The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are "the key sites of Knowledge production modes, knowledge production", along with "intergenerational ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in California, and has an enrollment of more than 49,000 students. The university is composed of one

liberal arts Liberal arts education () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...

school, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and 22

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

, graduate, and professional schools, enrolling roughly 21,000 undergraduate and 28,500

post-graduate Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor' ...

students from all fifty

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

s and more than 115 countries. It is a member of the

Association of American Universities The Association of American Universities (AAU) is an organization of predominantly American research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Founded in 1900, it consists of 69 public and private ...

, which it joined in 1969. USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA) and the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

. Members of USC's sports teams, the

Trojans Trojan or Trojans may refer to: * Of or from the ancient city of Troy * Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans Arts and entertainment Music * ''Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 1890 ...

, have won 107 NCAA team championships and 412 NCAA individual championships. As of 2021, Trojan athletes have won 326 medals at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

( 153 golds, 96 silvers, and 77 bronzes), more than any other American university. USC has had 571 football players drafted to the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

, the second-highest number of draftees in the country.

History

Founding and early history

The University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge

Robert Maclay Widney Robert Maclay Widney (December 23, 1838 – November 14, 1929) was an American lawyer, judge, and one of the founders of the University of Southern California (USC). History He was born in Piqua, Ohio. He was the older brother of Joseph Widne ...

, who helped secure donations from several key figures in early Los Angeles history: a Protestant nurseryman, Ozro Childs; an

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics () are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland, defined by their adherence to Catholic Christianity and their shared Irish ethnic, linguistic, and cultural heritage.The term distinguishes Catholics of Irish descent, particul ...

former governor, John Gately Downey; and a German Jewish banker, Isaias Wolf Hellman. The three donated 308 acres to establish the campus and provided the necessary seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that "no student would be denied admission because of race". The university is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952. When USC opened in 1880, the school had an enrollment of 53 students and a faculty of 10. Its first graduating class in 1884 was a class of three: two males and a female

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the class rank, highest-performing student of a graduation, graduating class of an academic institution in the United States. The valedictorian is generally determined by an academic institution's grade poin ...

. USC was further expanded with the construction of Old College in 1887, which served as the College of

Liberal Arts Liberal arts education () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...

(now Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences). Although envisioned as the permanent centerpiece to the university, its age and lack of earthquake safety became major concerns as USC moved through the 20th century. The building was eventually demolished in 1948.

USC in the 20th century

Despite a growing student and faculty population, the university maintained most of its campus along Trousdale Parkway (then known as University Avenue). Beginning in 1919, architect John Parkinson developed a master plan for the university that expanded beyond this avenue, focusing on Romanesque buildings for which the university has become notable. Bovard Administration Building was completed in 1921 along this parkway, and remains one of the university's oldest and most iconic buildings. The Gwynn Wilson Student Union, Doheny Memorial Library, and Allan Hancock Foundation were completed in 1927, 1932, and 1940, respectively, and remain directly adjacent to the university's central quad (now Hahn Plaza). Many of these were constructed under President Rufus B. von KleinSmid, who spearheaded the creation of 19 buildings over 25 years. The onset of World War II led to a transformation of campus life, with a shift in academic programs and student enrollment. Total enrollment fell 15%; military programs were instituted, and by the end of the war 75% of male students were involved in some branch of the military. USC was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the

V-12 Navy College Training Program The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II. Between July 1, 1943, and June 30, 1946, more than 125,000 participants were enrolled in 131 colleg ...

, which offered students a path to a Navy commission. After the war ended, enrollment of veterans under the

G.I. Bill The G.I. Bill, formally the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I. (military), G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in ...

soared to 24,000 by 1947, straining USC's facilities and resources. In 1950, Founder's Hall (now Taper Hall of Humanities) was constructed, becoming the first new classroom space in a decade. University Avenue was closed to through traffic. In 1958,

Norman Topping Norman Topping (1908 – November 18, 1997) was the President of the University of Southern California between 1958 and 1970. He succeeded Fred D. Fagg, Jr., and was succeeded by John R. Hubbard. He was chancellor between 1971 and 1980. He b ...

became president, and initiated a campaign for capital construction to support USC's burgeoning population. Under the assistance of architect

William Pereira William Leonard Pereira (April 25, 1909 – November 13, 1985) was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, who was noted for his Futurist architecture#Post-modern futurism, futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamer ...

, USC constructed 99 buildings between 1961 and 1979. The university hosted some Olympics activities in 1984, and in 1990,

Steven Sample Steven Browning Sample (November 29, 1940 – March 29, 2016) was the 10th president of the University of Southern California (USC).Trojan Shrine, nicknamed "Tommy Trojan", near the center of campus. Until 1912, USC students (especially athletes) were known as Fighting Methodists or Wesleyans, though neither name was approved by the university. Tommy’s sword has been stolen so frequently that instead of replacing it with an expensive brass one each time, he is now provided with a wooden one. During a fateful track and field meet with

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, the USC team was beaten early and seemingly conclusively. After only the first few events, it seemed implausible USC would ever win, but the team fought back, winning many of the later events, to lose only by a slight margin. After this contest, ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' sportswriter Owen Bird reported the USC athletes "fought on like the

of antiquity", and the president of the university at the time, George F. Bovard, approved the name officially.

Campus

The main campus is in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, southwest of

downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

. Located off exit 20B of Interstate 110, the campus's boundaries are Jefferson Boulevard on the north and northeast, Figueroa Street on the southeast, Exposition Boulevard on the south, and Vermont Avenue on the west. Since the 1960s, through-campus vehicle traffic has been either severely restricted or entirely prohibited on some thoroughfares. The University Park campus is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the

Shrine Auditorium The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in Los Angeles, California. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 139) in 1975, an ...

and

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (also known as the Los Angeles Coliseum or L.A. Coliseum) is a multi-purpose stadium in the Exposition Park, Los Angeles, Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. Conceived as a hal ...

, which is operated and managed by the university. Most buildings are in the

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended t ...

style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

styles (especially two large

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the b ...

dormitories at the campus's northern edge) that sharply contrast with the predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. The historic portion of the main campus was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2015. Besides its main campus at University Park, USC also operates the Health Sciences Campus about northeast of downtown. In addition, the Children's Hospital Los Angeles is staffed by USC faculty from the

Keck School of Medicine The USC Keck School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Southern California. The school teaches and trains physicians, biomedical scientists and other healthcare professionals, conducts medical research, and treats patients. F ...

, and is often referred to as USC's third campus. USC also operates an Orange County center in

Irvine Irvine may refer to: Places On Earth Antarctica *Irvine Glacier * Mount Irvine (Antarctica) Australia * Irvine Island * Mount Irvine, New South Wales Canada * Irvine, Alberta * Irvine Inlet, Nunavut Scotland *Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotlan ...

for business, pharmacy, social work, and education, and the

Information Sciences Institute The USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) is a component of the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering, and specializes in research and development in information processing, computing, and communications techn ...

, with centers in

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Virginia. The county is located in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington, D.C., the nati ...

, and

Marina del Rey Marina del Rey ( Spanish for "Marina of the King") is an unincorporated seaside community in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The eponymous harbor is a major boating and water recreation destination of the Greater Los Angeles ar ...

. For its science students, USC operates the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island just off the coast of Los Angeles, and home to the

Philip K. Wrigley Philip Knight Wrigley (December 5, 1894 – April 12, 1977) was an American chewing gum manufacturer and a Major League Baseball executive, inheriting both of those roles as the son of William Wrigley Jr. Biography Wrigley was born in Chicago in ...

Marine Science Center. The Price School of Public Policy also runs a satellite campus in

Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...

. A Health Sciences

Alhambra The Alhambra (, ; ) is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Spain. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Muslim world, Islamic world. Additionally, the ...

campus holds the Primary Care Physician Assistant Program, the Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research (IPR), and the Masters in Public Health Program. In 2005, USC established a federal relations office in Washington, DC., and in March 2023, USC announced the opening of a new Capital Campus in Washington, D.C. The university purchased a seven-story 60,000 square feet building and remodeled it to house classrooms, event venues, office spaces, a bookstore and a theater. Located in the heart of the Dupont Circle neighborhood, the USC Capital Campus is also home to USC's Office of Research Advancement, which helps university faculty researchers secure federal funding for multidisciplinary research projects. USC was developed under two master plans drafted and implemented some forty years apart. The first was prepared by

Train & Williams A train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by l ...

but it was replaced by the second, made

the Parkinsons John and Donald Parkinson were a father-and-son architectural firm operating in the Los Angeles area in the early 20th century. They designed and built many of the city's iconic buildings, including Grand Central Market, the Memorial Colise ...

in 1919.

The second and largest master plan was prepared in 1961 under the supervision of President

, campus development director Anthony Lazzaro, and architect

. USC's role in making visible and sustained improvements in the neighborhoods surrounding both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses earned it the distinction of College of the Year 2000 by the ''Time/Princeton Review College Guide''. Roughly half of the university's students volunteer in community-service programs in neighborhoods around campus and throughout Los Angeles. These outreach programs, as well as previous administrations' commitment to remaining in

South Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

amid widespread calls to move the campus following the 1965

Watts Riots The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. The riots were motivated by anger at the racist and abus ...

, are credited for the safety of the university during the

1992 Los Angeles Riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Los Angeles, South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after ...

. The ZIP Code for USC is 90089 and that of the surrounding University Park community is 90007. USC globe tower and Waite Phillips Hall

USC has an endowment of $8.1 billion and carries out nearly $1 billion per year in sponsored research.

University Village

In 1999, USC purchased the University Park shopping center, which was demolished in 2014. In September of the same year, the university began construction on USC Village, a 1.25-million-square-foot residential and retail center directly adjacent to USC's University Park campus on 15 acres of land owned by the university. The USC Village has over 130,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, with student housing on the four floors above. The $700 million project is the biggest development in the history of USC and is also one of the largest in the history of South Los Angeles. With a grand opening held on August 17, 2017, the USC Village includes a Trader Joe's, a Target, a fitness center, restaurants, outdoor dining, 400 retail parking spots, a community room, and housing for 2,700 students.

