USC’s Class of 2022 – We’re Building a Better USC Every Year

New students eat with family and friends
New students eat with family and friends during New Student Convocation, August 16, 2018. (USC Photo/Gus Ruelas)

USC continues to be one of the most attractive schools to students across the country. For our 2022 incoming class, who have just begun their journeys here, we had over 64,000 applicants, the largest applicant pool in our 138-year history. This in turn led to the most selective year in our history as we admitted only 13% of those applicants. Of those admitted, 40.8% chose to attend USC, which is the highest percentage we’ve seen in the last three decades and proof of the value and power of a USC education.

We continue to admit a high-achieving student body whose composition more accurately reflects the diverse fabric of our national and global society: 26% of our incoming class identify as members of an underrepresented minority group, the highest such percentage in USC history. First-generation students make up 17% of our incoming class.

Additionally, international students hail from 59 countries, the most coming from China, India, Canada, South Korea, United Kingdom, and Brazil. At the same time, Foshay Learning Center – just a mile west from campus on Expo – continues to provide us with more students than almost any high school in the country.

This is a snapshot of a multifaceted, complex student body, and this is how we build a neighborhood school and a global leader at once. Our students will find their years here challenging, engaging, formative and rewarding as they learn to study, think, work with each other, and lead. I thank the faculty, coaches, counselors, administration and staff whose work in and out of the classroom, and on and off campus, helps guide our students as they learn to thrive.

You can read more about the class of 2022 here: https://news.usc.edu/148955/usc-class-of-2022-sets-records-for-diversity-academics/.

– Michael W. Quick, September 26, 2018