University of Southern California (2024)

FAQs

Is USC or UCLA better? ›

UCLA: Which College Is Better? Each student should decide which school is better in terms of meeting their academic interests and personal needs. Both schools match up in many ways. They are both highly ranked — USC is 25th and UCLA is 20th in the U.S. News & World Report national rankings, respectively.

To have the best shot of getting in, you should aim for the 75th percentile, with a 1520 SAT or a 34 ACT. You should also have a 3.83 GPA or higher.

A Leading Private Research University

USC is also ranked in the top five among all California public and private institutions. The rankings consider student experience, salary impact and social mobility.

USC is a very selective university with an acceptance rate of just under 12%—this means fewer than 1 in 8 students gets accepted. Here's how USC's official news website describes its student body: "The average unweighted GPA is 3.91, which represents a historic high.

USC Has It All: Top Rated Academics, An Outstanding Reputation, A Very Strong Alumni, The Most Beautiful Campus, A Vibrant Social Environment, A Huge Tradition In Sports (Especially Football), And Overall A Dream University. Study-life balance.

HOWEVER, UC Berkeley is considered: “more prestigious" overall to USC.

Students with a 2.8-2.99 GPA who have not completed more than 100 college credit hours may be conditionally admitted pending academic review by the college. USC's Palmetto College offers online bachelor's degree completion programs.

The answer to what college has the lowest acceptance rate is the same as what ivy league college has the lowest acceptance rate: Harvard. While all Ivies are known for having some of the lowest college acceptance rates of all colleges, Harvard has generally been the most selective.

USC (the University of Southern California) is not an Ivy League school. The Ivy League is a group of eight prestigious private universities in the northeastern United States: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

Price - This is a HUGE factor. Without receiving any sort of financial aid or scholarship, USC is not very affordable for most students and families. USC's cost of attendance is upward of ~$80,000 per year, which is almost three times the cost of attendance for a UC school. USC has too many fees on top of tuition.

Is USC really an elite school? ›

Both Stanford and USC are elite, prestigious institutions, but they diverge when considering overall academic reputation. Stanford is a highly competitive institution and has an acceptance rate that dropped below 4% in 2023.

The five factors dropped by the publication's ranking system were class size, alumni giving average, graduate debt proportion borrowing, high school class standing, and the number of faculty holding terminal degrees, or the highest possible accreditation in their field.

64,726 USD (2022 – 23)

University of Southern California / Undergraduate tuition and fees

Nate Quezada, a senior studying computer science, said that the lower admissions rates speak to the growing popularity of USC, both for its location and quality of education. “So many people from everywhere want to go to school in California and USC is one of the better schools that people want to go to,” he said.

The recommended GPA requirements to get into USC are between 3.75 and 4.0. You will need a very high GPA and will likely be graduating in the top quarter of your class in order to get into USC. If your GPA is lower than suggested at the time you apply, you may have to perform above average on your standardized tests.