If your daughter was accepted EA, she will likely receive a merit scholarship and be eligible for McCarthy Honors Residential College. McCarthy is all freshman and all suites.
As was mentioned up thread, most of the housing application can be amended later. The important thing is to get through the questions, pay your deposit, and submit so that you have the time stamp that is used to determine which applications are looked at first.
Thank you to all the parents and moderators here. All the information posted in this forum has been super useful. Our daughter got accepted to the BUAI program (AI in Business) at the Marshall school of Business. We are from the Bay Area. Congratulations to all the students who have been accepted and good luck to all the students who are waiting on RD.
Anyone here from the Los Altos/Palo Alto area of CA? My D is interested in meeting people from our area
Waiting for the same ! My son is not NMSF so hoping still to receive some merit scholarships
We live in Livermore and my daughter got accepted to Dornsife! Are you near the East Bay?
Wrong forum
Around 4PM
I just posted a message above but my daughter got in to Dornsife (Phil/Politics/Law major) and would love to connect with anyone in the Bay Area planning on attending USC. We live in Livermore.
The very long housing post…
I’ve had students at USC for 10 years and spend a lot of time on campus, so this is what I have learned/seen over my time there and gleaned from my kids and their friends. I try to update this best I can, sometimes they add a building to the freshman housing list, but generally it stays the same. And hopefully other posters can correct anything they think is out of whack…
First for the merit students - you obviously have priority for McCarthy and many will choose it, but there are also those merit students that go a different way because they don’t want the more closed door style, or their non-merit room mate choice can’t live there, they want to be in freshman quad area, or they just want the typical old school college experience of a regular dorm. There is no wrong choice. It is YOUR choice and preferences that matter. As a sophomore, you will more than likely have choice to live at Village, so if you want to do it one or both years, that is up to you. Aside from McCarthy, the Village is really a sophomore community, but the honors in McCarthy becomes it’s own little family, and any dorm can feel like home if it is what you want. (Future reference/mental note - if your student applies for Village at some point, keep in mind that the loft layout is beyond TINY. (You really do get what you pay for in dorms.)
Many love the wowness of the Village (parents do for sure) and it is gorgeous. There are great things about McCarthy besides the obvious shiny newness of it - they check in a few days before everybody else and start their bonding activities, then have their food and everything right there. It certainly has a regent feel to it. They have done a better job getting this group to bond/have activities more than they did the first year it opened, and have done a good job making it more social for the freshman. But if a merit student wants to choose something else because a room mate that can’t live in McCarthy, or they want the experience of a true dorm, or they don’t want to just be with honor students, those are all valid reasons that students choose a different dorm.
For students accepted without merit in Jan/Feb and during regular admission in March, keep in mind that housing at Village is for merit student freshman that choose it, otherwise it is sophomore housing (and some upperclassman) and there is very very low probability for other freshman, so don’t waste all your choices on the Village.
And don’t stress it, there are so many great places to live and you will become a family in any of them. Meeting people during the year that become college/lifelong friends is way more important that being 100 steps closer to retail. Talk to friends, check on line and decide what you think you will like. If you aren’t that social, the suite/hotel style may be more isolating (but only if you let it) than being in an open door/floor type experience, so be sure to get involved with things and people early on. Think of how you will/can grow. Maybe a little discomfort is good for that. You know yourself best.
For the most part, who you live with and around (having ability to meet people) is more important than the physical aspects of building. An 18 year old is adaptable, more than us old parent types! If the student doesn’t care about AC and wants a good social aspect (not saying party dorm, just super friendly atmosphere with lots of activities and ways to meet people) then Birnkrant, Pardee, Marks Tower are all great and part of the freshman quad. New North is definitely known as the fun dorm. But keep in mind the academic level of USC nowadays, no dorm is Animal House. Birnkrant kept it’s honors reputation (it was honors dorm prior to Village) and it is known as “8 floors of open doors.” I haven’t known anyone that didn’t love living there. Not fancy and a traditional dorm set up, but its academic/social balance remains strong. All these are just across the street from the Village shops and food. Birnkrant could be labeled studious and social, but frankly they all are. If you look at stats, there isn’t a real difference between students at USC, so you aren’t gonna find housing with a “certain kind of student;” they are all great Trojans.
If you want AC and suite set up, then Village, Parkside A&S or Webb Tower all offer that. Webb has large apartments but has been more closed door feeling at times. Parkside is on the far side of campus, but newer building (relative to some others) and super nice suites (pretty large), close to engineering, tends to be social for suites, and they include 8 person suites. In suites, 2 share a room and 4 rooms share a bathroom. Parkside residents do a lot together because they are off to themselves more, but of course make their way to the freshman quad area and Village too - the campus isn’t that big! Also known to have great food.
