Not in the press, but among the applicants, a lot of them are saying this was not what was presented on the road tour.
The road tour was before Dec 19. Information received on a tour is the policy that was in place on the day of the tour. It is not binding.
Expect change. Tuition & fees change. Housing policies change. Dining options change. Professors change. Course offerings change. Major requirements change. Financial aid and scholarships change. Not just at USC, but at all universities.
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They may get more apps from full pay NMFs who can afford 75k/yr (hmm, kinda comparable to OOS UC cost) and fewer from full pay NMFs who were interested when total cost after scholarship was 60k/yr. Maybe thatās a minor difference. Either way, they may be able to afford to accept more NMFs.
From an applicant perspective, perhaps the change is reassuring that NMSF is not detrimental to include in the application because they have made room to admit more.
My son met with an AO at his high school in early Oct. He was told that there were changes coming to the NMF scholarship. We did a tour and info session last May and the 1/2 tuition amount was never mentioned. They did say there was a scholarship available for NMF. It is really too bad if applicants were mislead, because the school knew it would be lower at least by Oct 2
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Interestingly, my company just had a ācultureā consultant come in - and he asked, does anyone know the most dangerous word in business. No one - a thousand people - got it right.
Policy
I note that because you just mentioned it.
We are just beyond warranty and always serviced at the dealer - can you help? No - itās against policy.
You have a stop sale/recall on the car Iām buying so my dealer had to get it from a dealer in another city and he charged me $500 to go get. Itās your fault, Mr. Manufacturer, can you reimburse me? No - against policy.
He was saying the word policy is the most damaging word (to a businessās reputation). And itās funny - since we paid this guy obscene amounts to present to us, we still quote āpolicyā every hour of every day.
If youāre buying a car and decide not to do it this month but wait til next month, and the 0% APR is gone or the $3000 customer cash is gone, I get it. The incentives are the incentives when you bought.
However, people applied to USC at their incentive (merit) with a listed possible āofferā - and that should be honored for anyone who had applied before the change was made.
Yes, personnel changes, menus in the dining hall change, etc - but that is not financially impacting a family.
So in this case, USC, as a business, is failing, if standing behind the āpolicyā mantraā¦in my opinion. What happened to doing the right thing that all companies say they do? At a minimum, they should provide an app fee return to anyone who wants it. btw - itās easy enough to simply turn down all NMFs - if they did that, they have no controversy then. And admissions are āholisticā so itās possible.
Of course, the amount of people this impacts is likely not many in the grand scheme of things.
If Iām an impacted family, I would remove USC from my consideration list - because itās bad optics. If you do this, what else will you do? Is this how you take care of your customers?
Personally, I wouldnāt give them my money but each family will obviously make that decision for themselves.
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It is a mystery why USC did not publish the new scholarship amount much earlier, long before the EA deadline - I think thatās weird. I also think itās fair that any student who wants to withdraw their app should be allowed to do so with a refund of their app fee before decisions are released, though I doubt there would be many takers.
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USC COA this year is $95K. UC COA for OOS is $80K next year.
USC tuition alone is $70K. UC tuition for OOS is $50K. A $20K NMF scholarship would bring USC tuition to be on par with UC OOS tuition. Hmm, you may be onto something.
Looking at full COA, UC calculations include $3500 for health insurance while USC does not. While many have their own health insurance and opt out of it (at any university), it is interesting that USC does not include it in their COA. USC also, in my opinion, underestimates the cost of transportation. The UCs estimate it at $3200/yr. USC estimates it at $441. Not sure why $441 vs $450 or even $440. Either way, I think transportation to/from LA will be much higher than $441/year.
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Maybe itās (transport) because USC is a heavily regionalized school (California).??
So they are hitting the masses?
But itās a great reason why people should only use direct costs - the indirect costs everywhere are variable.
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I donāt work for, or speak on behalf of, the university. I have no idea if it is a policy vs plan vs strategy vs guideline vs intention. It is just a word that I used to convey my point.
