USC reality show, concerns about reputation

underthesun
Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:02:49 +0000

My nephew has been accepted to USC and is a candidate for a scholarship. His father read this article online and asked for my opinion. We are in CA, he is out of state. I have done more research on UC than private schools, but always thought USC was “up there” academically considering its US News ranking. I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t always considered a rigorous school. This article (haven’t watched the web show) makes it sound like they are still struggling with a party image. My nephew will most likely have many options when decision time rolls around, so this has been a bit upsetting to them. Any parents of recent graduates or current students can comment on the issue?

[USC reels from ‘Hangover’-style Web reality series - latimes.com](http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-usc-reality-20120127,0,2943314.story)

"Based on the promo, the show depicts a “senior year bucket list” that includes a young woman painting her body in Trojan colors and going to a football game, young men chasing after women and, in one scene, chugging vodka from a bottle. It also includes grainy, night-vision shots of police shutting down parties.

This is all happening at a school that for years has attempted to move away from a perception of being the so-called “University of Spoiled Children” — a culture centered around a hard-partying Greek system where wealthy young people lead a pampered existence. Greek life, however, remains prominent at the school.

In the last year, eyebrow-raising incidents have occurred. Photos were posted online of students having sex atop a campus building, and an email sent by fraternity members using crudely explicit terms to rate women went viral.

Such episodes have come amid a decades-long investment to build up the university’s reputation as a world-class research institution.

And, by many measures, the school has undergone a notable shift, with an investment to attract stronger faculty, more research dollars and an increasingly diverse student body, higher education experts say.

“It’s a very strong university, and it’s clearly gotten quite a bit stronger over the past 15, 20 years,” said Hunter R. Rawlings III, president of the Assn. of American Universities.

In 2010, for the first time since U.S. News & World Report began its annual top college rankings, USC narrowly beat out UCLA (tying with Carnegie Mellon) for 23rd place. This year’s admitted freshmen had, on average, a GPA of 3.80.

And for the 10th year in a row, USC enrolled more international students than any other school in the country.

So a show centered on coed hijinks has rankled many on campus."