This is no Ivy-League institution with frequent Nobel Prize winners and United States presidents. But we're also not a community college.
So when USC officials happily announced to anyone that would listen that USC accepts every South Carolina student with a 3.0 GPA and a 1,000 SAT score, we were appalled. At first, we thought the numbers must be wrong. They weren't.
There's a reason for the announcement. The Legislature is considering a cap on out-of-state students, and USC administrators are begging them not to do so. Making this statement far and wide hopefully convinces the Legislature our flagship university is educating its own.
But it convinces others USC isn't nearly as prestigious as the Honors College statistics and Innovista research would lead you to believe. It convinces talented out-of-state students that almost anyone from South Carolina is eligible at USC. Heck, the average SAT score in South Carolina is more than 1,000.
And it makes it a little clearer why dorms at USC overflowed last year and students were forced to cram in study rooms and share residences with upperclassmen designed to mentor them.
The university has taken pride in recruiting smarter and more talented students each year, but now that these requirements are common knowledge, will the quality of students still continue to increase?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Luanne Lawrence, USC's vice president for communications, happily posted the in-state admissions criteria on Twitter earlier this year.
"Just deconstructing the myth," she wrote.
We don't agree, USC.
We think you're deconstructing the quality of this institution.