Health Sciences campus

Located from downtown Los Angeles and from the University Park campus, USC's Health Sciences campus is a major center for basic and clinical biomedical research in the fields of

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

gene therapy Gene therapy is Health technology, medical technology that aims to produce a therapeutic effect through the manipulation of gene expression or through altering the biological properties of living cells. The first attempt at modifying human DNA ...

, the

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

s, and transplantation biology, among others. The campus is home to the region's first and oldest medical and pharmacy schools, as well as acclaimed programs in nurse anesthesiology,

occupational therapy Occupational therapy (OT), also known as ergotherapy, is a healthcare profession. Ergotherapy is derived from the Greek wiktionary:ergon, ergon which is allied to work, to act and to be active. Occupational therapy is based on the assumption t ...

physical therapy Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is a healthcare profession, as well as the care provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through patient education, physical intervention, disease preventio ...

, physician assistant, and

pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medication, medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it ...

which are respectively ranked No. 11, No. 5, No. 6, No. 20, No. 12 by ''U.S. News & World Report'' in 2024. In addition to the

Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center Los Angeles General Medical Center (also known as LA General and formerly known as Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, County/USC, County General or by the abbreviation LAC+USC) is a 600-bed public teaching hospital located at 2051 Marengo St ...

, which is one of the nation's largest teaching hospitals, the campus includes three patient care facilities: USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center,

Keck Hospital of USC The Keck Hospital of USC, formerly USC University Hospital, is a private 401–licensed bed teaching hospital of the University of Southern California (USC). The hospital is part of the USC Keck School of Medicine, it is located on the USC Hea ...

, and the USC Eye Institute. USC faculty staffs these and many other hospitals in Southern California, including the internationally acclaimed

Children's Hospital Los Angeles Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care Pediatrics, children's hospital in the East Hollywood, Los Angeles, East Hollywood district of Los Angeles, on Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Vermont Avenue ...

. The health sciences campus is also home to the

USC School of Pharmacy The USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (formally the USC School of Pharmacy) is the pharmacy school of the University of Southern California. The school was originally established in 1905 as USC College of Pharmacy. History ...

and several research buildings such as USC/Norris Cancer Research Tower, Institute for Genetic Medicine,

Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute The Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute on the University of Southern California campus is a neurological and psychiatric diseases research facility. It is an organized research unit of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. The Institute is partially fund ...

, Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower and Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. The Keck Hospital of USC is ranked No. 7 out of 420 hospitals in the State of California and ranks in the top twenty nationally for specialities by ''U.S. News & World Report'', including cancer, cardiology, gastroenterology, and geriatrics. In July 2013, the university expanded its medical services into the foothill communities of northern Los Angeles when it acquired the 185 bed Verdugo Hills Hospital in

Glendale, California Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles. As of 2024, Glendale ha ...

. USC planned on making at least $30 million in capital improvements to the facility, which was officially renamed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. This 40-year-old hospital provides the community a 24-hour emergency department, primary stroke center, maternity/labor and delivery, cardiac rehabilitation, and imaging and diagnostic services. In July 2022, the university acquired the 348 bed Methodist Hospital of Southern California in

Arcadia, California Arcadia is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located about northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. It contains a series of adjacent parks consisting of t ...

. Renamed USC Arcadia Hospital it is a full-service community hospital offering advanced cardiovascular services including cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology and open-heart surgery.

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

has designated it as both a heart attack receiving center and a comprehensive stroke center, as well as an Emergency Department Approved for Pediatrics. The hospital also offers a variety of surgical services in orthopaedics, neurosurgery, obstetrics, gynecology, and cancer care, plus physical rehabilitation and many other medical specialties. USC physicians serve more than one million patients each year.

Public transit

Mudd Hall Expo Park USC Los Angeles metro stop 2019

USC is served by several rapid transit stations. The Metro E Line

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

service between

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

and

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

wraps around the south and eastern edges of the University Park campus. The E Line has three stations in the vicinity of the USC main campus: Jefferson/USC Station,

Expo Park/USC Station Expo Park/USC station is an at-grade light rail station on the E Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. The station is located in the center median of Exposition Boulevard near entrances to Exposition Park (Expo Park) and the University of ...

, and Vermont/Expo Station. The Metro J Line bus service serves both the University Park campus at 37th Street/USC station and the Health Sciences campus at

LA General Medical Center station LA General Medical Center station is a busway station located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is situated between Union Station and Cal State LA station on the El Monte Busway. The station is served by two bu ...

. In addition, both campuses are served by several

Metro Metro may refer to: Geography * Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...

and municipal bus routes.

Former agricultural college campus

Chaffey College Chaffey College is a public community college in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The college serves students in Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Upland. It is the oldest community college in California. History ...

was founded in 1883 in the city of

Ontario, California Ontario is a city in southwestern San Bernardino County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles and west of downtown San Bernardino, the county seat. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire metropolitan area, it lies ...

, as an agricultural college branch campus of USC under the name of Chaffey College of Agriculture of the University of Southern California. USC ran the Chaffey College of Agriculture until financial troubles closed the school in 1901. In 1906, the school was reopened by the municipal and regional government and thus officially separated from USC. Renamed as Chaffey College, it now exists as a

community college A community college is a type of undergraduate higher education institution, generally leading to an associate degree, certificate, or diploma. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an open enr ...

as part of the

California Community College System The California Community Colleges is a postsecondary education system in the U.S. state of California.California Education CodSection 70900(added to the Education Code by Chapter 973 of the California Statutes of 1988Assembly Bill No. 1725 secti ...

Organization and administration

USC is a private

public-benefit nonprofit corporation A public-benefit nonprofit corporationnonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity orga ...

controlled by a

board of trustees A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

composed of 50 voting members and several life trustees, honorary trustees, and trustees emeriti who do not vote. Voting members of the board of trustees are elected for five-year terms. One-fifth of the Trustees stand for re-election each year, and votes are cast only by the trustees not standing for election. Trustees tend to be high-ranking executives of large corporations (both domestic and international), successful alumni, members of the upper echelons of university administration, or some combination of the three. The university administration consists of a president, a

provost Provost may refer to: Officials Ecclesiastic * Provost (religion), a high-ranking church official * Prince-provost, a high-ranking church official Government * Provost (civil), an officer of local government, including the equivalent ...

, several vice-presidents of various departments, a treasurer, a chief information officer, and an

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches a ...

. The current president is Carol Folt who on July 1, 2019, succeeded board of trustee member Wanda Austin who had been appointed the interim president by the board when the former president C. L. Max Nikias resigned in 2018. The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the Graduate School, and the twenty professional schools are each led by an academic

dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean * Dean Sw ...

. USC occasionally awards

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

titles to former administrators. There are six administrators emeriti. The University of Southern California's twenty professional schools include the

USC Leventhal School of Accounting The USC Marshall School of Business is the business school of the University of Southern California. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In 1997 the school was renamed following a $35 million donation fr ...

USC School of Architecture The USC School of Architecture is the architecture school at the University of Southern California. Located in Los Angeles, California, it is one of the university's twenty-two professional schools, offering both undergraduate and graduate degr ...

, USC Roski School of Art and Design, USC Iovine and Young Academy,

USC Marshall School of Business The USC Marshall School of Business is the business school of the University of Southern California. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In 1997 the school was renamed following a $35 million donation fr ...

USC School of Cinematic Arts The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of Sound film, talkies, the school descends from America's first ...

USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism The USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism is a part of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. It has 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students. Willow Bay is the dean. Prof. Hector Amaya is the Director of the Sc ...

, USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance,

Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC Herman may refer to: People * Herman (name), list of people with this name * Saint Herman (disambiguation) * Peter Noone (born 1947), known by the mononym Herman Places in the United States * Herman, Arkansas * Herman, Michigan * Herman, M ...

USC School of Dramatic Arts The USC School of Dramatic Arts (commonly referred to as SDA)—formerly the USC School of Theatre, is a private drama school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. It is ranked one of the top 10 dramatic arts schools ...

USC Rossier School of Education The USC Rossier School of Education is one of the graduate schools of the University of Southern California. Rossier offers six master's degree programs, a Doctor of Education in Organizational Change and Leadership (Ed.D.) degree, a Global Execut ...

USC Viterbi School of Engineering The USC Viterbi School of Engineering (formerly the USC School of Engineering) is the engineering school of the University of Southern California. It was renamed following a $52 million donation by Andrew J. Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm. ...

USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology The USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology is one of the seventeen academic divisions of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, focusing on undergraduate and graduate programs in gerontology. History Founded in 1975, the Leonar ...

USC Gould School of Law The University of Southern California Gould School of Law located in Los Angeles, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Or ...

Keck School of Medicine of USC The USC Keck School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Southern California. The school teaches and trains physicians, biomedical scientists and other healthcare professionals, conducts medical research, and treats patients. F ...

USC Thornton School of Music The USC Thornton School of Music is a private music school in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1884 only four years after the University of Southern California, the Thornton School is the oldest continually operating arts institution in Los An ...

, USC Bovard College, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, and

USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, was founded in 1920 as USC's School of Social Work. The school's only location is in Los Angeles, California. According to school officials, the facility ...

Student government

The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) is the official representative government of the undergraduate students at USC. It consists of a popularly elected president and vice president who lead an appointed executive cabinet, a popularly elected legislative branch, and judicial oversight. The executive cabinet oversees funding, communications, programming, and advocacy work. All USG activities are funded by the student activity fee. In addition to USG, residents within university housing are represented and governed by the Residential Housing Association (RHA), which is divided by residence hall. The Graduate Student Government (GSG) consists of senators elected by the students of each school proportional to its enrollment and its activities are funded by a graduate and professional student activity fee.

