USC (University of Southern California) ApplicationAnswered
Hi,
I'm curious about how college admissions, particularly USC admissions, actually read applications. Will they bother to read my essay if my UW gpa is extremely low at 3.59 and my W gpa is around a 4.1 (with 14 AP/IB/CC courses so rigor had quite a bit to do with it)? Or do they still take the time to read the rest of my application? I have a strong EC profile (I think) and well written essays, however, I keep getting told that USC tends to skip over my application after looking at my gpa so I have no clue :).. Maybe someone can clarify this for me?
lol i did it still says i have like a 60-70% but i have no idea how accurate CV would be bc it assumes holistic review, however, from what my advisors mentioned about USC, they only do holistic review if you the gpa standard or have a high gpa which doesn't make any sense so i figured someone here on cv would know
Does it say you meet the academic cutoff?
It said I did because of my course rigor sooo
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1 answer
If you apply your entire application will be read. There is no UWGPA cutoff for USC.
I researched the most recent USC Common Data Set for 2019-2020 and found out the following.
18.27% of admits had a UWGPA between 3.50 and 3.74
9.15% of admits had a UWGPA between 2.00 and 3.49
Therefore 27.42% had UWGPAs below 3.75 which is more than 1/4 of the class.
Keep in mind there are a lot more recruited athletes and rich kids and legacies at USC than other SoCal schools such as UCLA so that might be why the GPA stats at USC are as tight as say a Notre Dame or Vanderbilt for example.
Since you have great ECs and will submit great essays, you should apply with confidence. Also, keep in mind that last year USC suffered some PR nightmares from the Varsity Blues Scandal and the admit rate went up to like 16% from 11% the 2019/20 cycle, which is the CDS I used. The 2020-2021 CDS is not available yet so I imagine the UWGPAS could be even lower now. Perhaps there is 30%-35% or more that have GPAs less than 3.75. (BTW 14 APS is phenomenal! PROPS TO YOU)
Hope that cheers you up. Good Luck.
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