@lwtbaa15 I’m probably going to live with a family friend and rent a room because I have no other options. The rent is pretty cheap because it’ll be 350 per month. The only thing is that there’s no laundry on site and I’ll have to take a 20 min bus ride everyday. If you’re looking to save I think you should try to live with family in the San Fernando valley.
@zettasyntax 12k out of pocket the lowest? That is strange. I will not have to come out of pocket for tuition or housing but will for the meal plan. Since I will not be paying for the meal plan, I should have ~$1k leftover if my calculations are correct.
@ProfessorX5 It sounds like you were blessed with a one in a million package 
because that Topping Scholar I spoke with very confidently stated that anybody receiving the scholarship will see a reduction in their university grant - no questions about it. She was basically making it seem like USC doesn’t like to put students in a situation where they have any money left over, haha.
Also, did you get assigned to a place on-campus without a meal plan requirement? It’s crazy how they basically make it a requirement for some =\
@zettasyntax it was a requirement. But only for $600 not the $3k one.
@ProfessorX5 was your EFC 0000 as well
how long did it take to see your financial aid package after you were accepted?
@xerxes96 It took like 3-4 days after I was accepted for financial aid.
Does anyone know how good the meal plan is?
@topchoiceschool I think it’s unlimited swipes at EVK, which is this general cafeteria. I’ve eaten there acompletely times when I was visiting friends and the food sucks lol. Aside from that you can add dinning dollars to your card which is used for the other on campus restaurants.
There are multiple meal plans.
@mr.transfer I wanna say yeah. I dont really remember checking
@blueskies2day Thanks for the link. Already visited. Unfortunately, USC will not provide us with their insight wether their food tastes good or bad. This forum is for people that have questions, wether they are subjective or straight-forward questions you already know the answers too. Let people ask away, jesus.
EVK is supposed to be the best food of the dorms, but it is college food which is never that good. Of course, that is subjective. To answer question, my suggestion would be get smaller plan as you will tire of it really quick and end up going off campus for food. And if you are a junior, it will be weird eating in a dorm cafeteria altogether. Sophomore maybe a little more comfortable, but still will eat elsewhere often.
@zettasyntax did you have to take out all the loans they offered you? Since I’m also working i’m trying to figure out it’ll be possible for me to not have to take any loans out since their covering my tuition costs… (but at the same time I don’t want to be screwed over by underestimating additional costs like books and just life haha)
@journalism89 I only really needed to take them out if I wanted to live on-campus. I didn’t want to do work study, so I was able to request that in a Parent PLUS loan. When I didn’t get my housing choice, I chose not to accept the loan. I did need to take out a Stafford loan, I believe, because I needed their student insurance and my gift aid didn’t cover it. It was the first time I had insurance in like 2 years lol =\ If you aren’t living on campus and are staying at home with relatives or something, I think it’s rather achievable. Books aren’t insanely expensive if you rent them. However, I don’t see a small amount from loans as anything to be scared of. I notice that a lot of people are really against them.
Also, isn’t there an orientation event today, I think? Is anybody going? 
Has any junior been accepted as a spring applicant? I go to American University in DC and cant decide if it doesn’t make sense to transfer that late in my four years. USC has always been my dream school though. Anyone else have this dilemma?
@zettasyntax I forgot about insurance! I’ll need to get that too, how much is student insurance?
My orientation is next Tues the 26th 
@megan343 meeeee hahah if you want to talk about it message me lol im still debating too ugh
@journalism89 I want to say it was somewhere in the neighborhood of ~$1100. I’m not positive though. I actually had a great experience at their health center despite the horrific reviews on Yelp.
Ah, I don’t think I’ll be on-campus that day haha. I wanted to randomly look for and wave hello to people from here I had my data structures final today and I can kinda see why GamerGal said I was crazy. I was always so tired from the projects that I barely studied. Not good 
I’ll have to say hi in the fall you’ve been so helpful!! @zettasyntax