<p>ACT: 32 (36 Reading, 34 English, 30 math, 28 science) 10 Essay
2070 SAT (It was a bad day, barely slept the night before, took it on a whim to see what I could get, forgot about my registration till morning of, probably shouldn’t have)
3.85
4/60
4 on AP Lang. and Comp.
50-75k, caucasian family. Older bro in college at state school.
Named All-State in speech, part of only two person group improv.
Qualified for several national events in FFA, which isn’t easy to do
4-H Officer
Church youth group chairman
1st chair in concert and jazz band, soloist
Chorus, Chamber Choir, and Show Choir
Sports Information Director/Video Coordinator for football team
Captain of Southeast Iowa Quiz Bowl Champs
Free-lance writer who has written for nationally known sites like Rivals.com, and is a well known basketball scout.
Have worked at several basketball camps, including at a BCS Division One School as a counselor
Letter Winner in golf.
Letter winner and captain in basketball
Show a rare breed of cattle on the national level.
Named to the National Council on Youth Leadership National Contest, out of 100 select kids one of four selected for national
Member of BPA, competing at state level.
Skipped a grade when I was younger
Practically enrolled in local junior college bc too advanced for our school.
Already have had contact with coaches at USC about possibly being a manager for basketball team while there.</p>
<p>Cy,
What is your field or major? I see interest in sports as well as music. It is difficult to answer your request when an audition may be part of the selection process.</p>
<pre><code>Are your athletic skills ranked high enough to be a recruited athlete?
Is the 3.85 weighted or unweighted?
My guess is your strong commitment to agriculture may set you apart from the many students who apply from city or suburban high schools. If you grew up on a farm or ranch that might be a positive factor.
I am familiar with FFA and FHA.
</code></pre>
<p>seems like your stats align with the mid-higher range of the type of people USC accepts. I wouldn’t say it’s guaranteed because USC has rejected so many people i was SURE would get in, but you have a good chance. Nothing is ever very sure with SC, as I’ve learned.</p>
<p>Since you have good stats, it will probably come down to the subjective stuff. Focus heavily on your essay and recs; USC prides itself on taking a diverse group of students, so try to find something to write about that will really stand out (I’m sure you’ve heard this before). It can even be something that seems trivial, but make sure you’re passionate about it because I believe they can feel when it’s genuine or when it’s exaggerated to try to impress. Get recs from different sources (i.e. teachers, coaches, AND extracurricular advisors vs. all teachers) if possible so they can get a picture of you from all aspects of your life.</p>
<p>Well that’s a lot more than I planned on writing but good luck :)</p>
<p>Georgia, I’m interested in pursuing a career as a sports agent, so I will almost surely write about that. My 3.85 is unweighted. I’m thinking about writing my essay on improvisation and how it affects me.</p>
<p>I didn’t grow up on a farm, but we have a small one in the country. I actually own my own cattle and have my own farm name. My dad is a veterinarian, which definitely keeps costs down. As far as athletic, I’m a d-3 athlete at best. I’m just not quick enough, and it doesn’t help I’m in the middle of a two year long growth spurt (almost 6’5" now, and still growing).</p>
<p>Want to be an agent huh? Careful with that… we’ve got a lot of people here that don’t really like agents.</p>
<p>As for your stats, I’d say they are good enough to not get you tossed out automatically. Now you need to impress them with your essay and the rest of the application materials.</p>
<p>Haha, I understand that agents aren’t the most popular, but I’ll definitely be careful of NCAA rules, and will probably attend grad school first, either Law School or to pursue an MBA, so it won’t break any NCAA rules in terms of contact.</p>
<p>I’d like to respectfully disagree with SClove. Your GPA and SAT score are both “somewhere in the middle” if not just a WEE bit below - no offense to recruited athletes, but I think that a lot of nonathletes who get in have obscenely high stats, and the recruited athletes bring down the averages and such in the reported stats (related story below).</p>