List of university presidents

Since 1880, the following persons have led USC:

Department of Public Safety

The USC Department of Public Safety (DPS) is one of the largest campus law enforcement agencies in the United States, currently employing over 300 full-time personnel, including approximately 96 armed Public Safety Officers, 120 unarmed Community Service Officers, 60 CCTV monitors and dispatchers, and 30 part-time student workers. DPS's patrol and response jurisdiction includes a 2.5 square mile area around each USC campus. The Department of Public Safety headquarters is on the University Park campus, and there are substations in the University Village and on the Health Sciences campus. The department operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. All USC Public Safety Officers are required to be police academy graduates so that under California Penal Code statute they can be granted peace officer power of arrest authority while on duty, enforce state laws and local city municipal codes, and investigate crimes. DPS is overseen by an independent advisory board of 21 faculty, staff, student and community members appointed by the USC President. The board reviews DPS performance, stop, and misconduct data, and conducts periodic assessments of DPS policies, practices, and operational performance. The department has a formal working relationship with the

Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

(LAPD), which includes USC paying for newly hired Public Safety Officers to attend the six month-long Los Angeles Police Academy. A special joint USC/LAPD crime task force composed of USC DPS personnel and approximately 40 selected Los Angeles police officers, including a dedicated specially trained LAPD

SWAT A SWAT (''Special Weapons and Tactics'') team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations. SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to res ...

team, is assigned exclusively to the USC campus community to address crime and quality of life issues.

Academics

USC is a large, primarily residential research university. The majority of the student body was undergraduate until 2007, when graduate student enrollment began to exceed undergraduate. The four-year, full-time undergraduate instructional program is classified as "balanced arts & sciences/professions" with a high graduate coexistence. Admissions are characterized as "most selective, lower transfer in"; 95 undergraduate majors and 147 academic and professional minors are offered. The graduate program is classified as "comprehensive" and offers 134 master's, doctoral, and professional degrees through twenty professional schools. USC is accredited by the

Western Association of Schools and Colleges The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC ( )) provided accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Samoa and Northern ...

. USC's academic departments fall either under the general

and

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

s of the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences for undergraduates, the Graduate School for graduates, or the university's 20 professional schools. The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the oldest and largest of the USC schools, grants undergraduate degrees in more than 180 majors and minors across the humanities, social sciences, and natural/physical sciences, and offers doctoral and masters programs in more than twenty fields. Dornsife College is responsible for the general education program for all USC undergraduates and houses a full-time faculty of almost 1,000, nearly 8,000 undergraduate majors (over a third of the total USC undergraduate population), and 1,300 doctoral students. In addition to thirty academic departments, the college also houses dozens of research centers and institutes. In the 2008–2009 academic year, 4,400 undergraduate degrees and 5,500 advanced degrees were awarded. Formerly called "USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences", the college received a $200 million gift from USC trustees Dana and David Dornsife on March 23, 2011, after which the college was renamed in their honor, following the naming pattern of other professional schools and departments at the university. All PhD degrees awarded at USC and most master's degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School. Professional degrees are awarded by each of the respective professional schools. USC School of Cinematic Arts 03

The School of Cinematic Arts, the oldest and largest film school in the country, confers degrees in six different programs.Rachel Abramowitz

, ''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved June 16, 2008. As the university administration considered cinematic skills too valuable to be kept to film industry professionals, the school opened its classes to the university at large in 1998. In 2001, the film school added an USC Interactive Media & Games Division, Interactive Media & Games Division studying stereoscopic cinema, panoramic cinema, immersive cinema, interactive cinema, video games, virtual reality, and mobile media. In September 2006, George Lucas donated $175 million to expand the film school, which at the time was the largest single donation to USC (and its fifth over $100 million). The donation will be used to build new structures and expand the faculty. The acceptance rate to the School of Cinematic Arts has consistently remained between 4–6% for the past several years. The

was established in 1916, the first in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

. From at least 1972 to 1976, and likely for a number of years prior to 1972, it was called The School of Architecture and Fine Art. The School of Fine Art (known as SOFA for a number of years after Architecture and Fine Art separated) was eventually named the Roski School of Fine Arts in 2006 during a ceremony to open the then-new Masters of Fine Art building, which occupies the previous and completely refurbished Lucky Blue Jean factory. This small department grew rapidly with the help of the Allied Architects of Los Angeles. A separate School of Architecture was organized in September 1925. The school has been home to teachers such as

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; 8 April 1892 – 16 April 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for most of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. His most ...

, Ralph Knowles, James Steele, A. Quincy Jones,

and

Pierre Koenig Pierre Francis Koenig (October 17, 1925 – April 4, 2004) was an American architect and a Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California. He taught at the USC School of Architecture from 1964 until his death in 2004. H ...

. The school of architecture also claims notable alumni

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry ( ; ; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become attractions. Gehry rose to prominence in th ...

Jon Jerde Jon Adams Jerde, (January 22, 1940 – February 9, 2015) was an American architect based in Venice, Los Angeles, California, founder and chairman of The Jerde Partnership, a design architecture and urban planning firm specializing in the design o ...

Thom Mayne Thom Mayne (born January 19, 1944) is an American architect. He is based in Los Angeles. In 1972, Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), where he is a trustee and the coordinator of the Design of Cities po ...

Raphael Soriano Raphael S. Soriano, FAIA, (August 1, 1904 – July 21, 1988) was a Greek-born American architect and educator, who helped define a period of 20th-century architecture that came to be known as Mid-century modern. He pioneered the use of modu ...

Gregory Ain Gregory Samuel Ain (March 28, 1908 – January 9, 1988) was an American architect active in the mid-20th century. Working primarily in the Los Angeles area, Ain is best known for bringing elements of modern architecture to lower- and medium- ...

, and Pierre Koenig. Two of the alumni have become

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consisten ...

winners. In 2006, Qingyun Ma, a distinguished Shanghai-based architect, was named dean of the school. The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering is headed by Dean Yannis Yortsos. Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, in honor of

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

co-founder

Andrew Viterbi Andrew James Viterbi (born Andrea Giacomo Viterbi, March 9, 1935) is an electrical engineer and businessman who co-founded Qualcomm Inc. and invented the Viterbi algorithm. He is the Presidential Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering at th ...

and his wife Erna, who had donated $52 million to the school. Viterbi School of Engineering has been ranked No. 11 and No. 9 in the United States in ''U.S. News & World Report''s engineering rankings for 2018 and 2019 respectively. 052707-020-USCAnnenberg

The Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, founded in 1971, is one of the two communication programs in the country endowed by

Walter Annenberg Walter Hubert Annenberg (March 13, 1908 – October 1, 2002) was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and diplomat. Annenberg owned and operated Triangle Publications, which included ownership of ''The Philadelphia Inquirer' ...

(the other is at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

). The School of Journalism, which became part of the School for Communication in 1994, features a core curriculum that requires students to devote themselves equally to print, broadcast and online media for the first year of study. The journalism school consistently ranks among the nation's top undergraduate journalism schools. USC's Annenberg School's endowment rose from $7.5 million to $218 million between 1996 and 2007. In 2015, the new building named for

Wallis Annenberg Wallis Huberta Annenberg (born July 15, 1939) is an American philanthropist and heiress. Annenberg serves as president and chairwoman of the Board of The Annenberg Foundation, a multibillion-dollar philanthropic organization in the United States ...

started serving all faculty and students. The Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry at the University of Southern California was established in 1897 as The College of Dentistry, and today, awards undergraduate and graduate degrees. Headed by Dean Avishai Sadan, the school traditionally has maintained five Divisions: Academic Affairs & Student Life, Clinical Affairs, Continuing Education, Research, and Community Health Programs and Hospital Affairs. In 2006, the USC Department of Physical Therapy and Biokinesiology, and the USC Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, which both had previously been organized as "Independent Health Professions" programs at the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, were administratively aligned under the School of Dentistry and renamed "Divisions," bringing the total number of Divisions at the School of Dentistry to seven. In 2010, alumnus Herman Ostrow donated $35 million to name the school the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry. In 2013, the school introduced an eighth division, and in 2014, a $20 million gift endowed and named the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. USC collaborated with

Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) is a public university in Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 98 ...

to offer the USC Executive MBA program in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

. USC Dornsife also operates two international study centers in Paris and Madrid. The

Marshall School of Business The USC Marshall School of Business is the business school of the University of Southern California. It is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In 1997 the school was renamed following a $35 million donation fr ...

has satellite campuses in Orange County and

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

. In 2012, USC established the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, the university's first new school in forty years, which was a gift from philanthropist

Glorya Kaufman Glorya Kaufman is an American philanthropist. Early life Glorya (Pinkis) Kaufman was born to a Jewish family in Detroit, Michigan during the Great Depression.

. The USC Kaufman School offers individual classes in technique, performance, choreography, production, theory and history open to all students at USC. In the fall of 2015, the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance began to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree to a select number of undergraduates who wish to pursue dance as their major. This four-year professional degree is housed in the state-of-the-art Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center. In 2015, USC established the Bovard College, which offers graduate-level programs in Human Resource Management, Project Management, and Criminal Justice. The college is named after Emma Bovard, who was one of the first students to enroll at USC in 1880.

University library system

The USC Libraries are among the oldest private academic research libraries in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. For more than a century USC has been building collections in support of the university's teaching and research interests. Especially noteworthy collections include

American literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the British colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also ...

, Cinema-Television including the

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

studio archives, European

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

gerontology Gerontology ( ) is the study of the social, culture, cultural, psychology, psychological, cognitive, and biology, biological aspects of aging. The word was coined by Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov in 1903, from the Ancient Greek, Greek ('), meaning "o ...

, German exile literature,

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

Korean studies Korean studies is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of Korea, which includes South Korea, North Korea, and diasporic Korean populations. Areas commonly included under this rubric include Korean history, Korean culture, Korea ...