5 Choices
For merit folks, you can choose all 5 configurations in McCarthy. For merit students that don’t want McCarthy, you would most likely get your first choice anywhere else. For those not getting merit and/or accepted in March, do not put all five configurations in one building because if full, then they get to make your “second choice” and will put you wherever they want. Do not only list all 5 choices in the Village - or you will be surprised when you are stuck “wherever” because you don’t list enough choices building wise. If not in McCarthy honors, the Village is an outlier of random/leftover spots (if any) for freshman (other than honors who get McCarthy). There are other places on campus where freshman living is focused. I get AC is a must for some people, but I would suggest adding additional factors to that as the highest priority of your USC living experience if you can. Although there can be a couple periods of heat, it is California, not the south, no humidity. There is a reason shacks go for millions here.
SUBMIT QUICK, YOU CAN EDIT LATER
You can change your preferences for housing choices, add a roomate, etc., after you submit and anytime before the app closes. So don’t stress this early decision you have to make - get the earliest time stamp you can on the app. Avoid rabbit holes when completing it. You can modify the options selected and roommate linked as many times as you would like to before the portal closes a couple months down the road. There is no pressure to have it be perfect in terms of selections until much later on.
Roommates
If a roommate is chosen, it is important that both people have the 1-5 choices match by the time that the portal closes finally. If you don’t have a room mate in mind (a lot go in without a room mate and go random), USC does an amazing job matching you with someone if you fill out the housing survey honestly!
Random Perspectives fwiw
From being around a lot of students over the years, what I have heard consistently is the entire freshman quad area (Birnkrant, Pardee, Marks, New North, etc.) is one of the best places you can live, even without AC. It is where you do the most as a freshman and can meet the most freshman. USC is a HUGE school with 40,000 people, a lot of them graduate students. In the freshman quad area it is great to be grabbing coffee or sitting out by the pond with other freshman. If you are throwing frisbee in the lawn, or studying at a table outside, it is likely a freshman sitting next to you and walking by. Anyone in that area is a freshman - all those buildings might as well be considered one building, they way everyone interacts. So if you choose or end up in the freshman quad area it will be great too. It is so easy to make friends over there. Parkside has it’s own little community on it’s side, and students are really happy there too, it’s just a bit of a haul (relatively speaking) to the other corner of campus. I think they do a great job room mate matching if student answers the questionnaire honestly and openly. Be who you are and they will match you with a good fit the majority of the time.
Kids that are interested in going Greek tend to live in New North. It has been known that way for years. It has a big sorority/fraternity contingency that chooses to live there. It’s not all those interested in Greek, just seems to be a reputation that follows it.
Don’t worry about living by your “major” school, as freshman you will likely be all over campus with GEs and activities. It’s not that big a campus, everything is pretty close really and there’s plenty of great options!
Mine have been out of on campus living for a couple years, so please, current parents add any perspectives or update you may have. Webb floats in and out of freshman access and I think Fluor was under construction recently, so fill us in. But generally, things don’t change that much year after year.
This is super helpful! Thank you for this very detailed explanation. What housing is “the Village?” The freshman housing options are: Residence Halls (Birnkrant, Marks, New North, Pardee) vs Suites (McCarthy, Parkside) vs Apartments (Cardinal Gardens, Parkside Apts, Cale & Irani, Webb). Do you mean it is hard to get a Suite at Parkside (assuming no Honors) as a freshman? Is it worth it to try for one person/single room in a suite or apartment or are those generally reserved for upperclassmen? Again thanks for all your help!
McCarthy is in the village. It’s a beautiful dorm. My D lived in a two bedroom suite. It was huge!
McCarthy is in the Village and merit freshman have priority for McCarthy at the Village. Parkside is suite set up and rather easy for freshman to get. I had one there that loved it (AC and met his life long friends in his 8 guy suite - all science/engineering types that USC matched and did a great job).
I also had a freshman get a single at Birnkrant - the key was submitting the housing app super early (like by 9:02am when it opened at 9:00am). By this one (my 4th there ha) I was really good at it. You can put a single as a first choice and if you don’t get it nothing lost, just have a good second choice in line!
The housing info on the website is really thorough - be sure to check out room configurations - the sizes vary greatly throughout the Village buildings - if a room is more expensive that another in the same building, they are generally bigger or less people than the lower priced one…you get what you pay for in dorms.
My DD just got the merit email…fyi
My kid just got the merit email as well with regards to moving forward. Doesn’t see anything in the portal.
Thanks for the in-depth housing info CADREAMIN – very helpful!
For the students who were recently accepted via EA, was there a separate email with the housing login information (that starts Feb 1st) that was sent out ?
Just to clarify, students just selected to continue in the scholarship process can list 5 McCarthy configurations without knowing if they will be awarded as a merit scholar until Mid-March? Thanks!
For our household, yes. Kid got an email on January 24, titled “USC Housing Application Information.” It had a link to create a login on the USC Housing Application portal.
We did too, he didn’t get anything . How about others ?
Thanks - I’ll ask my son to recheck his email / spam folder as well. Much appreciated.
No merit here. Hope my DS isn’t too disappointed but $90K a year is too much given some of the massive merit awards he has other places. Good luck to those of you moving forward.