Introducing... Preparing for College
We just launched a new Preparing for College page on the admission website! Many years ago, we had a small, printed “fold-out” called “Preparing for USC”—but it wasn’t readily available to prospective students. While we certainly use this blog to share information about and tips regarding the admission process, we wanted a permanent place to offer recommendations for how to prepare for admission to not just USC, but colleges (including selective colleges) in general.
One of the first pieces of information you’ll find is how to plan for college by grade level, starting as early as 9th grade. You’ll see that each year builds on the year prior. So, for example, while you might explore different extracurricular interests by joining clubs and organizations in your first year of high school, you’ll want to become more focused and involved in subsequent years. We think that 10th grade is a great time to then explore academic interests and start researching colleges (we provide some good online tools for that). 11th grade is really when you’ll dive into the college search process and 12th grade is where everything starts to come together. We also have some recommendations for what to do over summer—though we also want to remind students to have fun and relax too!
The next section focuses on preparing academically. We talk about what it means to take a college preparatory schedule. We also discuss what selective institutions like USC would expect to see—which is beyond the minimum—in ways that makes sense for individual students. For example, we would expect to see more rigor in mathematics for an Engineering student.
The third section is titled, “Saving for College”, and provides a broad overview of preparing for what will be one of the largest investments for any family. You’ll find a link to even more information by our Financial Aid Office—about savings plans, 529 Plans, state prepaid tuition plans, etc.—here.
The fourth section includes some points we want all students and families to keep in mind, which are important, so I’ll reiterate (visit the website for more details):
Private colleges can be affordable.
There’s not one “perfect” college for you.
Admission counselors consider more than just grades and test scores.
Colleges don’t necessarily prefer certain extracurriculars over others.
Context matters.
Finally, we offer different resources, including digital versions of various USC publications. You can also sign up for our mailing list. And, of course, if you haven’t already, you can subscribe to this blog.
I hope you find all the information on this new page helpful! Here’s the link again: https://admission.usc.edu/preparing-for-college/.
Written by: Anne Aubert-Santelli, Associate Director - USC Office of Admission