|
USC freshmen are better than ever. That ain’t just hype. It’s a quantifiable fact.
Fall registration figures indicate the Class of 2003’s average high school GPA was 3.8 – a full decimal point higher than the previous year’s 3.7 average. The new students’ test scores are equally impressive. Average SATs for incoming freshmen jumped from last year’s 1243 to 1272 for the Class of 2003.
“A one-year, 29-point SAT gain for a class this size is highly unusual,” notes admissions dean Joseph P. Allen.
The freshman class is also more select. Out of 24,650 applicants, only 37 percent were offered admission. That’s the lowest rate in USC’s history, and a sharp drop from last year’s 45-percent admission rate.
Ethnic diversity remains high: of 2,828 entering freshmen, 46.5 percent are minorities. Other striking attributes of the Class of 2003:
• More than three-fourths indicated that USC was their first-choice institution. That’s the highest percentage ever recorded at USC in this vital marker of campus popularity.
• The proportion of out-of-state students rose to 40 percent – evidence of USC’s expanding nationwide appeal.
• International student enrollment rose 57 percent last year, up from 94 to 148. Among four-year institutions, only Boston University and New York University have higher levels of international students.
Recruiters credit these leaps to a heightened awareness of USC since Time Magazine/Princeton Review dubbed the university “College of the Year 2000.”
“The real payoff to working at one of the hottest schools in the country is in
the classroom,” says Letters, Arts and Sciences dean Morton Schapiro. “Every year, teaching our undergraduates becomes more challenging and rewarding.”
LEARN MORE ABOUT IT
Keck Bucks the Trend
While California medical schools grapple with declining admission and enrollment of under-represented minority students, the Keck School of Medicine seems immune to the disease. The number of under-represented minorities admitted to the Keck School jumped from 46 in 1998 to 59 in 1999, a 28 percent increase. The number who actually enrolled grew from 14 to 24, a 71 percent jump. Meanwhile the science GPA of the entering class rose from 3.48 to 3.60.
The improvement is hardly serendipitous. “We actively recruited students, kept in touch and encouraged them to choose USC,” says associate dean of admissions Erin Quinn, accounting for the upswing. “The admissions committee is committed to a diverse class, and we worked together to admit an excellent class.”
|
|
|
