<p>I wouldn’t says transfer students are slackers per se, I mainly think of them as the hardworking but not-so-smart type. Maybe others have different observations.</p>
<p>I don’t mind their high numbers so much because
1)many of them pay high tuition, they subsidize freshman scholarships, facilities, professors, etc
2) their high numbers allow more people to graduate from USC, increasing the visibility of the USC degree
3) they mostly miss out on the college experience anyway (dorm life, etc). In my opinion, this is what sets USC apart and only freshman get this experience.
4) many of them are cool people</p>
<p>My son is a senior at USC and made the same comment re how easy it is to transfer in so there’s probably some basis to it. He worked really hard to be admitted and then saw there was an easier way as a transfer. That shouldn’t matter but quite frankly he’s been underwhelmed with their academics. Depending on your major, choices can be limited, there is a lack of really academically motivated students and as a senior he’s yet to have gotten a really memorable teacher and has gotten good grades with minimal effort. My daughter is at Harvard and I can tell you there is simply no comparison between the quality of teachers and the courses offered at the two schools. Harvard is just so much better. My daughter could have gone to USC with a substantial scholarship. We considered it but now I am so glad she didn’t. I feel bad that my son has spent 4 years at USC and had a very middle of the road academic experience.</p>
<p>leonine, please share what your s’s major is. Did he do Thematic Option? My S is only a freshman at USC, but he is knocked out by the excellence of his professors. But perhaps the paths can be quite different depending upon what one studies? </p>
<p>I am also interested in your D’s great experience at Harvard. I’ve heard undergrads don’t always get into classes with the top professors, and my S has friends who were disappointed there although a lot is subjective with individual students and programs.</p>
<p>I have another S coming along and welcome your comments.</p>
<p>Intense academics, such as reputed to be found at places like Harvard, is not everything when it comes to picking a college. I feel that USC has balance–a place where you can get an excellent education (particularly in the professional schools-Cinema school, Business school, Viterbi Engineering, Annenberg Communications, Pharmacy, etc.) as well as enjoy the vitality of college life (culture, internships, study abroad, many clubs, international student body from around the world to meet, etc.). The trojan network is legendary. Do not feel bad that your son is at USC. Encourage him to have a great senior year.</p>
<p>This isn’t relevant to the OP but to the last three posts… I’m a freshman at USC in TO, and I have excellent professors-I’ve been really impressed with all of them so far. However, I’m worried that, once I’ve done my CORE classes, I’ll be underwhelmed by the professors and the quality of the classes, etc. I guess I’m worried that I’m being spoiled by TO. Does anybody have any experience with transition, if you will, from TO to regular classes? Is it a let down after a couple of semesters in TO?</p>
<p>At a large campus like USC, the opportunities are limitless. If a student chooses to go the social route, it’s possible to be underwhelmed with the academics at the school because he/she didn’t go out and take advantage of what there is to offer. If a student has a negative attitude that distracts him/her too much (upset about transfer students?) perhaps that student will not have enough focus on their own education. </p>
<p>Steven Sample, USC President, has a great part in his standard speech about encouraging students to take full advantage of the course catalog. “Intellectual breadth and agility are the tools you will need to succeed in the 21st century.” </p>
<p>It’s all there at USC. The only excuse for a student is they didn’t go out and get it. If you choose a major with limited choices, add another major that has more choices. </p>
<p>I’ve only met academically motivated students at USC through my two Trojan sons so I know they are out there. S#1 had excellent professors in the business school and even got his first job working for one in a start-up company.</p>
<p>leonine- you should qualify your statement that your son “had a very middle of the road academic experience” based on your earlier posts about him and his early college choices. I think it’s important for people here to get accurate information even if it is just an opinion… especially when it comes to bashing USC!</p>
<p>VFO8, there are 1-2 classes after the freshman TO.
