<p>Hey RLM,</p>
<p>I have no doubt that was true 20 years ago, becoming less so since. If you look at the SATs or ACTs at the 25th and 75%tiles, USC is far above UCLA and above Berkeley, for example using last years data.</p>
<p>Here are ACT results ranked by 75%tile score. Note the company USC is with and gap to Harvard’s scores:</p>
<p>31 34 Harvard University 32
30 34 Yale University 32
30 34 Williams College 30
31 33 Northwestern University 62
29 33 Carleton College 58
29 33 University of Southern California 42
29 33 Johns Hopkins University 40
30 33 Middlebury College 39
30 33 Reed College 39
29 33 Swarthmore College 37
29 33 Brown University 37
29 33 Cornell University 36
29 33 Vassar College 36
30 33 Bowdoin College 33
29 33 Carnegie Mellon University 30</p>
<p>Some universities rise steadily and at times quickly, so that it is difficult to maintain a perspective on their relative standing. The data above reflect scores for the class of 2015, a year USC’s admission rate was 23%. For the class of 2016, it is estimated at 18% with likely even higher test scores. Per USC, students and parents, USC admission is highly holistic which led extremely high scoring students lamenting on cc they were not admitted. </p>
<p>Given the data, I’d be hesitant to consider USC a"safe" school for a Harvard applicant, as far as “fallback” much would seem to depend on the person characteristic of the applicant. Per test scores, Harvard is more stringent, though there is clear overlap in the test performance characteristics for a subgroup of students, though I do not have the data to determine the exact extent of overlap.</p>
<p>My knowledge of USC until recently was from 20 years ago. I probably was not alone in not being up to date with my appraisal.</p>