, studies of Latin America,

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

history, and the University Archives. The USC Warner Bros. Archives is the largest single studio collection in the world. Donated in 1977 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts by Warner Communications, the WBA houses departmental records that detail Warner Bros. activities from the studio's first major feature, ''My Four Years in Germany'' (1918), to its sale to Seven Arts in 1968. Announced in June 2006, the testimony of 52,000 survivors, rescuers, and others involved in

The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

is housed in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences as a part of the

USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education The USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the ...

. In addition to the Shoah Foundation, the USC Libraries digital collection highlights include photographs from the California Historical Society, Korean American Archives Automobile Club of Southern California, and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California. The USC Digital Library provides a wealth of primary and original source material in a variety of formats. In October 2010, the collections at

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and one of the largest repositories of LGBTQ materi ...

, the largest repository for documents from the

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

community in the world, became a part of the USC Libraries system. The collections at ONE include over two million archival items documenting LGBT history including periodicals; books; film, video and audio recordings; photographs; artworks; ephemera, such clothing, costumes, and buttons; organizational records; and personal paper. USC's 22 libraries and other archives hold nearly 4 million printed volumes, 6 million items in

microform A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

, and 3 million

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and pra ...

and subscribe to more than 30,000 current serial titles, nearly of manuscripts and archives, and subscribe to over 120 electronic databases and more than 14,000 journals in print and electronic formats. Annually, reference transactions number close to 50,000 and approximately 1,100 instructional presentations are made to 16,000 participants. The University of Southern California Library system is among the top 35 largest university library systems in the United States. The Leavey Library is the undergraduate library and is open 24 hours a day. The newly open basement has many discussion tables for students to share thoughts and have group discussions. The Edward L. Doheny, Jr. Memorial Library is the main research library on campus.

Rankings and reputation

USC was ranked 27th in '' U.S. News & World Reports 2025 annual ranking of national universities. In the ''

Niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development and growth *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ec ...

'' Best Colleges rankings, USC ranked 19th overall for 2020 based on academics and quality of student life. USC is ranked 32nd among national universities in the U.S. and 55th in the world by the ''

Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi ...

'', and 13th (tied with seven other universities) among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance.

Student body

USC has a total enrollment of roughly 47,500 students, of which 20,000 are at the undergraduate and 27,500 at the graduate and professional levels. Approximately 53% of students are female and 47% are male. For the entering first-year class in 2020, 43% of incoming students are drawn from California, 42% from the rest of the United States, and 15% from abroad. In the academic year 2014–2015, USC's student body encompasses 12,300 international students, the second most out of all universities in the United States. Of the regularly enrolled international students, the most represented countries/regions are China (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan not included), India, South Korea, and Taiwan, in that order. Like other private universities, the nominal cost of attendance is high; however, the university's large endowment and significant revenue streams allow it to offer generous financial aid packages. USC also offer some very competitive and highly valued merit-based scholarships (the full-tuition, four-year Mork Family, Stamps and Trustee scholarships; the half-tuition Presidential Scholarship; the one-quarter tuition Deans Scholarship), with only 5.5% of scholarship applicants being selected as finalists for the final interview invitation at the USC campus in spring. This makes USC one of the highest-ranked universities to offer half-tuition and full-tuition merit-based scholarships. These factors have propelled USC into being the 4th most economically diverse university in the nation. USC enrolls one of the highest number of National Merit Scholars of any university, offering finalists in the program its half-tuition Presidential Scholarship. As of 2021, about 72% of the student body receives about $810 million in financial aid annually. Twenty percent of admitted and attending students are SCions, or students with familial ties to USC, while 14 percent are the first generation in their family to attend any form of college. Twenty-four percent of undergraduates at USC are Pell Grant-eligible, which is defined by having come from a family household income of less than $50,000. There are over 375,000 living Trojan alumni. The USC-MSA reference is a numbering system developed by the

Muslim Students' Association The Muslim Students Association, or Muslim Student Union, of the U.S. and Canada, also known as MSA National, is a religious organization dedicated to establishing and maintaining Islamic societies on college campuses in Canada and the United Sta ...

of the University of Southern California to access their database of the

six major Hadith collections (), also known as () are the six canonical hadith collections of Sunni Islam. They were all compiled in the 9th and early 10th centuries, roughly from 840 to 912 CE and are thought to embody the Sunnah of Muhammad. The books are the of al ...

. Although the project currently parked, the referencing remains widely used throughout the Internet.

Undergraduate admissions

USC is ranked by ''U.S. News & World Report'' as "Most Selective," and ''Princeton Review'' rates its admissions selectivity of 98 out of 99. Over 70,000 students applied for admission to the undergraduate class entering in 2021, with 12% being admitted. Among enrolled freshman for Fall 2019, the interquartile (middle 50%) range of

SAT The SAT ( ) is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. Since its debut in 1926, its name and Test score, scoring have changed several times. For much of its history, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test ...

scores was 670–740 for evidence-based reading and writing, 680–790 for math, and 1370–1520 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 28–34 for math, 32–35 for English, and 31–34 for the composite. USC was ranked the 10th most applied to university in the nation for fall 2014 by ''U.S. News & World Report''. Admission is

need-blind Need-blind admission in the United States refers to a college admission policy that does not take into account an applicant's financial status when deciding whether to accept them. This approach typically results in a higher percentage of accepted ...

for domestic applicants.

Faculty and research

The university is

classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper * The Classified, a 1980s American ro ...

among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, USC spent $891 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 23rd in the nation. USC employs approximately 4,706 full-time faculty, 1,816 part-time faculty, 16,614 staff members, and 4,817 student workers. 350 postdoctoral fellows are supported along with over 800 medical residents. Among the USC faculty, 17 are members of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

, 16 are members of the

National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), known as the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineerin ...

, 37 are members of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

, 97 are members of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, and 34 are members of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, 5 to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

, and 14 to the National Academy of Public Administration. 29 USC faculty are listed as among the "Highly Cited" in the

Institute for Scientific Information The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis, ...

database.

George Olah George Andrew Olah (born Oláh András György; May 22, 1927 – March 8, 2017) was a Hungarian-American chemist. His research involved the generation and reactivity of carbocations via superacids. For this research, Olah was awarded a Nobel ...

won the 1994

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

and was the founding director of the

Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute is on the campus of the University of Southern California. G. K. Surya Prakash serves as the Director and holds the George A. and Judith A. Olah Nobel Laureate Chair of Chemistry. The institute conducts resea ...

Leonard Adleman Leonard Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002 Turing Award. He is also known for the creation of the field of DNA computin ...

won the

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...

in 2003.

Arieh Warshel Arieh Warshel (; born November 20, 1940) is an Israeli-American biochemist and biophysicist. He is a pioneer in computational studies on functional properties of biomolecule, biological molecules, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Bioche ...

won the 2013

. The university also supports the

Pacific Council on International Policy The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

through joint programming, leadership collaboration, and facilitated connections among students, faculty, and Pacific Council members. The university has two

–funded Engineering Research Centers: the Integrated Media Systems Center and the

Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems Center for Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems is on the campus of the University of Southern California. The Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems (BMES) vision is realized first by identifying the unmet medical needs in the 3 testbeds of blindnes ...

. The

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

selected USC as its first Homeland Security Center of Excellence. Since 1991, USC has been the headquarters of the

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party * National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political g ...

and

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

funded

Southern California Earthquake Center The Statewide California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is a collaboration of more than 1,000 scientists across 100 research institutions focused primarily on conducting research on earthquakes in Southern California and elsewhere by gathering data, c ...

(SCEC). The University of Southern California is a founding and charter member of CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the nonprofit organization, which provides extremely high-performance Internet-based networking to California's K-20 research and education community. USC researcher

Jonathan Postel Jonathan Bruce Postel (; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards. He is known principally for bein ...

was an editor of communications-protocol for the fledgling internet, also known as

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...

, for which USC was one of the earliest nodes. In July 2016, USC became home to the world's most powerful

quantum computer A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using specialized hardware. ...

, housed in a super-cooled, magnetically shielded facility at the USC

, the only other commercially available quantum computing system operated jointly by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. Notable USC faculty include or have included the following:

Richard Bellman Richard Ernest Bellman (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, who introduced dynamic programming in 1953, and made important contributions in other fields of mathematics, such as biomathematics. He foun ...

Aimee Bender Aimee Bender (born June 28, 1969) is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal stories and characters. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Biography Born to a American Jews, Jewish family, Bender received her un ...

Barry Boehm Barry William Boehm (May 16, 1935 – August 20, 2022) was an American software engineer, distinguished professor of computer science, industrial and systems engineering; the TRW Professor of Software Engineering; and founding director of the Cen ...

Warren Bennis Warren Gamaliel Bennis (March 8, 1925 – July 31, 2014) was an American scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies.Todd Boyd Todd Boyd, aka "Notorious Ph.D.", is the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race & Popular Culture and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Boyd is a media commentator, author, produce ...

, T.C. Boyle, Leo Buscaglia, Drew Casper,

Manuel Castells Manuel Castells Oliván (; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled '' The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture''. He is a scholar of the information society, c ...

Erwin Chemerinsky Erwin Chemerinsky (born May 14, 1953) is an American legal scholar known for his studies of U.S. constitutional law and federal civil procedure. Since 2017, Chemerinsky has been the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. Previously, he was th ...

, George V. Chilingar, Thomas Crow, António Damásio,

Francis De Erdely Francis de Erdely ( Hungarian: Erdélyi Ferenc) (May 3, 1904 – November 28, 1959) was a Hungarian-American artist who was renowned in Europe and the United States for his powerful figure paintings and drawings as well as for his teaching abilit ...

Percival Everett Percival Leonard Everett II (born December 22, 1956) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Distinguished professor, Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologicall ...

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...

Seymour Ginsburg Seymour Ginsburg (December 12, 1927 – December 5, 2004) was an American pioneer of Automaton, automata theory, formal language theory, and database theory, in particular; and computer science, in general. His work was influential in distingui ...

, G. Thomas Goodnight,

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, Primatology, primatologist and Anthropology, anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremo ...