My daughter feels more than challenged, she often goes to sleep around 2-3 A.M. This week she has 4 papers due and tons of reading in between, sometimes she has no time to eat. I feel USC is challenging enough for her. She also comes from a feeder high school to USC so it’s not that her school does not prepare her enough. What she really likes about USC is that she gets specific feedback on how to improve her writing which something her high school teachers rarely did.</p>
<p>So sorry to hear about your S’s experiences, leonine, but also a bit mystified since they’re so different from my S’s experience so far as a freshman. I’m wondering what your son majored in, and whether he applied for any of the small honors programs, whether he happened to be in an academic area that might have been better elsewhere. My S has found Thematic Options program to be extremely stimulating with great class discussions and professors. All of his classes are very small except for one lecture class with a professor who receives standing ovations – definitely not middle of the road. Even his language class is taught by a Ph.D. and not some random TA. The kids he’s met in his major and related majors so far, many not in TO, also seem to him very smart and interesting and very motivated to be involved in extracurricular activities related to their academic work. And he came to USC from a pretty demanding prep school, so it’s not that his standards are low. I have a second child at a top 5 school, too, but for S’s major, USC is a better choice, and at this point I don’t feel that he’s giving up the opportunity to have a rigorous, stimulating academic experience by pursuing the major as a Trojan.</p>
<p>Like Nester’s son, mine came from a rigorous prep school, and has found his fellow students at SC to be intelligent and engaged - beyond his expectations, in fact. His professors are smart and stimulating, and know how to teach. 4 of his 5 classes are very small and discussion based, which stands up well to the 1,000-person intro to econ class his friends at Harvard are taking! People like to believe that SC won’t match the academic intensity of more competitive colleges, but that’s a misconception. The school (like any college of its size) clearly has an array of students, from those who choose to take a less intense academic load and others who take on as much as they can. It’s a matter of choice. </p>
<p>CC411 alluded to my next point, but I’m going to put it out on the table in the interests of fair discourse. It does seem a little disingenuous for Leonine’s son to complain about the lack of intellectual stimulation after ending his first year with a 1.1 GPA, according to earlier posts. (Apparently he was more engaged in fraternity life than in academics, and it’s easy to see how that might happen. USC is a fun place!) It is quite possible that he set his sights lower after that experience, and simply hasn’t pursued the toughest classes, most demanding professors, and most intellectual peers. I don’t think it’s fair to compare that one student’s USC experience to his sister’s fabulous experience at Harvard. Each student who considers attending either college has to examine her own goals, interests and personality and try to figure out whether she can find what she wants at a particular school. I believe it’s there for the taking at USC.</p>
<p>Leonine, to insult a school’s excellence here on a public forum and withhold the fact that your S has had a difficult journey in school aside from his complaints about transfer students (a bizarre nonissue–see below) or the level of rigor is really troubling. If through the years you have watched your S struggle at USC and if he has other learning or social choice issues, outside of the classes themselves, that impact his academic history, perhaps these needed to be addressed and at the very least, taken into account as you assess his four years in collge. It’s pretty lame to blame the school for the choices he made in classes he signed up for. Was he looking for rigorous academics? Did he seek out a challenging program, major and professors? Did he sign on for internships, research or independent work with his favorite professors? To a great extent, students get the education they pursue, no matter what the school.</p>
<p>In your post you stated that your son has “made the same comment re how easy it is to transfer in so there’s probably some basis to it.” No. Simply put, we as adults do not take the angry putdowns of an unhappy teenager to brand a university. There are facts and they have been presented in a post above. USC has a 25% acceptance rate for transfers, so it is certainly not easy to get in if you wait a couple of years. In fact, those transfer students haven’t waited, they’ve worked, and they deserve your and your son’s respect. I have been troubled by the tone of this complaint from the outset. If a high school student goes on to a community college, works hard, and gets excellent grades, that doesn’t make USC less of a school for accepting them based on that post-HS work. To imply otherwise is illogical and, frankly, elitest</p>
<p>It is unfair and, quite frankly, irresponsible to put down a school based simply on the fact that you haven’t utilized the university’s resources to its fullest. *You *can say that USC isn’t intellectually challenging, but my disparate double majors and pre-health emphasis are anything but easy. *You *can say that the professors and lecture material are mediocre, but a class in which an actual campaign manager (and deputy mayor of the City of Los Angeles) teaches you how to run a political campaign is anything but boring. *You *can say that the students are not academically motivated, but classmates who deliberately give you false information just to get ahead of the curve by a few points exemplify motivation and competition.</p>
