This is the official thread for those applying EA to University of South Carolina.
List your unweighted GPA, any SAT /ACT scores, and ECs. What majors are you going into?
Ask your questions, the CC community is here to help!
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My dd plans to apply. OOS
4.0 unweighted GPA
34 ACT
10 APs /10 honors/4 de
Lots of ecs mostly leadership and service oriented. Our state governors school which is competitive and Girls State and over 600 service hours. But nothing truly unusual. Not really expecting there to be enough merit aid here to make sense over our state school but just kind of shooting a shot.
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OOS , 4.0, 29 ACT but really liked the feel of the school when we did a self tour this past year .
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We did a tour this summer and my daughter really loved the school. We are OOS and merit would make a difference in getting this closer to our 42k/year budget. On our tour, the admissions person mentioned that students would be considered for merit even if they apply test optional. However, the stats on the USC website as well as many parent posts online seem to focus mostly on the SAT score as the determinant of merit. Can anyone provide more insight into USC’s considerations for OOS merit dollars?
We are OOS and in the same budget bracket/GPA as you! My D26 is at 1210 right now and re-taking two more times. Will be submitting.
For reference, if it helps anyone, for Fall 25, my OOS son (we are in CA) had 4.3 GPA (3.98 u/w GPA; 4.75 SC GPA), 11 APs and 2 DE classes, and a 32 ACT. He received merit of “at least $10,750 per yr” with his early action acceptance. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out if he would’ve received more because he accepted the University of Florida in early February, so he declined all his other acceptances right away.
Now, S26 will be applying test optional with 3.75 GPA (4.0 SC GPA). But, he doesn’t have the same stats. We don’t expect merit for him, just praying for an acceptance as it’s his #1
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My OOS son has a 3.8 u/w, 4.1 weighted but he only took 2 AP courses prior to this year, and he has 5 this year. He had a 32 ACT (just took it again) and got a 5 on his US History AP, which I think the school received. All I know is he was invited to a Carolina Elite luncheon, receives mailers at least 3 times a week, emails about applying (and for honors college) every couple days. So clearly they are interested, even though his stats aren’t AS high. Our public school is extremely competitive, and I assume they are aware of that. He’s on their radar, and based on what I see on their site, he’d likely qualify for Capstone and a good amount of merit too.