Undergraduate - USC vs UNC

USC is really diverse in the sense that there's a ton of Asians.

Any chance you can get into the bus school at UNC? I would personally go Chapel Hill in regards to undergraduate experience.

I might be able to pull off the necessary GPA to get into K-F, but that would have to be after a semester at the very least.

Harvard gives you the best chance of writing your own ticket in the future in my opinion. Go there if you can. Amherst is another great school.

If it's between USC and UNC: I'd go UNC unless you're very well off. USC and LA are awesome if you have money to spend to keep up with all the Kardashians out there. I think you have plenty of time for that when you're out of school and living in a city. UNC has more of a college atmosphere which you only get one crack at in life.

Go to Carolina, kick ass and get into Kenan Flagler. What year are you?

You say you had to go to CC for financial reasons among others - what is your financial situation like? UNC is cheaper than USC, and like NYU said, it takes $$ to be able to have a good time in LA.

What year will you be - junior?

I'm a junior and school money isn't really an issue as I'm a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar (basically 30k scholarship). As for my financial situation, I'm pretty broke, haha. I'm really interested in entrepreneurship and finance, but I'm hoping to work for a BB for 2 years, get an MBA (hopefully full ride) at McCombs and open shop.

Also your username is great.

IM HARVARD

Southern Cal is amazing and your jaw will hit pavement when you see the quality out there but the sad part is they all want to go to Hyde and hook up with the guy they saw Seacrest interviewing 10 minutes ago on Extra.

SC is a target rich environment but relatively speaking you have a pea shooter out there if you aren't pushing a hot car and pounding up every doorman while being whisked away to your table near the dance floor.

Needless to say it sounds like you have good problems to work through.

white grls love black guys go to sc

I chose Wake Forest over USC when I was deciding on undergrad - didn't love the USC campus (a gem surrounded by ghetto) and didn't love LA when I visited. Had I gotten off the UNC wait list, Wake and USC wouldn't haven even been in the picture. It's obviously a very personal decision, but I can at least tell you that UNC kicks ass.

I was actually in the same situation...Only difference being that I grew up in Northern California. I ended up choosing UNC and feel as if I made the right choice. If you want to get into specifics, feel free to shoot me a message.

As long as everyone is pitching in on something we know little about, I vote chapel hill. I agree with the 'money' reasons above for avoiding LA, plus you're not gonna make any progress with the girls out there.

Even if you don't make it into K-F, you can network with the K-F alumni on wall street. If you're a Tarheel, then you're a Tarheel.

Go to UNC. Unless you become a professor, you can't go back and have fun in a legit college campus. While you can always go to LA and have fun. Also, as everyone is saying, you need $ to have fun in LA. All of the USC girls are hanging out with guys in Porsches. You don't have to deal with that in UNC.

LA doesn't need as much money as people think it does. Fact is college and non-college girls/guys don't hang out with each other that much. Which is why it's bullshit saying all the USC girls are hanging out with guys in Porsches. They're hanging out with frat boys.

If you choose USC, your goal is to get into a frat or know someone in a frat to hook you up.

Btw, this is from a UCLA grad who has told a USC grad at LSE to go fuck herself.

Unless you have an offer to a top Ivy+MIT, you should choose a good Cali school since there's more than enough good schools there. And the quality of life blows the East Coast away.

So I just got my results from Columbia and Penn. Waitlisted at both. Can't say I'm surprised, but whatever. I didn't think that WSO would be so split on USC vs UNC. My goal is to get a full ride at UT McCombs, does that change anything?

Also, anyone have any experience getting off a waitlist? Amherst admissions told me that I would've been admitted, but since my application was completed late I was only waitlisted. Should I go for it again in the spring? Amherst is my top choice if it isn't already obvious, haha.

I'm interested to see your reasoning for being so gung ho about a UT McCombs MBA. You're getting waitlisted at Penn, Columbia, Amherst, and Harvard so it seems like you've got the chops to get into a better MBA program than UT down the road. What am I missing here?

My daughter is struggling with the same choice. She has always grown up thinking she would go t o UNC and was thrilled to get in there. However, the Honors College at USC has a lot of advantages such as small classes and she really liked the atmosphere and campus at USC as well. They are both good schools!! We are scheduling another visit to USC where she will attend a class and stay with some friends she knows there. We are going to register for an Explore Carolina day as well. Hopefully, she'll have an idea of which is a better fit after those visits. Congratulations to you though, you have two really good options!!

Regards

Any more comments? I'm still not sure what I should. I'm in at Marshall, but for Kenan-Flager I'd have to stay another semester. On the other hand though, apparently Chapel Hill is better than Southern California. Ugh, if only I had money to just visit.

Any more comments would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

EDIT: Also, UNC has the top Information Science program. I looked into this and it looks pretty interesting. If I major in this instead of economics, it won't have any real consequences will it?

If it counts for anything, UNC has a far, far stronger reputation than USC here on the East Coast (New York included).

this is easy, go to USC.

next.

Why do you pick USC?

Waitlisted at Harvard? That's pretty impressive considering they only accept like a dozen transfers. I'm applying next year, do you have any tips or things that helped you stand out?

You will need to write a very, very good essay. I'm not kidding either. Find the top writer(s) at your schools and let them help you write it. Not just revise it, but write it. I had a concept and 4 drafts done (different in every way) then choose the best one and spend 3 months writing.

The problem with just revising an essay that you've already written is that if your essay is bad and the revisions are good, then it looks suspicious, and if your essay is good and the revisions make the essay inconsistent then it was obvious that you had help (you don't want to be explicit in this I think).

Other than that, I would do a few things differently if I could apply again:

1. I wouldn't waste any time with school related extracurriculars. Literally anyone can do those. Do more out of school extracurriculars if possible. There was a guy from the same community college I went to who got into UPenn and he found funding, did the necessary paperwork and helped build a soup kitchen. I still can't believe how he was able to do that, but whatever.

2. Take a more focused course load. Unfortunately, I just did my basics, but you should really concentrate on a particular subject area. If you're planning on majoring in math, for example, take mainly math classes (with some of your basics obviously) and get to the point where you're the best in those classes.

3. Apply to middle-tier schools. I was dumb and applied to schools only with ridiculously low acceptance rates mainly. Apply to some other schools with decent acceptance rates like Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Duke, etc. Rather than the 1%-4% acceptance rates of Harvard, Yale, Amherst, UPenn, etc.

Finally, I would really research Harvard and find some niche things about the school that you're interested in. I was dumb and said that I was interested in economics and wanted to take classes with a particular professor. Who doesn't say that? Sigh. On that note, make sure you nail those short answer questions. I spent too much time on my short answer/essays and not enough on the other ones.

thanks man, i appreciate it

I was accepted off the waitlist for Amherst. Guessing I should go there?