How we got into USC! || College Application Advice

hey what's up my name is ash and I'm with my roommates and my friends and hi guys so basically I was just getting a lot of the comments and d-ends on Instagram and YouTube asking how I got into USC and so I figured I just grabbed a bunch of people and we'd all kind of answer from our own experiences since we all have a lot of different majors and were from different places and different school situations so should we go around these guys yeah sure yeah alright my name is Ashe hi I'm a film production major and I'm from Phoenix Arizona hi I'm Alexis I'm from Sacramento and I'm a Poli Sci major what's up I'm Benji from Philly and I'm a psych major hey guys I'm Julia I'm from Claremont California and I'm a business major at the Marshall school I'm Chloe I'm from Woodside California and my major is philosophy politics and law I'm Helen I'm from the Seattle Tacoma area and my major is public policy I'm Sofia I'm from San Mateo California and my major is Health and Human Sciences so I guess I have some notes on my phone in front of us so I guess we'll just go kind of down the list cuz I don't really know a better way to do it first it's like the classes we took so AP's honors kind of what we'd recommend how do we think we got it and by like the classes we kind of situation I would say definitely take your AP's don't avoid taking up but I wouldn't take a piece that you feel like you would do terrible in just because they're an AP class I haven't taken one ap science and I'm business major because I knew I wouldn't need it / I would do terrible education like no I don't stress out that much to take all these extra ones just take what you're interested in or that would benefit you in your major I agree with that because so I only took two APs and one of them are high school required so basically one doesn't film I didn't want to focus all my energy on ApS I had nothing to do with my major so instead I just filled up any extra room I had in my schedule with electives honestly that were like video production media study video art also like I just did like those kind of classes cuz that showed more interest in what I knew I wanted to do know I did the exact same thing I kind of my major and I really didn't focus that much on math and sciences it was more like history based I did a lot of like leadership stuff like that yeah and stats and tough we're both required for my majors I took AP stats and AP calc so it ended up working out because now I get credits toward those classes the next boy comes now we wanted a coder it was like GPA and a CT SAT scores and I just kind of group those together and kind of how important that is you think for USC admissions specifically I'll just be totally honest here I submitted a 26 a CT and their averages I think of thirty two or three so I was way below average honestly it's important especially more for maybe business majors or like anything pretty mad or anything but if you're going into a creative major I feel like your scores aren't as important as long as your portfolios or butter do you not I mean like that's a little bit USC it don't get me wrong they absolutely take GPA and SAT into account like for sure but the great thing about USC is that they I think they really kind of look at the whole person so a lot of like your extracurriculars and things you do outside of school like what makes you a well-rounded person and I think that's something that's like really special about USC it's not all about the numbers you know for how selective of a school it is they really get so many diverse just yeah so many people with different scores and grades and all that kind of stuff it's really not everyone has to get a certain GPA to be accepted or a certain SAT score to be accepted it's very what's the word like they really clear the whole person I mean absolutely yeah and also high schools are different I know for me back home at least we always kind of compared it to out at the local public school 4.0 there would be equivalent to my schools like 3.5 if that means yeah yeah like saying especially if you like I think we all most of us went to all-girls schools that call it prep schools and so like class rigor and stuff like that I think in I think it's kind of taken yeah I went to a public school actually and my room this is my roommate Helen they took her up GPA it was only to a 4.0 right yeah but mine was weighted to like a five-point scale so I ended with a 4.4 for obviously you can't compare like mine to helices like oh it doesn't mean I'm better and she had just like a 4.0 or whatever yeah and I feel like going through the college process like I went to an independent school and it was like really rigorous so it was really hard and I was really nervous about my GPA being a lot lower when I was a PI but I honestly really grew that Ashton said that they really do consider you as a person and like how well-rounded you are how many experiences you've had and not just the numbers which i think is something that's really different about USC especially being such a competitive school to get into and so I really think that like anyone a pirate like if this is like your dream school or never I really wouldn't put that much emphasis on your numbers or like not apply just because you feel like you don't have the right GPA or SAT right well I was thinking about the UC schools because if a lot of you guys are applied to USC well there's a good chance that you're also applying to other California schools such as like UCLA Berkley their GPA and SAT is really the end-all be-all so with those schools if you don't have the scores that they want then like honestly your extracurriculars don't mean anything which does kind of stuff USC like yes like they're definitely really important they're my priority but like they're not as big of a deal as these other schools are I didn't get into UCLA for example and that's probably the size of my scores I mean they weren't good but they were spectacularly amazing so I think