<p>Yeah. I never walked anywhere without my two (guy) friends. But I suppose since it was at the music school, they were a lot more careful, since that’s really on the edge of campus and almost doesn’t feel like its part of the campus.</p>
<p>But gosh… All I’ve been able to talk about today at school was how amazing USC was and how amazing the band clinic was.</p>
<p>The school is absolutely amazing. And their band… Oh my gosh. It’s just amazing.</p>
<p>I applied to USC and it’s one of my top choice schools. I’ll probably end up going there. It’s a great place to be. I was to go into the pre-med program.</p>
<p>Per : AUGirl </p>
<p>While I was there, they made sure that commuting students had guides with them to walk them to their cars, because they said that there had been “incidents” lately. And my roommates said that there apparently had been three rapes at the university recently.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any additional information regarding the above statement?
This is very concerning!!</p>
<p>^If it makes any difference, we were on the edge of campus… which is basically in Columbia and pretty detached from the rest of campus and I felt extremely safe while I was there and we were out until nearly 11 at night. =/</p>
<p>AUGirl,</p>
<p>My son also attended the clinic last weekend and he did nothing but complain about it. He had requested that his audition be during the clinic but they had scheduled him for the next weekend (really no big deal since we are only an hour and a half away), then they told him that he could audition during the clinic, then a half hour before his audition they canceled it and told him (and another student) they would have to come back the next weekend. Due to chair auditions taking longer than they were supposed to, he missed the opportunity to eat thursday night, etc. He was really put off by the whole disorganized thing.</p>
<p>On fri morning he found out that he had made first chair (but not the honors band), so he was excited about being first chair and getting a solo, but was frustrated that several students that he had beat out for all-state had made the honors band. He was very unimpressed with all except for one of the concerts that he watched, but the one that he did like he said was amazing. We went to the Furman concert the week before and I think he became spoiled a little after seeing them - I can’t imagine even a professional group being better than the Furman Symphonic band.</p>
<p>I’m glad that you had a solid experience there. I suspect that my sons up-and-down experiance may have been influenced by some hunger issues, and the fact that he felt a little over supervised thoughout the clinic. Anyhow, we will be back down there on Sat to audition.</p>
<p>I am a clarinet and my seating audition took until 8 o’clock. They told us that we were allowed to miss the performance and had to show up by 9 since our audition ended after 7. So my friends and I headed over to Wendy’s across the street, grabbed something to eat, and made it back to the auditorium by nine. Afterwords, we decided to go back to Wendy’s and get frosties, which we had plenty of time to do, since room check was at 11. There was definitely time to eat that first night. In fact, they told a couple of the clarinets to just leave, eat, and come back since the auditions were going to take so long.</p>
<p>The USC Wind Ensemble concert was absolutely, one hundred percent fantastic. It was literally the best concert that I’ve seen in my entire life. The other concerts were a bit boring, but they were not bad concerts by any means. I enjoyed the steel drum band. (Congo line anyone?)</p>
<p>Which band was he in? I was in the Spinazolla band, and I thought our director did a wonderful job. My friends were in the Msomething-Bryant band, and they absolutely loved her. And my roommate was in the Jones band, and she really liked him.</p>
<p>Auditions go good and bad. I’ve been in clinics where the seating seemed wrong. That’s the case with any audition. Either way, I think it can be a fantastic experience, whether or not you’re in the honor band.</p>
<p>I didn’t feel over-supervised at all, which is odd, considering that the first night they laid out a lot of rules. But basically, they took attendance at concerts and rehearsals. They checked your room at 11 (or in my case, a lot later.) It was a high school clinic, so I wasn’t entirely surprised, but we were free to roam around a good bit. I got to venture out to Five Guys and Russel House and meet a lot of new people.</p>
