<p>Stanford used to say (applicant year 2010 - 2011) that if you applied early to USC to get in under the Dec 1 wire for the scholarship consideration that you violated the SCEA policy at Stanford – even though the Dec 1 deadline had nothing to do with admissions. Stanford took the position that applying early on the basis of a deadline to achieve some advantage was the functional equivalent of applying early to a school, even it it wasn’t applying early for actual admission. An early scholarship deadline was treated by Stanford as an early application deadline. This policy had the intended effect of keeping great scholarship applicants to USC, who still wanted to apply to Stanford, from applying to USC – with the result that great minority candidates would end up getting rejected by Stanford and not end up taking their shot at USC, where they may have been highly competitive. Eventually, two things happened: (1) USC internally waived the deadline for outstanding applicants (meaning that if you got your application in after Dec 1, you still were considered), so USC refused to let Stanford game its deadlines and gamed Stanford right back, and (b) Stanford recognized that they were being way too restrictive as compared with any other college on the planet, none of whom had an equivalent policy and none of whom wanted to be blamed for keeping minorities out of contention for scholarships (wherever they might find them). So, yes, now you are perfectly fine applying to USC before the deadline of December 1 for the scholarships.</p>