Calling All Fall 2011 USC Marshall Applicants!

I went to USC for a (not business) graduate degree. My guess is that there will be some internationals who take advantage of USC graduate housing (which is either on or very near campus), but the vast majority of students will not. Some will make the mistake of living around USC, but it's expensive for what it is, and it is not nice at all. It's definitely not the safest area. You're unlikely to get shot or anything, but you'll never feel safe walking home at night or anything.

Many people will live Downtown, which is a super quick drive unless it's afternoon rush hour. For some reason, morning rush hour is no problem to get to USC from downtown, but afternoon going from USC to Downtown is a bit slower. Downtown has some nice, fancy places, but they're usually very expensive. Many of the areas have not fully developed so if you like to walk to places to eat, etc. you'll need to check the area carefully.

You'll find a lot of people living west hollywood, century city and westward to the beaches. These vary a lot in terms of price and comfort.

Some people will likely live in the valley and pasadena. These probably win in terms of how nice your apartment will be for how much money you're spending, but you'll likely be away and isolated from most of your classmates. Depending on the time of day, your drive to school probably won't be any longer than those on the westside, though.

Public transportation is not very easy, depending on where you live, actually. That may change in your time there as they're building a new train line that stops right next to the business school, but I suspect it won't be done yet. The only people I knew who used public transportation did so because they didn't have cars and couldn't get a ride from someone else that day.

By the way, I highly recommend using Westside rentals to find an apartment. It costs a little bit, but it is completely and totally worth it. You'll find better apartments than craigslist because landlords like to rent to westside rentals people. The service makes it way easier to find apartments in a very specific location with specific amenities, and the listings are huge.

I hope this helps!