USC vs. Other Top Privates in Social Sciences

SeattleTW
Fri, 03 Apr 2015 22:11:09 +0000

Back in the day, when USC and most privates were much easier to get into for A students, you could attend without amassing thousands in debt. Be very careful. Grad school is uber expensive and you likely will get zero aid. IMHO, and I have friends who went to Duke and Georgetown, you should be grateful you have this opportunity and go to USC, which, btw, has the oldest IR school in America and a strong DC presence and very reputable DC semester program. I have a couple of USC friends who got into and went to Gtown Law as well. Regarding law, I got into Penn, Northwestern and Columbia Law but chose Michigan, and that was decades ago. Some of my closest friends got into H, Y, S, C. and Chicago Law as well. We all were poli sci, econ. and philosophy majors. USC has departmental honors programs that require theses which promote original research (opportunities are plentiful) and build strong faculty relationships that translate into letters of recommendation. Even if you don’t go that route, the classes are very small, some with fewer than 10 students. The cream rises to the top and as long as you get at least a 3.6 and 95th percent LSAT, you’ll get into a T14 law school. P.S., I turned down Stanford to attend USC and was on almost a full scholarship. (Two of my other USC friends, one a Trustee and the other a Stanford legacy, also turned down the Farm. And of my roomies, one turned down Harvard and the other Princeton. All of us were in an honors residential college. You’ll spend hours with other Trustees and top students discussing where you got in:-)) I left USC with $5,000 in loans. Congratulations and Fight On!