<p>That being said the weekend wasn’t without its hitches. The girl’s housing line took forever. And when I got there finally, they informed us that the hotel had made a mistake in booking, so they had to put us in a room with a king bed and a pull out sofa. At orientation, they explained that there was one RA living on each floor, three girls floors, three boys. They didn’t name my floor. Come to find out, they stuck us on the 7th floor, which had the visiting boys baseball team (Santa Clara University) on it and there was no RA there. The first night, they didn’t do room check until midnight. (I was already asleep, my roommates answered the door.)</p>
<p>Clarinet auditions took entirely too long. They actually cut me off in my sitereading to save time. I was number 49 out of soprano clarinets. They decided to audition all 80 soprano clarinets, 16 bass clarinets, and 2 contrabass clarinets in the same room and thought that’d be over by 6:30. That was just dumb.</p>
<p>I wasn’t a huge fan of the music that my band played. Although, I enjoyed Pas Redouble and I thought it was very cool to play Steven Bryant’s Dusk. (You should listen to Concerto for Wind Ensemble. That was amazing!) But otherwise… I was pretty bored the first day of rehearsals. The second day was a lot better though.</p>
<p>Most of the concerts were boring… but a lot of concerts are. I was surprised that they weren’t all boring honestly.</p>
<p>But I’ve been to several band clinics. This was by far the best clinic I’ve ever been to and they didn’t try the entire weekend to get us to go to USC either. In fact, they didn’t really talk much about going to USC, which was a little frustrating for me, seeing as how I wanted to learn more about the school, but overall, it was a good experience, and I expect it is what you make out of it.</p>
<p>And I thought the university handled the hitches thrown at us/them fairly well. And another plus: We all had music… A lot of times that doesn’t happen. XD</p>
<p>And I just realized how long that post was.</p>
<p>Sorry. I tend to be very wordy. XD</p>
<p>Hope I get accepted lol. I’ll probably be one of the few black people there lol.</p>
<p>you need to call USC campus police or city police for any real answer. I will say that I have heard nothing about a series of rapes around USC and the local media spends a lot of time on local crime. I would think that something this serious would not stay within campus police. There is crime in the city. someone was shot in 5 points (near USC) within the last month and the key here is that it happened at 3am. If you check crime stats, find out when they happened and I think you will find almost all happened after midnight and as I have told my kids, nothing good happens after midnight no matter where you are. Using common sense I believe campus is safe.</p>
<p>AUGirl, I like long posts, they provide more info that short posts.</p>
<p>Anyhow, he was also in Spinazolla, and thought that the instruction in that band was good - no complaints there, but no rave reviews either. He had never been to a music camp before, aside from marching band or drum corps so he really didn’t know what to expect or have a standard to judge it by. </p>
<p>The USC Wind Ensemble may have been the one that he really liked, I’m not sure. He thought that it was truely a professional level ensemble.</p>
<p>He apparently didn’t get out of his audition until after 10pm, he must have been one of the last ones, and said that there was a two hour gap between his warmup and his audition.</p>
<p>One of the things that I personally observed and liked was that I saw several USC students, graduates of my Son’s high school, who were not helping out with the clinic, but attended the Sun concert anyway. It was nice to know that they would make the effort to attend.</p>
<p>I actually thought that the Sunday concert was quite good, very much along the lines of a region or allstate band in quality.</p>
<p>Oh. Is your son a trumpet player?</p>
<p>If he was then he was my friends’ roommate. haha. They said they never really spoke to them(their other two roommates), though, which I found odd, because I am like obsessively talking to my roommates now. =) But I did happen to point out to them every time I saw their roommate (who was first trumpet in my band…) that there was their roommate… but alas they didn’t become friends. They informed me that “Girls and guys are different. Girls make friends very easily.” I just told them they weren’t being social. XD</p>
<p>But yes, if his audition didn’t end until 10, then I can understand his complaints. I wasn’t aware of it going on that long, though I’m not surprised. My friends finished their auditions after 7 as well, and one was a trumpet, while the other was a string bass.</p>
<p>I’m sorry that he didn’t have such a good time. That seems rather sad, because I really had an amazing time, as did my friends. The two guys at my school had a lot of fun, even the string bass player… and he was the only string bass player in the entire program.</p>
