Freshman Class Raises the Bar, According to National Survey

By Melissa Payton, USC News

USC freshmen are, as a group, becoming more like their peers at other highly selective private institutions. Compared with USC freshmen five years ago, they are more likely to be from out of state, and their parents are more likely to have graduate degrees.

But in several other ways—ethnic diversity, geographic distribution and desire for social interaction, in particular—USC freshmen are strikingly different from their peers nationwide, according to findings from the latest National Freshman Survey.

“We continue to be unique in that the profile of the student that comes here is much more varied,” says Mark Pavelchak, director of student outcomes research in USC’s Office of Student Affairs.

At USC, the 2001 results were compared with those from other selective private institutions—such as Stanford University, Caltech, Emory University and Duke University, whose incoming freshmen have an average combined SAT score of 1310 or better. (The mean SAT score for USC’s freshmen in fall 2001 was 1319.)

Pavelchak’s analysis of the latest survey shows that the class of 2005 is more likely to have come from more than 500 miles away—37.7 percent in 2001 compared to 20.9 percent five years ago. They also are more likely to have a father with a graduate degree—42.2 percent in 2001 vs. 32.8 percent in 1996; for mothers, the respective figures are 27.5 percent and 19 percent.

Other findings show USC has a much greater percent of low-income and first-generation Latino students among its freshman class, and that freshmen are more likely to name such reasons for attending college as to “become more cultured.”

A detailed report of the 2001 USC freshman survey results is available at http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/sor.