, Solomon Golomb,

Midori Goto , who performs under the mononym Midori, is a Japanese-born American violinist. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year's Eve Gala in 1982. In 1986 her performance at the Tanglewood ...

Susan Estrich Susan Estrich (born December 16, 1952) is an American lawyer, professor, author, political operative, and political commentator. She is known for serving as the campaign manager for Michael Dukakis in 1988 (being the first woman to manage the pre ...

Janet Fitch Janet Fitch (born November 9, 1955) is an American author. She wrote the novel '' White Oleander'', which became a film in 2002. She is a graduate of Reed College. Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native, and grew up in a fam ...

Tomlinson Holman Tomlinson Miles Holman IIVideo Interviews with Tomlinson Holman* Living people American acoustical engineers USC School of Cinematic Arts faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Academy Award for Technical Achievement winner ...

Jascha Heifetz Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-American violinist, widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time. Born in Vilnius, he was soon recognized as a child prodigy and was trained in the Russian classical violin styl ...

Henry Jenkins Henry Guy Jenkins III (born June 4, 1958) is an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communicatio ...

Thomas H. Jordan Thomas H. Jordan is an American seismologist, and former director (2002–2017) of the Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California. He was formerly the head of the Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences D ...

Mark Kac Mark Kac ( ; Polish: ''Marek Kac''; August 3, 1914 – October 26, 1984) was a Polish-American mathematician. His main interest was probability theory. His question, " Can one hear the shape of a drum?" set off research into spectral theory, th ...

, Neil Leach,

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

, Daniel L. McFadden,

Viet Thanh Nguyen Viet Thanh Nguyen (; born March 13, 1971) is a South Vietnamese-born American professor and novelist. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California ...

Scott Page Scott Page is an American musician, technologist and entrepreneur known for his saxophone and rhythm guitar work with Pink Floyd, Supertramp and Toto. Career Page worked on and led Walt Tucker Productions, an audio-video post-production comp ...

Tim Page (music critic) Tim Page (born ''Ellis Batten Page Jr.''; 11 October 1954) is an American writer, music critic, editor, producer and professor who won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his music criticism for ''The Washington Post''. Anthony Tommasini, the chief music ...

Simon Ramo Simon "Si" Ramo (May 7, 1913 – June 27, 2016) was an American engineer, businessman, and author. He led development of microwave and missile technology and is sometimes known as the father of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). He ...

Claudia Rankine Claudia Rankine (; born September 4, 1963) is a Jamaican-American poet, essayist, playwright, and the editor of several anthologies. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays. Her book of poetry, '' Citizen: An A ...

, Irving Reed, Jacob Soll,

Michael Waterman Michael Spencer Waterman (born June 28, 1942) is a Professor of Biology, Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC), where he holds an Endowed Associates Chair in Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Computer S ...

, Lloyd Welch, Jonathan Taplin,

Diane Winston Diane Winston is an American professor of Media and Religion at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and an author. USC lists her current research interests as media coverage of Islam, ...

, and Gabriel Zada. In February 2023, USC Graduate Student Workers voted 93% to unionize with the

United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...

, becoming the first academic worker union at a private university in Los Angeles. Workers voted to form a union by a vote of 1,599–122. The union campaign of over 3,000 research assistants, teaching assistants, and assistant lecturers garnered support from numerous California elected officials, including United States senator

Alex Padilla Alejandro Padilla (born March 22, 1973) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from California, a seat he has held since 2021. A member of the Democrati ...

and Los Angeles City Councilman

Hugo Soto-Martinez Hugo Soto-Martinez is an American labor organizer and politician, currently serving as a member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 13th district since 2022. A member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, Soto-Mar ...

Athletics

The USC Trojans participate in the

NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). As ...

(FBS) as part of the

. USC student athletes have won 123 total team national championships, 97 for men and 26 for women, including non-NCAA championships. Of this total, 80 and 14 are NCAA national championships for men and women, respectively. The NCAA does not include

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

championships in its calculation. Although there are multiple organizations that name national champions, USC claims 11 football championships. The men's 361 individual championships are the second-best in the nation and 53 ahead of third place, the

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and ...

. USC's cross-town rival is the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA), with whom there is fierce athletic and scholastic competition. USC's rivalry with Notre Dame predates the UCLA rivalry by three years. The Notre Dame rivalry stems mainly from the annual

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

game played between these two universities and is considered one of the greatest rivalries in college athletics. USC has won 113 NCAA team championships, third most behind Stanford (135) and cross-town rival UCLA (123). The Trojans have also won at least one national team title in 26 consecutive years (1959–1960 to 1984–1985). USC won the National College All-Sports Championship, an annual ranking by ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

'' of the country's top athletic programs, 6 times since its inception in 1971. Four Trojans have won the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in America: diver Sammy Lee (1953), shot putter

Parry O'Brien William Patrick "Parry" O'Brien (January 28, 1932 – April 21, 2007) was an American shot put champion. He competed in four consecutive Summer Olympics where he won two gold medals (1952, 1956) and one silver medal ( 1960). In his last Olympic ...

(1959), swimmer

John Naber John Phillips Naber (born January 20, 1956) is an American former competitive swimmer, five-time Olympic medalist and former world record-holder in multiple events. Born in Evanston, Illinois, Naber studied in England and Italy where his father ...

(1977) and swimmer

Janet Evans Janet Beth Evans (born August 28, 1971) is an American former competition swimmer who swam from 1989 to 1992 for Stanford University and specialized in distance freestyle events. Evans was a world champion and world record-holder, and won a to ...

(1989). From the 1904

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

through the 2014

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held i ...

, 632 Trojan athletes have competed in the Games, taking home 144

gold medals A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

, 93

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

and 72

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

. If it were an independent country, USC would be ranked 13th in the world in 2016 in terms of medals.USC wraps up Olympics with 21 medals, including nine golds
USC News Since 1912, USC is the only university in the world to have a gold medal-winning athlete in every summer Olympiad.

Men's sports

USC vs University of Oregon November 2019

In men's sports, USC has won 97 team national championships (84 NCAA titles) – more than any other school – and male athletes have won a record 303 individual NCAA titles. The Trojans have won 26 championships in

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

, 21 in

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

, 12 in

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

, 9 in

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...

and

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), ...

, 9 in

water polo Water polo is a competitive sport, competitive team sport played in water between two teams of seven players each. The game consists of four quarters in which the teams attempt to score goals by throwing the water polo ball, ball into the oppo ...

, 6 in

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

, 2 in indoor track and field, and 1 in

gymnastics Gymnastics is a group of sport that includes physical exercises requiring Balance (ability), balance, Strength training, strength, Flexibility (anatomy), flexibility, agility, Motor coordination, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movem ...

. USC's men's basketball has appeared in the NCAA tournament 15 times, and made 2 NCAA

Final Four In sports, the final four is the last four teams remaining in a playoffs, playoff tournament. Usually the final four compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final (penultimate) round. Of these teams, the two who win in ...

appearances. The USC football program has historically ranked among the best in Division I FBS. The Trojans football team has won 11 national championships. Eight players have won the

Heisman Trophy The Heisman Memorial Trophy ( ; also known simply as the Heisman) is awarded annually since 1935 to the top player in college football. It is considered the most prestigious award in the sport and is presented by the Heisman Trophy Trust followin ...

. , 537 Trojans have been taken in the

NFL draft The NFL draft, officially known as the Annual Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the most common source of player recruitment in the National Football League. Each team is given a position in the drafting order in reve ...

, making it the school with the most NFL draft picks.

Women's sports

Women's teams have earned 27 national championships. The Women of Troy have brought home 64 individual NCAA crowns. Two women athletes have won the

Honda-Broderick Cup The Honda-Broderick Cup is a sports award for college-level female athletes. The awards are voted on by a national panel of more than 1000 collegiate athletic directors. It was first presented by Tom Broderick, an American owner of a women's sports ...

as the top collegiate woman athlete of the year:

Cheryl Miller Cheryl Deann Miller (born January 3, 1964) is an American former basketball player. She was formerly a sideline reporter for NBA on TNT, NBA games on Turner Sports, TNT Sports and also works for NBA TV as a reporter and analyst, having worked ...

(1983–84) and Angela Williams (2001–02). Trojan women have won 8 Honda Awards, as the top female athlete in their sport. The Women of Troy have won 7 championships in

, 6 in

, 4 in

, 3 in

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

, 2 in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

, 2 in

beach volleyball Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side o ...

, 1 in

and

, 2 in

and 2 in

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

Traditions and student activities

As one of the oldest universities in California, the University of Southern California has a number of traditions. USC's official

fight song A fight song is a rousing short song associated with a sports team. The term is most common in the United States and Canada. In Australia, Mexico, and New Zealand, these songs are called the team anthem, team song, or games song. First associated ...

is " Fight On", which was composed in 1922 by USC dental student Milo Sweet with lyrics by Sweet and Glen Grant.

