Admissions More Selective as Number of Applicants Rise
More than 47,000 students applied for one of the 2,650 places in the University of Southern California's next freshman class, according to statistics released Monday.
This year's numbers show a distinct increase in applications from last year, when 46,104 students applied for more than 3,000 spots.
"USC's fall 2013 entering freshman class is shaping up to be the most impressive in the university's 133-year history," said Timothy Brunold, USC's dean of admission.
The class will include students from 144 countries outside the United States.
45 percent of admitted students are from California, with 17 percent representing foreign countries and the remaining 38 percent from the other 49 states.
Two-thirds of USC undergraduates currently receive some form of financial aid.
According to USC, the university also continues to offer "what it believes to be the largest pool of university-funded financial aid of any private university in the country."
"The group of students we have selected is characterized by unprecedented levels of diversity: ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic." said Brunold.
The majority of admitted freshmen are in the top 10 percent of their high school's graduating class, 75 percent have standardized test scores at or above the 95th percentile, and their average unweighted high school GPA is 3.82 (on a 4-point scale).
"I am confident that our faculty will be pleased to teach this incredibly bright, talented and impressive group of young adults," said Brunold.
