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<p>Who stated anything about the ‘lowest kids in …’?</p>
<p>I stated that USC fishes for high scorers (SAT) and often dips into the class-rank of a high school. And since schools like Harvard-Westlake generally send their top students to Ivies, and like elites, say top 20%, that leaves USC (and UCLA and Cal) with the leftovers, relatively speaking. Only thing is, USC would gladly take these students because they undoubtedly score well, whereas UCLA and Cal generally have class-rank floors from which to admit.</p>
<p>There’s a way that USN can verify whether some schools are trying to work its metrics and climb the rankings artificially. Because let’s face it, there are undoubtedly a handful of schools that are trying to ascend the rankings quickly. Since many schools, mainly private, would never reveal the processes and data to their admitting students, all the publication has to do is contact the high schools and see where their students matriculate at, and at its various class ranks. It’d be a very large task, but otherwise, how would USN know who’s telling the truth?</p>
<p>And there are undoubtedly some high schools, usually private, that reveal this information on an anonymous basis in posting class rank and scores to try to promote their schools and attract more students.</p>
<p>Look at the weights USN gives to “selectivity”: Acceptance Rate 10%; Class Rank in top 10% of HS, 40%; SAT, 50%. </p>
<p>Lo and behold, USC is working these specific sub-variables to pump up its rankings. Wrt acceptance rate and class rank, USC has and does admit to spring to bypass reporting these numbers. Also it sends students off to community college for a year and takes them in deferred. (Lest you state that Cal and UCSD admit to spring… just remember that both report these numbers, and both are extremely transparent.) Why has USC gone to SAT as a primary factor? Simple, becuase scores have the largest weight in USN’s selectivity. It isn’t faintly obvious to you that USC is trying to work these numbers? </p>
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<p>Who said anything negatively about the donations? Yes, Dr Mann approached UCLA, his alma mater, but he and the administration couldn’t come to terms, so he went to USC. These things happen.</p>
<p>Moving this paragraph back a bit:</p>
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<p>This is what you consider ‘intellectually limited people’? What about the sense, intelligence or otherwise, to be able to discern bs? It isn’t faintly obvious to you that USC is on some huge public-relations campaign?</p>
<p>Goodness… everyone at the school is trying to get people to buy into the greatness that is USC: mothers and fathers of sons and daughters who attend or attended, students who currently attend, the administration, et al. I”ve never seen so many people trying to pat themselves on the back. </p>
<p>Yeah, I’ll give USC credit: Nice job of taking in donations; nice job of promotions by all concerned. Yeah, the administration there cares; whereas the adminstration at UCLA generally sucks. All I see from Chancellor Block is a man who’ll give spiels about diversity, and “UCLA being a public school so it should be about community service.” He’s someone who’s unimaginative, boring, and sounds tired and washed up, and someone who’ll just hold the job until someone else takes his place.</p>
<p>But with this said, I don’t care how much USC takes in, it’ll be UCLA and Cal and the rest of UC that’ll produce the far greater and higher ranking MD’s, attys, businesmen, and professionals, in the state of CA. Stanford alums tend to be more national and international in addition to their not being as many of them. I can’t see USC displacing UCLA or Cal wrt prestigious grad appointments either. Do I consider USC a sunk cost? No, but I don’t think the return there is nearly as good, and the university is a money sieve.</p>
<p>But otherwise nice job, as I said earlier. Just don’t hurt yourselves in patting yourselves on the back.</p>