Contributing to the School’s excellent reputation is its outstanding student body.  USC architecture students are creative, articulate, motivated, and curious. The diversity of their interests and wide-ranging backgrounds enriches the collective educational experience.  Women represent 50% of the student body, while 21% of the students are from under represented groups. Students come from throughout the country (approximately 40% are from other states) and around the world (11% are from abroad).  Each semester the faculty present a range of issues through design studios that challenge students to think about how architecture responds to their own cultural and geographical circumstances as well as those of others.

Quality
More than a quarter of the entering class are USC eligible merit scholars.  Scholars receive substantial scholarship assistance based on their past academic records.    Many undergraduates pursue advanced degrees in a variety of prestigious graduate programs including Masters and Ph.D. programs at Harvard, MIT, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Yale and USC.

Graduate Students
Graduate students pursuing advanced degrees constitute an important and valuable resource for the School.  They represent dozens of countries, bringing unique cultural perspectives and a desire to improve urban conditions through design studies.  Graduate students in most programs have an undergraduate degree in architecture, landscape architecture, or building science.  Many have had years of professional practice experience.

Student Organizations
Students serve on various school committees and actively participate in the direction and development of the School. The following lists the organizations that students have participated in over the years.

Alpha Rho Chi (APX), a professional co-ed architecture fraternity
American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS)
Asian American Architects and Engineers (AAA/e)
Association for Women in Architecture (AWA)
Graduate Architecture Student Association
Illuminating Engineers Society (IES)
National Organization of Minority Architects Students (NOMAS)
Student Council (officers elected by the student body)
Tau Sigma Delta Honor Society
USC Architecture Brigades