Rivalries

USC has rivalries with multiple schools. Although generally limited to football, USC has a major rivalry with Notre Dame. The annual game is played for the Jeweled Shillelagh. The rivalry has featured more national championship teams, Heisman trophy winners, All-Americans, and future NFL hall-of-famers than any other collegiate match-up. The two schools have kept the annual game on their schedules since 1926 (except 1942–44 because of World War II travel restrictions and 2020 because of the COVID-19 Pandemic) and the game is often referred to as the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football.John Walters
Does it get any better than this?
, Sports Illustrated, October 13, 2005, Accessed March 24, 2009.Dave Revsine
Michigan, Ohio State set bar high for other rivalries
, ESPN.com, November 24, 2006, Accessed March 24, 2009.
, Sports Illustrated, October 12, 2005, Accessed March 24, 2009.Adam Rose

, LATimes.com, October 20, 2007, Accessed March 24, 2009.
Pacific-10 Conference, November 20, 2006, Accessed March 24, 2009. USC's most famous rival is UCLA with whom there is fierce athletic and scholastic competition. Both universities are in Los Angeles and approximately apart. Both schools were members of the

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level for all sports, and its Co ...

for nearly a century until leaving for the Big Ten in 2024. Until 1982, the two schools also shared the same football stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The victor of the annual football game takes home the Victory Bell. The Trojans and Bruins also compete in a year-long all-sports competition for the Lexus Gauntlet Trophy. Pranks between

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

and USC were commonplace several decades ago. Both universities have cracked down on pranks since a 1989 incident when USC students released hundreds of

crickets Crickets are orthopteran insects which are related to bush crickets and more distantly, to grasshoppers. In older literature, such as Imms,Imms AD, rev. Richards OW & Davies RG (1970) ''A General Textbook of Entomology'' 9th Ed. Methuen 886 ...

into the main UCLA library during finals week. Days before a clash between rivals

and USC in 2009, the Bruins mascot was vandalized. It was splashed in cardinal and gold paint, USC's official colors, sparking memories of pranks played in the years earlier. The week preceding the annual football matchup with UCLA is known as "Troy Week" and features a number of traditions including CONQUEST! "The Ultimate Trojan Experience", Save Tommy Night, the CONQUEST! Bonfire, and all-night vigils by the USC Helenes and

Trojan Knights The Trojan Knights are a student service and spirit organization at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. It is officially dedicated to "Brotherhood, Service, & Spirit" and its members have been recognized by USC as th ...

to protect the campus from

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Big Ten Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF ...

. In addition, USC has rivalries with other former Pac-12 schools, particularly the

Stanford Cardinal The Stanford Cardinal are the college athletics in the United States, athletic teams that represent Stanford University. Stanford's program has won 138 National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA team championships, the List of NCAA schools ...

as they were the only two private universities in the Pac-12 Conference and are situated at opposing regions of California, as well as being the two oldest private research universities in California, 1880 and 1891, respectively. Recently, a rivalry has begun to exist between USC and the University of Oregon because of the two universities' dominant football programs with each school often serving as the toughest match-up on the opponent's schedule.

Mascots

Traveler, a white

Andalusian horse The Andalusian, also known as the Pure Spanish Horse or PRE (Spanish language literally translates to "Spanish pure breed". This name is sometimes capitalized when used in English-language publications, but is all lower-case in Spanish, which ...

, is the university's official mascot. Traveler I first appeared at a football game in 1961 ridden by Richard Saukko. The current horse is known as Traveler IX.

Tommy Trojan ''Tommy Trojan'', officially known as the Trojan Shrine, is one of the most recognizable figures of school pride at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, United States. The life-size bronze statue of a Troy, Trojan wa ...

, officially known as the Trojan Shrine, is a bronze statue in the model of a Trojan warrior at the center of campus. It is commonly mistaken as the school's official mascot. The statue was modeled after Trojan football players and is engraved with the ideal characteristics of a Trojan. It is a popular meeting point for students and a landmark for visitors. In the 1940s,

George Tirebiter George Tirebiter was the nickname initially given to a dog at the University of Southern California in the 1940s who was the unofficial mascot of the school before becoming the official mascot on October 22, 1947. The nickname was passed on to Ge ...

, a car-chasing dog, was the most popular unofficial mascot. It gained fame among students after it bit the mascot of the UCLA Bruins. The dog was kept by the Trojan Knights and was known to chase down cars on Trousdale Parkway, which runs through campus. After the original dog died, three others succeeded it. A statue was built in 2006 to honor the unofficial mascot.

Marching band

The Spirit of Troy is USC's

marching band A marching band is a group of instrumental musicians who play while marching. Historically they were used in armed forces and many marching bands remain military bands. Others are still associated with military units or emulate a military sty ...

and has been featured in at least ten major

movie A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

s and performed in both the

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

and

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the ...

in Los Angeles. They have also performed on television shows and with other musicians. The band performed on the title track of the 1979

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac are a British-American Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1967 by the singer and guitarist Peter Green (musician), Peter Green. Green named the band by combining the surnames of the drummer, Mick Fleetwood, and the bassis ...

album ''

Tusk Tusks are elongated, continuously growing front teeth that protrude well beyond the mouth of certain mammal species. They are most commonly canine tooth, canine teeth, as with Narwhal, narwhals, chevrotains, musk deer, water deer, muntjac, pigs, ...

'', which went on to be a multi-platinum record. The band performed during halftime at

Super Bowl XXI Super Bowl XXI was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...

in 1987 and

Super Bowl XXII Super Bowl XXII was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins and American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for th ...

in 1988. In 1990, the band performed live on ''

America's Funniest Home Videos ''America's Funniest Home Videos'', also called ''America's Funniest Videos'' (abbreviated as ''AFV''), is an American video clip television series on ABC, based on a recurring segment on the Japanese variety show '' Fun TV with Kato-chan and ...

''. Additionally, the band later played on another multi-platinum Fleetwood Mac album, '' The Dance'' (1997)."The Dance", Fleetwood Mac
, RIAA Gold and Platinum Database. The Spirit of Troy is the only collegiate band to have two platinum records.Ashley Christensen
Not your average marching band
, ''Daily Trojan'', August 18, 2004.
, TMB SpiritNotes, Accessed May 11, 2009. In recent years, the band has appeared at the

2009 Grammy Awards The 51st Annual Grammy Awards took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, on February 8, 2009, honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2007, through September 30, 2008. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss were the ...

, accompanying

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...

; on the 2009 Academy Awards with

Beyoncé Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter ( ; born September 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. With a career spanning over three decades, she has established herself as one of the most Cultural impact of Beyoncé, ...

and

Hugh Jackman Hugh Michael Jackman (born 12 October 1968) is an Australian and British actor, singer, and producer. Beginning in theatre and television, Jackman landed his breakthrough role as Wolverine in the ''X-Men'' film franchise and the Marvel Cinem ...

; and during the finale of ''

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American Music competition, singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle (company), Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It a ...

'' 2008, backing

Renaldo Lapuz Renaldo (Reynaldo) Lapuz (born December 18, 1962) is a Filipino-American who auditioned on the seventh season of the television series ''American Idol'', singing the self-written song "We're Brothers Forever". Biography Lapuz is a native of ...

in instrumentation of his original song, "We're Brothers Forever".Geoff Bucher
Grammy rehearsals with Radiohead: 'There's a surreality to it all'
, latimes.com, February 7, 2009.Adam Rose

, latimes.com, February 26, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2009.Adam Rose

, latimes.com, May 21, 2008. Retrieved June 16, 2008. In 2009, the band played on the show ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Strictly Come Dancing (widely known as Dancing with the Stars)'' is an international television franchise based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing,'' itself a successor to the show ''Come Dancing'' (1950–1998) ...

''.Linda Holmes
Another celebrity exits 'Dancing With the Stars'
, msnbc.com, September 29, 2009. Retrieved September 29, 2009. The USC band was only one of two American groups invited to march in the Hong Kong

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival (see also #Names, § Names), is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of the most important holi ...

parade in 2003 and 2004. The Trojan Marching Band performed at the 2005 World Expo in

Nagoya, Japan is the largest city in the Chūbu region of Japan. It is the list of cities in Japan, fourth-most populous city in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020, and the principal city of the Chūkyō metropolitan area, which is the List of ...

. In May 2006, the Trojan Marching Band traveled to Italy, performing once in Florence, and twice in Rome (including in front of the Coliseum). The band has also, for many years, performed the

1812 Overture ''The Year 1812, Solemn Overture'', Op. 49, popularly known as the ''1812 Overture'', is a concert overture in E major written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece commemorates Russia's successful defense against the ...

with the

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. The orchestra holds a regular concert season from October until June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from ...

(or occasionally with other orchestras) each year at the

Hollywood Bowl The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre and Urban park, public park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in the United States by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018 and was listed on ...

"Tchaikovsky Spectacular."Lynne Heffley, "In 'Tchaikovsky Spectacular,' L.A. Phil is with the band", ''Los Angeles Times'', August 27, 2007. Retrieved August 27, 2007.

Spirit groups

Song Girls

Founded in 1967, the USC Song Girls appear at football, basketball, and volleyball games as well as other sporting events, rallies, and university and alumni functions. The squad also performs internationally. The squad has traveled to

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, most recently having traveled to

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, Italy to perform at the 2015 World Expo on America's Independence Day. Unlike other college cheer teams, Song Girls are primarily a dance squad and do not perform gymnastics, stunts, or lead cheers. The Song Girls perform to the music of and often appear with The Spirit of Troy. Together with the Trojan Marching Band, they are a visible public face of the university and function as the ambassadors of spirit and goodwill for the Trojan Family.

Yell Leaders

Lindley Bothwell founded the USC Yell Leading Squad in 1919 in his first year as a student at USC. He felt that together, with a few friends, he could aid in "firing up" the crowd during football games. The USC Yell Leaders worked closely with The Spirit of Troy and the Song Girls to lead cheers and perform stunts to rally Trojan fans at football, basketball, and volleyball games. The sweater-clad team consisted of all men for most of its existence, though the squad later opened itself up to applicants from both sexes and did feature one female Yell Leader in 1998. They were disbanded by the university after the 2005–06 season and replaced by the co-ed Spirit Leaders.

Spirit Leaders

The USC Spirit Leaders are responsible for leading stadium wide chants and increasing crowd participation at all Trojan athletic events, including football and basketball games.

Student media

The ''

Daily Trojan The ''Daily Trojan'', or "DT," is the student newspaper of the University of Southern California. The newspaper is a forum for student expression and is written, edited, and managed by university students. The paper is intended to inform USC stu ...

'' has been the student newspaper of USC since 1912 and is a primary source of news and information for the campus. It secured the first interview of President

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until Resignation of Richard Nixon, his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican ...

after his resignation. The publication does not receive financial aid from the university and instead runs entirely on advertisement revenue. Published from Monday to Friday during the fall and spring semesters, the newspaper turns into the Summer Trojan during the summer term and publishes once a week. It is the paper of record on campus.

