Preparing for USC

During orientation, you will meet other future Trojans. You all will be assigned the same AUP academic advisor who is familiar with USC requirements and can assist with your planning.

Admission to USC requires a high level of success, in courses likely to be more rigorous than you have experienced in high school. Successfully completing this plan demands hard work and focus, and not all will be successful. To learn what USC expects from transfer applicants, please visit the USC Transfer Student page.

During your year at AUP you will choose courses across a wide range of subjects. Your AUP courses fulfill USC requirements. For example, taking four 4-credit courses each semester at AUP will earn 32 transferable semester credits that convey to USC. Below you will find more specific details on USC transfer requirements. You will enroll in four 4-credit courses in each of both semesters during your first year at The American University of Paris, earning 32 semester credits. 

USC endorses the AUP courses you will be offered, so you are assured that your AUP credits will transfer and fulfill equivalent coursework in the USC Core Curriculum (writing, math, diversity and foreign language); General Education Curriculum (Humanistic Inquiry, Social Analysis, Quantitative Reasoning etc.); and possibly even some lower-division introductory coursework depending on your intended major at USC.

To fulfill USC’s core writing requirement, you will successfully complete EN2020 Writing & Criticism course at AUP.  Apart from this, AUP offers a large selection of courses that will fulfill USC transfer recommendations. - you may choose the unique opportunity to explore several courses that incorporate Paris, France or Europe into the curriculum across a wide range of disciplines: history, political science, business, art history, and social sciences for example.  And of course you may choose to build French language skills, as well in any of several other languages at AUP. As a student choosing this pathway, you will complete AUP’s online course pre-registration during the summer prior to arrival. AUP will contact you about this process during May and June. During orientation at AUP, you will meet with an AUP advisor familiar with your transfer path to USC so that your first few days at AUP are as straightforward as possible.