USC admissions rate lowest in history for class of 2028

As of Friday, USC’s class of 2028 has the lowest admissions rate in university history.

The university released its regular decision undergraduate admissions results for the class of 2028, which revealed around 82,000 prospective students applied, the highest in university history.

Last year, the admissions rate was 9.9%, and respectively in 2010, it was 26.3%, according to Crimson Education. According to Kirk Brennan, the director of undergraduate admissions, USC has offered admission to around 9,000 students for the 2024 admissions cycle: 3,000 in early action, 4,600 for the fall, and 1,400 for Spring 2025.

Charlotte Doré, a prospective freshman for the class of 2028, said that the lower rates reflect an increasingly obscure and confusing admissions process across all universities.

“I think just each school looks for a different type of person,” she said. “And there’s so many talented people applying. And sometimes it’s just like throwing darts at a board until you hit a target and find one talented person out of a bunch because you can’t take them all.”

For many newly admitted students, opening the decision was a particularly nerve-racking process.

“I literally convinced my brain that it was going to be a rejection letter,” Doré said. “I was seeing a movie on Friday. And afterwards, I opened my phone and there was like, oh, ‘update to your USC admissions portal.’ And I’m freaking out. I’m trying to reload the page a bunch of times, and we finally get out and I open the letter and it says, I was accepted. And I started sobbing outside of this theater.”

Grace Cahill, an incoming student majoring in music industry in the class of 2028, found out she got in during a road trip, along with her twin sister.

“I opened it and I turned back and I started crying,” Cahill said. “We all started screaming. And it was the most insane moment of my life. My twin sister also applied to the music industry major. And I’m like, ‘Catherine, I’m sorry, if you don’t get in’ and I opened hers. And she got in too. So we just started crying and screaming together.”

Arman Ahmad, an incoming freshman admitted early action, said that he didn’t believe it when he saw the acceptance letter.

“I was like, ‘What the hell?’” he said. “I didn’t believe it at all.”

Nate Quezada, a senior studying computer science, said that the lower admissions rates speak to the growing popularity of USC, both for its location and quality of education.

“So many people from everywhere want to go to school in California and USC is one of the better schools that people want to go to,” he said. “So it makes a lot of sense that a lot of people apply. When it’s so popular, you can only accept so many.”

In addition to the record-high application numbers and record-low admissions rates, USC is looking to make adjustments to the Trojan Transfer program, which had previously been offered to legacy students who were not admitted.

This year, all students not offered admission will be given the opportunity to sign up for a Trojan Transfer Information Session during the summer, which Brennan said are intended to assist students in coursework planning so that they may become strong transfer candidates in the future.

USC will host an open house for newly admitted students April 7.