<p>Retaking the ACT is a good idea in my opinion — it can’t hurt. And secondly, USC definitely does do a holistic review in comparison to UCLA or other UC’s, but I would still say that academics are very important (they want to know if you can handle the rigor). With that being said, there were a lot of people at my orientation who admitted that they had some pretty poor stats (3.0 GPA, less than 2000 SAT), so I assume they got in for a variety of other reasons. I think doing an interview and writing a solid essay is extremely valuable especially since it’s a private school so interviewing shows interest.</p>
<p>I don’t recommend doing an engineering major and then going on the pre-med track. You need to take a lot of pre-med courses and compounding that with engineering courses is way too much PLUS an additional music minor? No way =( Neuroscience is a good major that a lot of undergraduates choose which also has good opportunities even if you end up not doing pre-med if you’re worried about that.</p>
<p>Finally, being Cuban/Hispanic definitely helps. I’m Asian so I wouldn’t know about the benefits, but I’ve heard of people getting into certain colleges from being an ethnic minority, provided that they have sufficient grades and E.C.'s. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if the income thing is worth mentioning — probably not.</p>