Do we know that they are not? Has anyone reported that they asked to be refunded and were turned down? My guess is that most people will let it ride and, if admitted, see what type of financial aid/scholarship package USC will offer. If it gets the COA down to something that is affordable for the applicantās family, does it matter if it is called NMF or something else?
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Very interesting about the cost estimate differences. Not that this would stop many full-payers, but everyone has their line. 70k is really high for billed tuition alone, perhaps the highest Iāve seen. Maybe with the lower transportation estimates, etc., they are trying to hide the high tuition within their cost of attendance estimate - Iām sure Iām not the only one who tends to look at the total rather than direct costs.
(On another note, we paid 5k for health ins from a different but similarly expensive university for one of my other kids. Feels like such a scam, but I havenāt gotten around to see if we could, for that price, get a policy with an out of state rider that would satisfy the school.)
Obviously things change. Just donāt change them AFTER youāve used this information to encourage kids to apply and after the application due date.
You had children discuss this as part of their financial decision with their parents who might have been stretching to make it work with the half tuition scholarship. To change the rules of the game after the game is underway is not good form and does not reflect well on the institution. I have no problem if they had made this change over the summer. But they encouraged many families to visit BECAUSE of this scholarship program. Thereās no way this is right. It might not be illegal but it is awfully wrong.
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Two of my kids went to USC due to the half-tuition NMF scholarship. I am thankful they were able to benefit from it, as the new $20,000 scholarship would not have been competitive with their other options and they love USC. I agree with the sentiment that USC is likely reducing the scholarship because it does not need anymore it to attract high caliber applicants. The same playbook has been used by many universities over the years.
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I agree; my older S22 got a NMF presidential scholarship and was able to attend. I believe USC wanted to attract NMF candidates to raise their US college rankings and probably now feels that they donāt need that many NMF to boost their rankings.
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Just an FYI for this yearās accepted students (and future)applicants)ā¦In addition to reducing the monetary award for the national merit scholarship, USC no longer offers priority consideration for the Honors dorm (McCarthy) to recipients of the national merit scholarship. Highest priority is given to recipients of the Trustee (full tuition) and Presidential (half tuition) scholarships, as well as Stamps and Mork Family scholars. The housing department confirmed this, and said Deans, Leadership, Directors, and Associate scholarship recipients receive lower tier priority for the Honors housing. They did not have national merit scholarship recipients on the priority list for honors housing. We were surprised by this, but the admissions office confirmed that national merit scholarship recipients (despite receiving a higher financial award than several of these other scholarships) do not get to apply to live in the honors dorm. A pretty big disappointment for my child who really wanted at least a chance to apply to live in that honors community.
USC has made it clear that they donāt really value NMFs any more. Itās sad but it is what it is. Youād likely find much better value elsewhere.
Posted this update in the 2029 thread but wanted to be sure to update here as well:
I spoke with a higher up in the admissions office who assured me that USC national merit finalist scholarship recipients WILL have the chance to apply to live in the honors dorm (McCarthy) even if they do not receive a trustee or presidential scholarship.
With all the changes USC made to merit scholarships this year, they had not yet updated their housing website and not all of their admissions/housing office staff had the correct information about this. But they are working on updating everything/everyone now.
Of course, no one is guaranteed any housing assignment, but itās nice to know this is still a perk of the national merit scholarship they offer.
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It is an indication that their decades long quest to raise their profile to attract top-end students has succeeded, so they no longer have to offer as large scholarships to attract more desirable applicants than they attracted decades ago.
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Agree with this. But if they took away the incentive of priority for honors housing in addition to lowering the financial award for national merit scholars, I do think their yield of these students would be affected. Glad this does not appear to be the case. It will come into play as my child makes their decision.
NMF results are out; they will notify the college of choice. wonder if that plays a role in USC decisions for the RD
Why would that have an impact? You can change your choices multiple times
Up until the deadline. USC already knows your status as a semifinalist and know that 90% or more become finalists.
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