<p>I would agree that USC is more of a score-hungry U than a gpa one. Here’s a link to a high school in Southern California which shows admissions to various colleges of its students, and particularly highlights those to USC, UCLA and Cal. See splatter! diagrams on pages 76, 80, and 81 of this [link](<a href=“http://pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf”>http://pvphs.com/pdf/CollegeAcceptance.pdf</a>). UCLA and Cal’s are certainly far upper-right corner. In defense of USC’s diagram, there were retakes involving ACT’s which this diagram doesn’t show. (Only shows SATI scores. Whether superscored, it doesn’t say.)</p>
<p>From a top-notch high school such as this one, Palos Verdes Peninsula, admissions to UCLA and Cal are materially to much harder in which to gain entry. This is seen in top schools private and public in CA. Whether this would hold for an oos student would be hard to say … OP is from Wisconsin? I wouldn’t expect any of the three to have significantly harder admissions for oos students than for native Californians. UCLA would be fairly easy for Int’l students with a 30% acceptance rate. </p>
<p>And both Cal and UCLA, though, do engage holistics to admit lower scoring students of poorer s-e backgrounds – they are public u’s after all. This helps USC catch up in scores and maybe even helps it surpass both Cal and UCLA. </p>
<p>But who’s to say wrt potential of these poorer students. If coached up, they could easily ascend their scores 300 SAT points and would be in the same ballpark of their wealthier peers.</p>
<p>USC may indeed have higher scores – I find this hard to really determine because the schools that show databases like these are top-flight hss, and admissions to Cal and UCLA would be tougher than USC, both in class rank/gpas and scores.</p>
<p>I would also agree that admissions to USC would be highly predictable. This wouldn’t hold for UCLA and Cal as manifest by the rejects of both schools at this one hs.</p>