that they are a huge aspect don't get me wrong but compared to like the other publics it's definitely no that's okay I didn't even the st. state schools like San Diego say it's more like an rhythm it will just they're back you just cut it off extra curriculars let's talk about those so important so important I would vote that extracurriculars and essays are the two most important yeah especially for like USC like a special so I would say this they do have a section I think where it says like is there any added information that yeah use that and represent so I think in total about three essays yeah I think I for example I think wrote about an experience I had like with the photography and Simon and how it just like really opened my mind to like a lot of different things that I hadn't considered before I mean it was no I don't like I got my extracurriculars and it it just kind of shows like your interest they'd rather see you do a few things and maybe take leadership roles or something like that instead of just joining every single club and probably not being a good number at any of it so I guess for example I was president of French club head of hair and makeup for our plays musicals and captain of our tennis team and then just outside of school stuff but they'd rather you see you really focusing on a few things that you're passionate about instead of just spreading yourself too thin yeah also about extracurriculars I know you said don't write about your essays by I did because all of mine we're really in line with my major because I'm like kind of in like a political science II type major and I did a few extracurriculars like I did like student government and I was president of a girls education club and there were all kind of things that I could write about and explain why I was passionate about that and how that you're insulated to my major I feel like if your extracurriculars or things that you like doing but not related to your major definitely still put extent to see that you have a life you're not all about school you have things you care about I think for the essays you should maybe try to relate it to what you would be insights in how you take your passions from high school into college areas yeah for the common out then so much time on that common app that you like can't read it again cuz that's not gonna be most of so an aspect of your application I would say going off of that to definitely if you want to write about your extracurriculars definitely do it but don't just kind of go up and say like yeah I did this this this this yeah that's what I meant getting into a story or like you know concrete example and say like this is like the story maybe I don't know how it started and then that impact that it made on either you or the community or whatever but don't yeah definitely don't like gonna list it yeah don't just like explaining it like don't just like listing like the things that you did do me not like I know for example one of my essays was about like being on ASB and all these things and like I did this may explain my ass because you have it five council's freshman sophomore junior senior in ASB so I was ASB president which is like the equipment I student body president right so we had an executive executive board okay so same thing and basically I kind of just wrote about the lessons that I learned through that and how like those experiences really changed my life and how it kind of solidified that I did want to be a Poli Sci major and you know I found like ways to relate it to that with extracurriculars yes and like definitely focus on like one thing instead of going like all over the place that's why we got me into all these schools just like extracurriculars what did he do it was like pretty much one main one I like volunteer with like done adults with Down syndrome that's kind of like what got me into it like my passion for that yes with that it's just about something you're really passionate about because they can see through it like they really like yeah they can it is noticeable like when you're really really into something and when you're just doing it to try to sound and they it's just so much more important to have a few things you're really passionate about that you've done over a period of time rather than all of a sudden in your senior year piling on all these random things that you think that you're doing Jess or your resume looks yeah and they just want to get to know you and they want to be able to hear your voice through the essay so don't use big fancy words it makes it harder for them to read write how you talk you know because they just want to hear your personality through your writing please just try to be unique and like kind of step out of the box and do things that did you research not likely on the admissions process I know okay go like oh I'm done speaking okay for USC ah I have like a consular lady like that like dug deep into how they review our applications so basically you get a 30 minute period to have two people looking over two different applications so they're only kind of placed in front of them and then they have all the material and they look over the two things that they only look over both applications so basically two people are reviewing and then come to a consensus what I was told was kind of like definitely includes I include other things like if you want but sometimes less is more because it looks so much then they have to like quickly read everything in the time period they're given and they don't have enough time to kind of like read it through and like I don't get a feeling for it submit what like the most important things so don't sometimes less is more but like obviously if you have something really significant that you want to show off yeah for essays I feel like there was one that was like why do you want to go to USC or what you do at USC for that one I feel like you really need to do your research and what specifically is the epic thing like and the certain master you can reach out an email professors