<p>But it was definitely along the line of region/all state bands. I unfortunately couldn’t stay for the Honor Band concert, because I have a seven year old sister, and the first three concerts was already <em>way</em> too much for her, so we went and walked around campus. But I enjoyed listening to the Msomething-Bryant band.</p>
<p>yes, that was him. He also told me that himself and his friend-roommate never spoke to the other two roomates. I found that odd also. Especially since all four of them are from basically the same town. His friend-roommate is a very very very quite person, not unsocial, just quite. </p>
<p>They did hang out some with the other students from his school, plus some HS alumni who are attending USC, and some students that he knew from other places.</p>
<p>I don’t think it was all bad, he just wanted to make me think that it was.</p>
<p>lol. Well that’s interesting. I asked my friends every single day… I was like they’re only from <em>place</em>, Why don’t you talk to them!? A lot of students at our school live there and our band director is actually from there. He went to hs there. I went there the other day with some friends for frozen yogurt… which they have a frozen yogurt place just like that at USC.</p>
<p>But I didn’t know my roommates at all. Two were from Ridgeview in Columbia and one was from Chapin.</p>
<p>Awe. Well I’m sorry that he didn’t have a good time, but, I do think that he did a wonderful job on the solo. =)</p>
<p>Heh. This just proves how small of a world it is. XD</p>
<p>Au girl, USC should hire you to be their PR rep. If I end up at USC, it will be mostly because of your enthusiasm. (But don’t worry, I am going to visit all the schools that I am thinking about prior to sending in my deposit). Seriously though, USC could have not had a better advocate. You seem normal and it has really had an impact on me. I wasn’t even remotely considering this as a realistic option, just as a safety school. Your posts have changed my mind, I am now really taking this seriously, as it seems that you are not the stereotypical southerner that I was afraid of…</p>
<p>Hi usualgirl,</p>
<p>I grew up in the New York metropolitan area and moved down south in the 1990’s. I used to buy into all the negative stereotypes about the south. However, I married a southerner, and getting to know her family and friends made me realize how wrong I had been. Now, I would NEVER move back up north. Interestingly, my best friend from high school did the same thing. I ran into him at a reunion, and he would never move back either. Also…</p>
<p>Do what I did and read this entire thread. I know it’s long – 13 pages – but it’s worth doing. Then, start reading some of the Harvard threads, and compare them with this USC thread. Sure, many of the kids on the Harvard threads have impressive GPA’s and sky-high SAT scores. However, in terms of the “niceness quotient,” they are miserable failures compared with USC. I couldn’t believe what jerks some of them are.</p>
<p>Awe. That makes me so happy to hear. =)</p>
<p>There is a lot of negativity out there when it comes to the south in general, but I think that a lot of it is very stereotypical. People are people no matter where you go. We have nice people and mean people. We have pretty people and ugly people.</p>
<p>We have the same ideas about yankees. There’s this idea that they’re all cold beings who don’t have manners, etc. etc. etc. I think the difference is that when we talk about yankees, we’re mostly joking in an affectionate way. When non-southerners talk about southerners, they tend to believe the negativity. At least that’s my impression. You get a lot of flack for being southern.</p>
<p>But that being said… USC is something like 40% out of state. I think you should fit right at home here if you decide to come here. =) I’m actually really excited and hope that my roommates are from somewhere else. Should be very interesting. I have a lot of yankee friends, but most of them are acclimated to southern culture pretty well if I do say so myself. haha.</p>
<p>If anyone has questions let me know im a junior from the north in greek life and IB finance major</p>
<p>For those of you curious about Capstone Scholars invites, my D received an email invitation today with a side note that a follow-up letter would be arriving in a few days. Good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>Please tell me why I should choose USC over Ole Miss! I want to hear your thoughts!</p>
<p>Have not received decision letter from South Carolina yet…ugh. I can log into VIP with my SSN and I was able to change my password but I cannot pay deposit. Does this mean I did not get in?</p>