<p>Over the last 20 years, USC has been focused on improving its undergraduate offerings, while kinda’ ignoring its graduate schools and research.</p>
<p>On the USC forum, people are sometimes puzzled as to why it’s a top-25 university in the US News rankings, but doesn’t do as well in most of the other rankings. The accepted explanation is that US News is more weighted toward undergraduate programs, while the others are weighted toward research, graduate and professional programs. </p>
<p>That’s why I said USC is a university where undergraduate studies outshines its graduate studies. It’s only recently started putting a lot of effort into improving its graduate offerings.</p>