<p>Just to add a note of clarification, the procedure is to admit scholarship candidates at the end of January, beginning of February. These students receive the full big “Welcome to the Trojan Family” envelope package with the nifty USC certificate of admission and all the trimmings. For many, the invitation to interview for the Trustee or Presidential (and maybe Mork–we’ll see this year) comes soon after. It came about a week later for my son and I wouldn’t have had a clue what the early admission packet meant if it weren’t for CC. We were so surprised (duh) that I started googling to figure out what it might mean, which led to my discovery of this site (and my addiction? heh) Over the past several years, we’ve seen the same pattern here with those applicants who receive the early admissions packets <em>most oftentimes</em> getting an invitation to interview. But we’ve also seen students who are admitted early and, alas, not get the invitations–so it’s good to hold off the celebrations until the next piece of mail hits your mailbox. :)</p>
<p>In all of this I cannot see how a candidate could be un-admitted after the interview. She/he has already been officially admitted, so… I think this rep must have gotten a little mixed up, or perhaps was meaning to say some who are invited have been downgraded to lower $$ awards and perhaps even (rarely!) been downgraded out of a merit scholarship altogether. I don’t believe we’ve gotten a report of a down to zero adjustment here on CC. Conceivably, such a downgrade could happen as there is no guarantee of any award, only an invitation to interview for one. But now that I think about it, I guess if a candidate revealed in a scholarship interview he had cheated or lied on his application, that could be grounds for rescinding? How weird would that be!!
I hope this helps any nervous students/parents of applicants out there who may worry an official letter of admission might somehow be rescinded if they flub on the scholarship interview.</p>