KXSC (FM) KXSC (104.9 FM broadcasting, FM) is a radio station based in Sunnyvale, California, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned by the University of Southern California and airs a classical music format as a full-time simulcast of KDFC in ...

is a University of Southern California-owned,

public radio station Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...

based in

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real (California), El Camino Real and U.S. Route 101 in California, Highway 1 ...

, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. KXSC-AM, previously known as KSCR, is the university's student-run station, which is managed entirely by an unpaid staff of nearly 200 undergraduate and graduate volunteers. The station gives students hands-on experience in a variety of music industry and broadcast-related positions, including live event promotion, social media management, radio production, and

audio engineering Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound * Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of soun ...

. Besides providing nearly 24 hours of daily live programming, the station also hosts live events, bringing local and touring bands to campus. The station's annual KXSC Fest, which began in 2009, has played host to performers such as

Nosaj Thing Jason W. Chung (born January 27, 1985), better known as Nosaj Thing, is an American artist, record producer, and DJ based in Los Angeles, California. He has produced tracks for Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Kid Cudi, Tinashe, Toro Y Moi, se ...

Muna (band) Muna (stylized as MUNA; ) is an American indie pop band consisting of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson. They released two studio albums with RCA Records, ''About U'' (2017) and ''Saves the World'' (2019), before signing with in ...

, Mika Miko,

Dan Deacon Daniel Deacon (born August 28, 1981) is an American composer and electronic musician based in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland. Deacon is renowned for his live shows, where large-scale audience participation and interaction is often a major elemen ...

Thee Oh Sees Osees is an American rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1997, now based in Los Angeles, California. Originally the solo recording project of John Dwyer, the band has evolved through numerous line-up and name changes since its foun ...

, and

Flying Lotus Steven Ellison (born October 7, 1983), better known as Flying Lotus or sometimes FlyLo, is an American record producer, DJ, filmmaker, and rapper. He has released seven critically acclaimed albums: ''1983'' (2006), ''Los Angeles'' (2008), '' Co ...

. KXSC traces its roots to the original

KUSC KUSC (91.5 FM broadcasting, FM; "Classical California™ KUSC") is a listener-supported european classical music, classical music radio station broadcasting from downtown Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States. KUSC is owned and ope ...

, which was operated by students starting in 1946. When KUSC transitioned to classical programming and moved off-campus in the mid-1970s, a group of students interested in having a student-run radio station founded KSCR in 1975. KSCR was broadcast at 1560AM out of a student in the Hancock Foundation Building. In 1984, the university authorized a grant to move KSCR to a new location in Marks Hall. In 2010, KSCR adopted the call letters KXSC in order to be eligible to obtain a new FM license from the FCC, as well as to mark the station's move to a brand-new facility in the basement of the Ronald Tutor Campus Center. '' Trojan Vision'' (often abbreviated as ''TV8'') is the

student television station A student television station is a television station run by university, high or middle school students that primarily airs school/university news and in many cases, student-produced soap operas, entertainment shows, and other programming. At the h ...

at USC. TV8 was established in 1997 by the Annenberg School for Communication, but it is now a part of the School of Cinematic Arts. Trojan Vision broadcasts 24/7 from the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts to the University Park Campus on Channel 8.1 and online through their website. Programming is also made available to the greater Los Angeles community on local channel LA36. In addition to a selection of regularly airing shows of many genres, Trojan Vision also broadcasts the shows ''Platforum'', a round-table debate show; ''

Annenberg TV News The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

'', a

news program News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either video production, produced local programming ...

; and ''CU@USC'', an interview program. ''El Rodeo'' is USC's student-run

yearbook A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a type of Annual publication, a book published annually. One use is to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school. The term also refers to a book of statistics or facts published annually ...

. One of the oldest student traditions at the university, the yearbook's first edition was released in 1889 and was originally called ''The Sybil''. The name was changed to ''El Rodeo'' in 1899 to reflect the cowboy-themed events students threw to advertise the yearbook as a "roundup" of the year's events. It was long packaged with the Student Activity Card, which gave students access to all home sports games. Since the card was dissolved in 2007, the yearbook has been sold as a stand-alone item.

Fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities In North America, fraternities and sororities ( and ) are social clubs at colleges and universities. They are sometimes collectively referred to as Greek life or Greek-letter organizations, as well as collegiate fraternities or collegiate sorori ...

have had a long history on the campus. Centered on a portion of West 28th Street known as "The Row", between

Figueroa Street Figueroa Street is a major north-south street in Los Angeles County, California, spanning from the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington, Los Angeles, Wilmington north to Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, Eagle Rock. A short, unconnected continuation of ...

and Hoover Street just north of campus, USC's Greek system began soon after the school's founding when

Kappa Alpha Theta Kappa Alpha Theta (), commonly referred to simply as Theta, is an international Fraternities and sororities, sorority founded on January 27, 1870, at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. It was the first Greek-letter fraternity established ...

founded a chapter in 1887. Today, the university sponsors four fraternities and ten sororities in the Interfraternity Conference (IFC) and Panhellenic Conference (PHC), respectively. In 2022, eleven fraternities disaffiliated from the university to form the University Park Interfraternity Council (UPIFC). Outside the Panhellenic and Interfraternity conferences, the Greek community at USC is very diverse, boasting the Multicultural, Asian, Inter-Fraternity (composed of professional fraternities), and the National Pan-Hellenic (historically Black) Councils. Organizations governed by these councils include chapters of some of the oldest Latino and Black Greek organizations in the country, while also including established professional business, engineering, and pre-law fraternities, and other multiculturally based groups.

Controversies

Title IX violations

In the mid-2010s, USC was embroiled in numerous controversies and scandals. On May 1, 2014, USC was named as one of many higher-education institutions under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights for potential

Title IX Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receiv ...

violations by

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault was formed on January 22, 2014, after President Barack Obama directed the Office of the Vice President of the United States and the White House Council on Women and Girls to " ...

. USC is also under a concurrent Title IX investigation for potential anti-male bias in disciplinary proceedings, as well as denial of counseling resources to male students. In 2018, USC was ordered to pay $111,965 in legal fees to a male student accused of rape after the Title IX investigation run by Gretchen Means Gaspari was deemed unfair. In 2020, USC was penalized for its faulty Title IX processes by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

George Tyndall

The following year, the ''Los Angeles Times'' broke another story about USC focusing on

George Tyndall George Tyndall (1946 or 1947 – October 4, 2023) was an American Gynaecology, gynecologist. In 2019 he was under investigation in the Los Angeles Police Department's largest investigation of sexual abuse by a single perpetrator. Early life ...

, a gynecologist accused of abusing 52 patients at USC. The reports span from 1990 to 2016, and include using racist and sexual language, conducting exams without gloves, and taking pictures of his patients' genitals. ''

Inside Higher Ed ''Inside Higher Ed'' is an American online publication of news, opinion, resources, events and jobs in the higher education sphere. In 2022, Quad Partners, a private equity firm, sold it to Times Higher Education, itself owned by Inflexion Priv ...

'' noted that "other incidents in which the university is perceived to have failed to act on misconduct by powerful officials" have occurred, when it reported that the university's president, C. L. Max Nikias, was resigning. Tyndall was fired in 2017 after reaching a settlement with the university. By June 1, 2018, 401 people had contacted a special hotline to receive complaints about the doctor. On October 18, nearly 100 women were reported to have filed new lawsuits against the university, bringing the number of accusations up to over 500 current and former students. A series of settlements to the victims totalled to over $1.1 billion, the largest sexual abuse settlement of any university.

Keck School of Medicine

In 2016,

Carmen Puliafito Carmen Anthony Puliafito (born January 5, 1951) is an American ophthalmologist and former academic administrator. From 2007 until March 2016, he was dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. In 2017, the ''Los Angeles Times'' revealed that Pul ...

resigned as dean of the Keck School of Medicine. In 2017, the Los Angeles Times revealed that Puliafito had engaged in parties with young recreational drug users and prostitutes, including at the Keck School's offices, with harm to at least one user. His resignation had occurred shortly after a police investigation of those activities. In 2018, Dennis Kelly resigned as men's health physician at USC after almost twenty years. The following year, he was accused by six male graduate students of inappropriate conduct. By 2020, 49 accusations of misconduct had been made against Kelly, all by gay or bisexual students and former students.

Implication in Varsity Blues scandal

USC was one of several universities involved in the

2019 college admissions bribery scandal Operation Varsity Blues was the code name for the investigation into the 2019 criminal conspiracy scandal to influence undergraduate admissions decisions at several top American universities. United States federal prosecutors made the invest ...

. On March 12, 2019, three coaches and one athletic director were charged with accepting bribes from wealthy families for fraudulently facilitating their children's admission to USC. Among the twelve university personnel charged for their involvement in the scandal nationwide, four were associated with USC. Following its involvement in the admissions scandal, the university was derided by its old nickname: the "University of Spoiled Children", a nickname it had previously worked hard to shed.

Preferential treatment of Qatari royal

A 2020 investigative report by the ''Los Angeles Times'' revealed that USC granted a bachelor's and master's degree to

Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (; born 11 November 1991), known as K.H.K, is a member of the Qatari royal family. Education In 2011, Al Thani began studying at Los Angeles Mission College, a Community colleges in the United States, com ...

, a Qatari royal, while allowing him to avoid rules and procedures that apply to other students. He was accepted to USC as a transfer student from

Los Angeles Mission College Los Angeles Mission College is a public community college in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Los Angeles Community College District and is accredited by the WASC Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. History ...

after his mother,

Moza bint Nasser Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned (; born 8 August 1959) is one of the three consorts of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former emir of Qatar. She is the mother of the current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. She is the co-founder and ch ...

, met USC president Max Nikias in 2012 in Los Angeles, California, at the behest of USC trustee

Tom Barrack Thomas Joseph Barrack Jr. (born April 28, 1947) is an American private equity real estate investor and the founder and executive chairman of Colony Capital, a publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT). Barrack has for decades been a ...