and say I emailed this professor about this and then talk about like that know that you like really just enjoying the really research like the opportunities that they have like I know I was typically talked about the Unruh program which is like a program within the political department that allows you to like get internships and I was just like the opportunities that USC offers is just out of this world you know yeah I know I had a phone interview with a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts and I mentioned in that essay that I had talked to him I bought his book and read it and he was very helpful because you see does track demonstrated interest so any any emailing you send start emailing just professors admissions just whatever cuz the more interest you show they track it and also just the message that memo anytime someone gives you a tour if you come to visit the school write handwritten notes if if you do an interview with someone get their business cards write them again written note because all of that stuff any piece of communication that you have at that school it will go into your file whether you realize it or not but they're doing track of it feeling so for example I know I think a lot of schools will host different people who are admission representatives for a certain school and you can attend like informational a grammar school I hosted the admissions representative for UIC at our school which is a good opportunity to personally get to introduce yourself to someone who's going to be reading over your application and add those things when they ask if you have questions even if you don't have a question and you think you know everything ask a question oh come come was quite calm at the hard way at this past one that I went to with USC it was really embarrassing I always have a just introduce yourself say what you're interested in and have a question and what happened you're not in do you know like your elevator speech yourself to its admissions counselor in person even then reach out to those a question I mean all the way follow up if you meet people and like if you feel like you're being too much then you're like just right yeah that is so true just cuz they're gonna meet so many people that in any way that they could have a chance of remembering your name isn't as important another thing I wanted to kind of talk about was that I got asked on was when did you start your application process summer thank you I have a different answer so that you guys know say that before summer started I think it was like June maybe before that the common app questions which are typically around the same like every year it'll be open and then they close for summer and they reopen at the beginning of August so I remember I think I stray I think it is obvious first I started writing my essays basically about what I thought I wanted to write about um just like the general comment off essays and then once those reopened I was really able to like revise them or bands edit them to what the question was actually asking me think you know Dom over summer it's so much less stressful to meet those especially if you want to do early decision early action think it'll pass I know sorry we're not but in general yeah in general this is not your talk school then I didn't do it earlier yeah but if you don't start in the summer like it's really not a big deal because that's like I know a lot of you like start at the beginning summer and if I were to do it again I probably would have started the beginning of summer but like I walked into senior year and I'm not gonna cover that and I did it turned out by me I just spend time whatever you're doing your senior well I don't know what age like whoever's watching this let's say you're a junior obviously you have a lot of time until you're actually gonna write an essay just be like consciously thinking about okay like what I'm doing right now could I make this into it I might possibly be thinking of I just draw it down keep a Google Doc of ideas I do have a different answer though and this might be helpful if you're a junior this is only two juniors or younger for when you become a junior I was a part of this program called quest bridge if you heard of it or if you haven't it's a program that partners with 39 don't quote me schools across the nation including five of the eight Ivy's USC Vanderbilt do all the top to your schools pretty much and it's for good students with low income you have to apply and the application is literally the same as the common app and it's for juniors so I had all my essays done a whole year early and then I became a quest bridge prep scholar I got to go to California they gave me a free laptop thing the camera I'm filming on is actually from quest bridge from this award i won yeah yeah so it was really awesome with quest Ridge it's a really great program with these talk to your schools so it's definitely something you should look into if that applies to you but basically so I had my essays done and so for summer in the senior year school year I just revised them and had more people look at them and made that I just really really perfected them I guess honestly start whenever because some people started a month into senior year other people started a year before I'm her USC you can submit in December to be considered for scholarship right so that's not that for sure it's also even if you think oh there's no way I would get a scholarship it's just always better to get it submitted as early as possible yeah at least for me kind of what a different method if my biggest period of growth was like between like junior to like senior you actually like all the junior you're writing the essays I kind of like crammed it in at least for me like it worked out well I just don't cut Russian take your time give yourself enough time don't stress too much about those like what's your favorite snack question to be fun yeah I guess doughnuts got me don't over ladies don't over yeah okay so USD a part of that application as they