<p>I am not from florida, so I have never heard of any party reputation that Miami may have. In California it is known as a big sports school, that’s it. USC is no different. Talented Kids who have full rides and squander there blessings is always inherent. Personally I see little if any damage such a reputation has in academics/employment or whatever the metric is. When my father decided to attend UC Berkeley in 1971, the comments he received were "oh you want to party’’. In fact at Berkeley, we saw UC Davis and as lightweights in comparison to us and Santa Barbara as quieter than UCLA. If I am not mistaken, Brown University just made news the other day for its naked sex party getting canceled. </p>
<p>The Bible for students is US news Rankings, areas of excellence and complete individual subjectivity after that. But guess what, employers use rankings too. And grad schools use research/citation impact rankings. Good schools are money makers. They expand their capabilities for research grants through building facilities and academic strategy. They also are successful at expanding their endowment- by whatever means. The larger the endowment the more return it produces. This means both in subsidizing talented students as well as receiving passive income from investing it. Harvard has a 36 billion dollar trust which gained 5 billion in interest over the last few years. This is because Harvard isn’t just a school it is a for-profit real estate company. Harvard owns more real estate than anyone in Boston-transfers its profitable non-taxed return back into the endowment fund-it’s a cyclical process that makes it almost self sustaining.</p>
<p>The U seems in my opinion to be in that game. That should be all that matters. </p>