<p>As far as USC chances, my daughter scored a 1450 on the old SAT (99th verbal), was student body president at one of the most well-known and academically competititve public high schools in California, studied Chinese for four years (only non-native speaker), studied abroad, worked part-time for our city government, excellent recommendations, and was turned down by USC this past year with her weighted 3.5 (poor, I know, but in my day you could be on academic probation and get into USC!). They seem to have a very strong emphasis on GPA these days. She tooks lots of AP (all 4s and 5s) as well as Mandarin. It didn’t seem the school’s competitive reputation, or the difficulty of her schedule, or her many ECs could tip her in. Kids who focused on grades and had just very modest ECs were admitted. Just FYI.</p>