“Hey Siri, How Do I Answer the USC Quick Takes on the Common App?”: Demystifying the USC Quick Takes
USC Quick Takes: the most difficult part of the application (not really, but keep reading!)
Ideal roommate? It must be a Nobel Prize winner, so USC sees me as ambitious and scholarly. Favorite snack? It needs to be a metaphor to describe how resilient I am while encompassing other positive attributes about myself. Three words to describe myself? Time to pull up the dictionary to find the most complex adjectives to impress the admission committee.
As an admission counselor that has reviewed college applications for over four years, I have read nearly every answer you can think of.
Hermione Granger or Elle Woods or Pitbull as your future roommate.
Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or Trader Joe’s snacks to fuel your appetite.
Ready-For-USC to describe yourself in three words.
And much more!
Each year, students google what are the most creative, unique responses to these ten simple questions because it can’t be THAT easy right? Well, surprise: it actually is!
Guess what? The USC Admission team does not make decisions based upon your Quick Take responses. We understand that working on college applications is stressful, especially when it comes time to submit your application, so we decided to ask a few silly, quirky questions just for you to be YOU.
And, by the way, we don’t expect you to write paragraphs analyzing your responses. The best way to fill them out is to think of the first answer that pops into your head and write it in the box. That’s it! You should not be spending over five minutes (or hours on end) thinking about the most creative answers. Also, make sure to be yourself and have fun with these! When we review applications, we take everything besides the Quick Takes into consideration. Whether we agree with you or not that the best movie of all time was Barbie or Oppenheimer, rest assured that your response will have no bearing on your admission decision.
Written by: Leslie Escobedo, Assistant Director – USC Office of Admission