, so the economic events of the last few years should not have curtailed their ability to do so.

Columbia_Student

My daughter's friend has not have your stats(or maybe less) but got Dean's Scholarship. I think she is in a difficult major and her high school is very competitive. I think a few years back, a USC valedictorian came from her high school and that maybe why admission officers looked favorably toward her GPAs.