have all these what was it maybe ten or fifteen questions is what's your favorite snack what's your favorite movie favorite song just stuff like that where they can just get to know you and I remember writing cheese's for my favorite snack you know just like also like even though they are just supposed to be like short I mean if you can fit in like a little explanation like my favorite movie is this because try to put it in explanation just like they can there can fit like a said but sense for the short answer but it won't be good ready yeah my school there's probably like ten people who applied at SC out of the ten only like to got in which is like me and my other friend who didn't end up down here GPA wise I was like PI like the lowest of all the people who applied for me what worked is definitely like an upward trend to show that like you're growing throughout high school yeah upward trend yeah yeah and also just like consistency yeah yeah it's really their trend or just being consistent if you already started I'm especially their activities being consistent the other thing I was just gonna say is don't think that like getting in right away is like the only way that you'll be able to like oh yeah we need to talk about this there's a mix of us that are fall admit spring admits and Trojan transfer guarantee transfers very similar so I personally am guaranteed transfer which basically just means that I have to meet a certain criteria at a community college and then after a year I get to attend USC in the fall so I'm currently living on campus at USC with ash and stove and Chloe and we all go to Santa Monica together and it's honestly just such a great way to be able to go to USC like they have so many amazing opportunities it's just it's it's so worth the wait and like everybody does makes you feel so welcome to your regardless of your admittance status us to our spring events and Benji we're all spring on meds they're fall so they actually go to USC now technically we live across the street from USC safely UNC housing on the students live here and the great thing is we get to make friends with everyone out there are a lot of people who can study abroad in the fall or the whole year people stay home people say oh you can take classes we don't have to take classes I know this is way down the road and we're just talking about right now of the application process and all that but down the road if you can accept it and it's maybe not the acceptance you want it don't give up and also if you don't get accepted at all oh you're gonna fly next year and transfer a lot of people transfer their sophomore year or spring a sophomore year so if this is your dream school don't give up because if you're meant for USC USC will find you stay for transfers like if you go to another school and you decide you still want to transfer after that year you didn't get the Trojan transfer plan USC it has like an I think it's like 60% transfer rate like they like sophomore sale of two years I'm one of the admissions officers told me it's just the maturity level and it's people who just like genuinely really really want to be here and they have really worked hard for that does it kind of back though I'm going back to like extracurriculars I love that I don't like it enough but now another thing when you think about it you will see ultimately once students that are gonna succeed in life when they graduate from college like they're gonna want to have like students that are really successful in different jobs and think about how many different careers you can take and how many unique careers there are when looking at the extracurriculars you're doing I mean you can definitely take the round of doing like classic like okay involved get involved in like four clubs I don't know Fiat exec board for the one and then like kind of call it a day like that's definitely like a good idea and you're gonna spend a lot of time and energy doing that but that's not gonna like look as great I guess as if let's say you focus in one club and then do a ton with it even if you're spending way less time like time is not nearly as important as what it is one thing that I like made sure I did was I got involved in something in this head okay how can I take this further okay how can I take this further so a couple of things obviously like two things that I did for one I was always like a new student in high school sophomore year I moved country and when I moved I didn't know anyone going into the school and they didn't really have a program for new students that were freshmen so I was like oh like okay I'll start I'll do an orientation so I like hosted an orientation for transfer kids and then I was like oh well how else can I like make this friend go like go further with this then I'm here like I'm here buddy system throughout the year when students didn't just come at the beginning of the year that missed the orientation and then I was like okay like let me take this to the school district and so I was like well like let me say like I'm gonna propose this and make it like an implemented program throughout all like other public schools so that's like just one way to think of like let's say you're involved in a club and I like they would not very simple I did I was involved in thirst project we did like a chapter of a nonprofit at our high school which I'm sure there's a lot of different types of clubs and then I was like okay like I love this nonprofit I want to get more involved I literally just like emailed the company itself and said like hey can I intern for you guys and they're like yeah sure so then I just did an unpaid internship with the actual like nonprofit itself so I could get more like marketing a business experience I would just say really like whatever you're involved with just say how can I take this one step further yeah yeah cuz because it's gonna be reflective off of your application if they say if this student was like so like passionate about this make did so much to get involved with it and that's