unlike most universities where education is highly valued, usc is more money focused....meaning USC is more interested in taking your moneys than giving what they promised or the media acclaimed. there is no doubts that USC media related program are the worlds finest....and there is no doubt that their alumni lend hands in jacking up their engineering grad rank so high. please don't let this high rank deceive you. what you saw isn't true. the educational quality is far below sub-standard. i have taken an anlog ic grad course with 150 students? that is totally absurd. most of the professors USC hired aren't even on the faculty roster, they're part timers from the outside and they're not very passionated about teaching most of the time. they're more concerned about their paychecks. while the full time professors are very arrogrants and idiotic, they're full of themselves. impossible to approach or even say hi to them, they love smirf at your face when you ask them for research/teaching assitantship. let's me explain my unconfused friends, that's simply because the university admitted way too many darn students. the engineering grad school alone has over 4000 on campus students and over 2000 part time students. that number is continuously expanding as time goes on from what I understood from their DEN program. if the stat doesn't speaks for itself, I have not idea what elses would. so if you're an ms student trying to get some funding here, forget it ! 99.99% of MS students here got ZERO aids from USC. And USC could careless about them either. However, if you're a phd students....you'll have a little more chances depending on your area of researches. also, don't forget there are a lot of research professors here who likes to form their own ethnical niches. if you're not one of them *people* then good luck to you when you ask them for sponsorships. overall, I would NOT recommend USC to anyone....please consider other schools where that school professors care more about you than your wallet!