<p>Does that mean that Viterbi reads my application and the Engineering school determines my decision?? Do engineering applicants get admitted separately from Letters, Arts, Science Applicants??</p>
<p>Like for example, student A who applied biology would have the app read by Reader A from LAS
but student B who applied MechEng would have the app read by Reader B from Viterbi</p>
<p>and, if that is true, does that mean in scholarship determination, those who applied engineering are competing with engineering students? or is scholarship determined as a whole? </p>
<p>and, how do they determine scholarship? i know they say “MERIT” but what exactly is merit? is it GPA and SAT, is it teacher recs, essays?</p>
<p>I know it is a very difficult time period for students who applied to USC and have to wait to see if they are accepted with scholarships. I suggest that if you applied before the Dec. 1 deadline (or whatever the scholarship consideration deadline was this year), to just try to enjoy winter break. You will know in the next few months if you are accepted with a scholarship.</p>
<p>USC admissions officers take a holistic approach to each applicant–so there is no exact formula as to how they weight each of the components that make up your application. This is true for admission decisions for CLAS, for each of the more selective Schools, as well as for merit scholarship consideration. It has been noted that ECs count a lot, but so do letters of rec, essays, rigor of coursework in high school, audition material–if submitted, and so on. Oftentimes, extraordinary honors can help get scholarship attention–so those with published research, national science or art awards, extraordinary internships, etc, which apply to the prospective major may get interviewed over another candidate with lesser SAT numbers. USC adcoms often remind students that they look past the numbers, so take it to heart.</p>
<p>With only about 2% of USC applicants invited to interview for a Trustee and Presidential scholarships, and large pool of highly qualified applicants each year, clearly a huge number of excellent candidates will still not be in the running for scholarships. If you look at last years admits–and note those who got their admission letters in late January (almost certainly all interviewed for top merit awards), you can see that there is a range of scores and GPAs. What isn’t easy to see is their community service involvement, the teacher recs, or the essays. And many of those early admits are now attending Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Cal and other top schools–so that is the range of students who are most often also competitive for the merit awards at USC.</p>