really gonna like come on like they're gonna do that in their career as well if they see that when looking at your application not just that you got that you did random stuff yeah I had an example like that in one of my essays where I'm Jewish and the high school I went to was a Catholic all-girls school and my mom and grandparents just did not want me to go in eighth grade and I took the initiative and I scheduled my eighth grade date or I scheduled my admissions test thing me how to take and I just did all the steps myself cuz I really wanted to go I even wrote an essay to my mom and grandparents out why I should go to this high school because it was important to me and I wrote about that in my essay and how I took all these steps because I knew that that was the place I needed to be the USDA tends to go for very motivated and created and driven people right away that's a can see that in someone with the motivators everything as they emphasize interdisciplinary studies a lot here and that means taking two different things that are maybe very contrasting or maybe not and a little more similar and taking those and figuring out how you can use both these things and make something new out of it for example one of my film but then I had a ton of essays on big history because I'm really passionate about history and that kind of stuff languages and culture and somehow I merge that with my film and then the two of them reflected into a lot of my work and not kind of stuff and they love to see a math major who is also doing dance like they love if you have two passions like two interests definitely show that because they would really like to see that yeah and I most of us pretty much do yeah I think all of us have two things touching that I would say part that the question that's why why do you want to go to USC so like for example I gosh well ashes example like my major like I said is helping human sciences but I also heard about how I kept dancing my entire life so I would love to take classes at Coffman for example and that you know USC is the perfect place to have all these opportunities to further study all of your interests and they want to be able to see that you'll take advantage of all the different because USU has an open door policy where anyone can take any class in any major and they want to see that these kids will be taking I know they want to see that you'll take advantage of that insane opportunity that you're livin and like kind of similar to that I feel like I always heard me like I didn't really focus as much on like interdisciplinary studies but like for me since I'm really interested in public policy like I focus a lot on like pre professional experience and so like I had an internship with the congressman and I talked about that like a lot I use it a lot my that was really helpful so if you don't necessarily have to like really different interests I'm like if you focus a lot on like the one thing that you're super passionate about you can still be successful in like basically I think if you've learned anything from this is there's not one right way to do it we all did our application process very differently and it all works so there's really just not a right way to do it you just have to be yourself and be you and they'll see that and it's just so what you're passionate about yes it comes down don't overthink it don't think what do they want to hear from John to write and also Cheers another thing is don't apply I know everyone thinks like there's kind of a smirk I don't even know what you would call it they're a type of circular that you can just apply under the least popular major and it's don't do it you don't you don't like they can see right all competitive its especially us you like everything is competitive but at the same time it's like I mean it's gonna be so hard for you to write about that and like make a connection and maybe they're like Bruce your passion for it that's trying to prove your passion and proof how you can succeed in that major ensue me so difficult to really convey that you just really have to apply to what you want to do and if you don't know what you do just do undecided or maybe something you think you're interested in but don't apply to a major if you know you want to transfer out of it and transfer how the majors here is difficult depending on the school they're trained to like and they don't want kids obviously they're just gonna try to switch on their major because yeah the people that are reading your essays like probably since you pie in a school they're probably gonna be from that school I mean you're gonna see people that actually have a really like great interest for that school versus you if you don't actually like really enjoy doing that if there's any other questions leave them in the comments below I'll be happy to answer them and if you have any other video ideas we've really been enjoying making our vlogs yes you'll be good go watches if you have it and we want to got up and I'll definitely be posting a lot more videos through my film school when I start at USC next semester and all that stuff so subscribe like comment all that fun stuff reputation ball certifications on if you have any more College questions while the application process season is still among us comment and maybe we'll film something else I think we all had a lot of fun doing this so hopefully it wasn't too confusing for what coffee thing like this is the word I'm hearing two different things on everything but like I said before there is no right way there really is so just be yourself and thank you so much for watching

Channel: Ashlyn Bradshaw

Views: 59,946

Rating: 4.9465294 out of 5

Keywords: college, college application, common app, california schools, university, university of southern california, usc, fight on, trojan, college hacks, college tips, ivy league, top tier, senior year, high school, ucla, lmu, chapman, film school, sca

Id: Qpf2MaDj_1w

Length: 27min 12sec (1632 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 11 2018