<p>I believe it will be a matter of how you are relative to the rest of the kids at your school. Does your school rank? If so, what percentile are you? If not, could you at least please give us an estimate. </p>
<p>And **** you’re tall. O_O Jealous. </p>
<p>Aforementioned related story:
So for a group interview for a certain position at school, they gave us a list of 10 hypothetical applicants, and told us to choose our top three choices to admit to USC. One of these applicants was a 2.2 GPA student planning to major in something totally random but was the #1 football WR in the country. All of the interviewees automatically crossed him out and agreed he was a nono.</p>
<p>But anyway, after the whole process was over, it was revealed to us that all of the hypothetical applicants presented to us, INCLUDING the one I described above, would’ve been accepted. Yeah, ***.</p>
<p>Lencias,
It is tricky to pick out 10 hypothetical applicants out of a pool of 35,794. There were thousands and thousands of seniors who were NOT admitted last year. On this forum last April there was a thread posted of National Merit Scholars who were denied.</p>
<p>Many of SC’s athletes have fine scores and grades. By NCAA rules there are certain scores and grades which are necessary for athletic scholarships. SC’s policy has been to take athletes who have scored above these requirements. I would guess if you looked closely at Duke’s basketball players’ scores they would not be at the top of their applicant pool.</p>
<p>The NCAA allows only 25 football scholarships per year. In the Carroll years he usually took about 21. I think there was an article about the tennis and water polo teams having very high GPAs.</p>
<p>Assuming that USC is a typical Division 1 sports school then they have roughly 600 athletes, male and female, within the student body at any given time. Assuming they are evenly distributed among the classes (something most coaches strive for) and that none are “red shirts” (which would only help my case), that translates to roughly 150 athletes in every admitted class.</p>
<p>Last Year at USC:</p>
<p>35,749 applications
8,715 admitted with and average UW GPA of 3.8</p>
<p>Assuming all 150 athletes were of the 2.2 mouth-breathing GPA variety, that means the remaining admitted students (8,565) would have to have had an average UW GPA of 3.83. In other words, all these “dumb jocks” are driving a .03 increase in average non-athlete GPA, a whopping 0.8% bump!</p>
<p>Not all of those athletes are recruited and not all receive “free rides”. Many athletes have higher high school GPAs that 2.2. Some sports pull their athletes from the admitted student body, so the likely difference between the average GPA with and without “jocks” is even lower than the trivial .03 I presented. </p>
<p>I have always found the “jock” argument statistically naive and more than a little insulting to the athletes. College admissions is not a strict meritocracy. These athletes may be admitted because of their athletic skills, the same way a music performance major with exquisite talent may be accepted with a lower GPA. For those talents they are given the opportunity at a world class education. In return USC (and every other major Division 1 school) gets the notoriety and cash that their exploits bring into the university.</p>
<p>There’s a reason why the #1 WR in the country would be admitted to the school. Heck, a 2.2 GPA is probably better than some of the recruits that have expressed interest in USC but eventually didn’t go here got in high school (I’m thinking of two people in particular).</p>
<p>Besides, typical naive freshmen are sadly ignorant of football around here. It’s kind of a big deal. You’re totally missing out if you choose to be “too cool” to have spirit and cheer for the team.</p>
<p>They should just make a new school for Athletics and produce stats for each school - Viterbi, Marshall, Annenberg, Thornton (maybe not for these schools where GPA isnt that important) - let the meritocracy stay in perhaps Marshall , Viterbi and CAS lol</p>
<p>I don’t see what you’re getting at. Do you want to feel vindicated that you have a higher GPA than the typical student here on an athletic scholarship? There’s a good reason that USC does not make information like that public.</p>
<p>^ I would think that this information is useful for prospective applicants, a lot of my younger friends are asking me about this - plus, padding the stats only makes USC more prestigious</p>
<p>I may have moved past one person into the top 5% based on last semester, hopefully. I was 4/60.</p>