<p>Sorry, but calling USC mediocre when you haven’t put much effort into your education is not acceptable.</p>
<p>Just to respond. I said nowhere in my email that my son has had academic problems and the fact that posters have jumped to that conclusion is to say the least a little troubling. My son has put an effort into his education. He gets very good grades and is a very bright student which is all the more reason why I trust his assessment. He did not do honors or TO so I can’t speak to those options. He has had some good teachers in the English dept but if you take the time to look at the English courses offered you will see that the selection is very limited. But the courses in his major on the whole have been much better than the GEs he had to take. I know folks don’t want to hear this and I am not denying that other people may have had better experiences, but I am entitled to voice my opinion here even if it’s not what folks want to hear.</p>
<p>leonine- Maybe you don’t realize your previous posts are available for all to see and it is very common for members here to look up past posts to understand the context of someone’s opinion. That’s why we knew about your son’s academic issues and now putting your opinion in that context, you are being challenged to support your opinion.</p>
<p>I know it must sound like an attack because I’ve been there too. (I hate confrontation aside from these boards. Actually, I don’t like it here either!) Just be sure to support your opinion with open information. Lively discussion like this that challenges helps us form appropriate opinions.</p>
<p>I am aware. My son had issues adjusting as a freshman and does have ADHD. But like many other freshman and bright students with ADHD, he figured things out, matured and now is very successful academically, in fact has been for a while. So as I said, don’t jump to conclusions. USC is a well established enough institution to withstand praise and criticism. Folks on this forum are entitled to hear all opinions. I am not accusing you folks who have had a great experience there of lying, please grant me the same courtesy.</p>
<p>RE questions from madbeam about Harvard which I neglected to answer. There are some very large classes as well as small ones and as in any school the experience can vary. Some of the very popular large classes are lotteried but my daughter hasn’t had any trouble getting into the classes she wanted to take and in some of the large ones she said the professor was so amazing that the size of the class didn’t matter. She’s also had some very small classes. Her main problem is there are so many things she wants to do that it’s hard to make choices. The experience admittedly is intense. Not for everyone. But students that are passionate in their interests thrive there. Perhaps at USC there is more room for different types of students, those who are passionate and those who are more laid back. Everyone isn’t an over-achiever and sometimes that’s a good thing. Ultimately the decision is personal. If it makes anyone feel better, my son probably wouldn’t have liked Harvard either. He marches to his own drummer.</p>
<p>leonine - I really didn’t mean my post as an attack on your truthfulness, and I agree that we all are free to express our opinions. What I saw in your original post was that you were conveying your son’s view that USC lacks an intellectual climate that would satisfy a smart kid who worked really hard to get admitted. That’s an opinion that most readers would take at face value, and it is one that could make a huge difference to someone choosing a college. So I thought it was important to provide the context that you’ve written about in many previous messages about the way your son’s first year played out. I apologize if it seemed like I was attacking you, and I do appreciate your candor - it’s really important to get input from people who have a longer experience with USC, compared to many of us super-enthused newbies. I just felt that more of the facts needed to be put out there in light of such a sweeping generalization about the quality of USC. It’s great that your son bounced back and is doing so well, though sad that he is disappointed overall.</p>
<p>From what the posts say, it sounds like leonine’s concern is not really about transfer students or the intellectual vitality of the other students. It sounds like the real issue is concern that leonine’s son’s choice of major did not measure up to his expectations. Did your son address his concern that he wants more challenging English classes with his advisor? Perhaps a minor in some related subject with smaller classes would help (possibly Classics, Writing, etc.)? Also, perhaps you are concerned about what your son will do next year upon graduation? Did your son talk to his advisor and see a counselor at the career placement center at USC? I am sorry you are all disappointed because USC really has a great deal to offer its students.</p>
<p>Not an attack on Harvard, a top notch university but from the crimson, a survey done that Harvard students are less satisfied than peers with their undergraduate experience. It was featured in the Search & Selection of collegeconfidential.</p>