. An adjunct professor said that Al Thani's handlers delivered a final paper in a bag that also contained a

Rolex Rolex () is a Swiss watch brand and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by German businessman Hans Wilsdorf and his eventual brother-in-law Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex ...

watch, which the adjunct returned.

Rankings data

In December 2022, three former students in an online graduate program offered by the Rossier School of Education and administered by educational technology company 2U filed a class action lawsuit for the school's filing faulty data with ''U.S. News & World Report'' in an effort to boost rankings. Rossier removed itself from the rankings in early 2022.

2024 student protests regarding the Gaza War

In April 2024, the USC administration under President Carol Folt was met with widespread criticism following the decision to restrict valedictorian Asna Tabassum from speaking during that year's commencement ceremony. USC cited safety concerns stemming from Tabassum's pro-Palestinian viewpoints. Following several on-campus protests, statements from dozens of human rights organizations and national coverage, USC further restricted all external speakers from speaking at that year's main commencement. The following week, USC became embroiled in additional controversy following a pro-Palestinian protest, beginning at 4:30 A.M. on April 24, 2024, which took place in Alumni Park, a central plaza of campus. The student organizers wrote in a release that, among other demands, the campus occupation would not end until it saw financial transparency of USC’s endowments and investments, an academic boycott of Israel, and protection of free speech. After involved students refused to disperse despite intervention from campus police, the university brought the Los Angeles Police Department in to remove protestors. The situation escalated to involve the complete closure of all campus facilities, the campus itself, and the arrests of 93 protestors. On April 25, 2024, Folt announced that the main stage commencement ceremony in May would not take place. The actions of USC's administration towards student protestors further prompted the withdrawal of two high-profile speakers scheduled to address the USC Rossier School of Education, which was announced in an open letter to the administration on the website

Literary Hub ''Literary Hub'' or ''LitHub'' is a daily literary website that was launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and '' Electric Literatur ...

, as well as to USC officials.

Notable people

USC has graduated more alumni who have gone on to win

Academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

and

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

s than any other institution, largely due to the

School of Cinematic Arts The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of talkies, the school descends from America's first program to confer a college degree in ...

, and has conferred degrees upon 29 living billionaires. USC presently has ten

Nobel Laureates The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

on staff, and its affiliates include eleven

Rhodes Scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...

, twelve

Marshall Scholars The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is considered among the most prestigious scholarsh ...

, six

MacArthur Fellows The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

, 181

Fulbright Scholars The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, and one

winner. Notable alumni also include

Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...

, the first person to walk on the Moon;

Charles Bolden Charles Frank Bolden Jr. (born August 19, 1946) is a former Administrator of NASA, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, and a former astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions. He graduated from the United States Naval ...

, the former director of NASA and a former astronaut;

O. J. Simpson Orenthal James Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024), also known by his nickname "the Juice", was an American professional American football, football player, actor, and media personality who played in the National Football League (NFL) ...

, American football player, actor, and accused murderer;

Byron Allen Byron Allen (born Byron Allen Folks on April 22, 1961) is an American businessman, film and television producer, and comedian. He is the founder of the American media company Allen Media Group (formerly Entertainment Studios), which has intere ...

, founder, chairman and CEO of

Allen Media Group Allen Media Group, alternately known by its former name of Entertainment Studios, Inc. is an American media and entertainment company based in Los Angeles. Owned and founded in 1993 by businessman Byron Allen, the company was initially involved ...

;

Lillian Copeland Lillian Copeland (née Drossin; November 24, 1904 – July 7, 1964) was an American track and field Olympic champion athlete, who excelled in discus, javelin throwing, and shot put, setting multiple world records. She has been called "the most s ...

, Olympic champion in the discus throw;

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman ...

, creator of ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...

'' and ''

Indiana Jones ''Indiana Jones'' is an American media franchise consisting of five films and a prequel television series, along with games, comics, and tie-in novels, that depicts the adventures of Indiana Jones (character), Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, ...

'';

, co-founder of

and inventor of the

Viterbi algorithm The Viterbi algorithm is a dynamic programming algorithm for obtaining the maximum a posteriori probability estimate of the most likely sequence of hidden states—called the Viterbi path—that results in a sequence of observed events. This i ...

;

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

winner

John Wayne Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne, was an American actor. Nicknamed "Duke", he became a Pop icon, popular icon through his starring roles in films which were produced during Hollywood' ...

;

Dexter Holland Bryan Keith "Dexter" Holland (born December 29, 1965) is an American musician, best known as the co-founder, lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, main songwriter and composer, and only constant member of the punk rock band the Offspring. He co-found ...

, co-founder, lead singer and guitarist of

The Offspring The Offspring is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Garden Grove, California, in 1984. Originally formed under the name Manic Subsidal, the band currently consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Dexter Holland, Bryan "Dexter" Holland, ...

, actor and comedian

Will Ferrell John William Ferrell (; born July 16, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is known for his leading man roles in comedy films and for his work as a television producer. Ferrell received various accolades, including ...

;

-winning actor

John Ritter Johnathan Southworth Ritter (September 17, 1948 – September 11, 2003) was an American comedian and actor. He was a son of the singing cowboy star Tex Ritter and the father of actors Jason Ritter, Jason and Tyler Ritter. He is best known for ...

;

-winning architect

; Hall of Fame football player

Ron Mix Ronald Jack Mix (born March 10, 1938) is an American former professional football player who was an offensive tackle. He is a member of the American Football League All-Time Team, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979. M ...

; longtime

Los Angeles Lakers The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division (NBA), Pacific Division of the Western Conference (NBA ...

owners Jerry Buss, as well as his daughter and current Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, Jeanie; recycling symbol designer Gary Anderson (designer), Gary Anderson; entertainer Larry Harmon, better known as his alter ego, Bozo the Clown; former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher; deposed President of Egypt, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi; actress America Ferrera; journalist Julie Chen; former prime minister of Jordan Fayez Tarawneh; Taiwanese actress and singer Michelle Chen; American influencer Jake Shane; and Hwang Dong-hyuk, South Korean director of Netflix's most watched TV show, Squid Game.

In media

Because of USC's proximity to Hollywood, California, Hollywood, close ties between the School of Cinematic Arts and entertainment industry, and the architecture on campus, the university has been used in numerous movies, television series, commercials, and music videos. USC is frequently used by filmmakers, standing in for numerous other universities. According to IMDb, USC's campus has been featured in at least 180 film and television titles. Movies filmed at USC include ''Forrest Gump'', ''Legally Blonde'', ''Road Trip (2000 film), Road Trip'', ''The Girl Next Door (2004 film), The Girl Next Door'', ''Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle'', ''Love & Basketball'', ''Blue Chips'', ''Ghostbusters'', ''Live Free or Die Hard'', ''House Party 2'', ''The Number 23'', ''The Social Network'' and ''The Graduate''. Television series that have used the USC campus include ''Brooklyn Nine-Nine'', ''How to Get Away With Murder'', ''Cold Case (TV series), Cold Case'', ''Entourage (U.S. TV series), Entourage'', ''24 (TV series), 24'', ''The O.C.'', ''Beverly Hills, 90210'', ''Moesha'', ''Saved by the Bell: The College Years'', ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'', ''House (TV series), House M.D.'', ''CSI: NY'', ''Undeclared'', ''The West Wing'', ''Alias (TV series), Alias'', ''The Office (U.S. TV series), The Office'', ''Monk (TV series), Monk'', ''The United States of Tara'', ''Gilmore Girls'', ''Scrubs (TV series), Scrubs'', and ''The Roommate''."USC in film: Television"
, USC Campus Filming Office (accessed January 6, 2013).

Notes

a. The alternative name "Southern Cal" frequently appears in sports-related news articles to distinguish it from the University of South Carolina, who also uses the "USC" acronym. USC discourages use of "Southern Cal" out of concern the name might suggest a foundational association to the University of California, Berkeley (commonly known as "Cal" in the athletics context), even though the two institutions have no affiliation other than their longtime (but not current) Pac-12 membership. For several years, USC's media guides contained the following request: "Note to the media: In editorial references to athletic teams of the University of Southern California, the following are preferred: USC, Southern California, So. California, Troy and Trojans for men's or women's teams, and Women of Troy for women's teams. The use of 'Southern Cal' on licensed apparel and merchandise is limited in scope and necessary to protect federal trademark rights."It's Not 'Southern Cal'
, ''2005 USC Football Media Guide'', USC Athletic Department, p. 3.; For registered trademarks, se
USPTO serial numbers
: 74094678, 73770650, and 73755082. b. Specifically Seoul, South Korea; Hong Kong, China; Jakarta, Indonesia; Taipei, Republic of China; Mexico City; and Tokyo, Japan
USC International Offices
c. The NCAA does not conduct a championship for Football Bowl Subdivision football. d. The precise colors can be found on th
USC Graphic Identity Program website
the correct Pantone color for USC Cardinal is PMS 201C and USC Gold is PMS 123C.

References

External links

*
USC Athletics website
* * {{authority control University of Southern California, Universities and colleges in Los Angeles Private universities and colleges in California Articles containing video clips Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Olympic International Broadcast Centres Venues of the 1984 Summer Olympics Venues of the 2028 Summer Olympics Universities and colleges established in 1880 1880 establishments in California University Park, Los Angeles Need-blind educational institutions

History

Founding and early history

USC in the 20th century

Campus

University Village

Health Sciences campus

Public transit

Former agricultural college campus

Organization and administration

Student government

List of university presidents

Department of Public Safety

Academics

University library system

Rankings and reputation

Student body

Undergraduate admissions

Faculty and research

Athletics

Men's sports

Women's sports

Traditions and student activities

Rivalries

Mascots

Marching band

Spirit groups

Song Girls

Yell Leaders

Spirit Leaders

Student media

Fraternities and sororities

Controversies

Title IX violations

George Tyndall

Keck School of Medicine

Implication in Varsity Blues scandal

Preferential treatment of Qatari royal

Rankings data

2024 student protests regarding the Gaza War

Notable people

In media

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links