Prepare yourselves, dear readers: this is a comprehensive guide on how to answer the USC short answer questions. It’s quite in-depth; so, we hope this will be the only guide you need!

Many of our students ask us how to answer the USC short answer questions. Particularly, they’d ask, “What do they even want us to say?!”

Here’s the short answer (no pun intended): there’s no right way to answer the USC Short Answer Questions. Admissions officers just want to see the unique qualities that prove you’re human.

So, what does this mean?

It means that there is no “secret formula” that will guarantee acceptance. You need to show the qualities that make you, well, you. Additionally, you should answer this creatively. Creativity demonstrates to USC’s admissions officers your depth of thought and dedication to each short answer question no matter how small.”

In fact, based on the work we’ve done with previous students, interesting USC essays significantly increase acceptance rates.

And, funnily enough, during USC’s freshman orientations, they spend a good amount of time reading through accepted students’ short answer questions and complimenting how unique they are!

So, that drives the point home quite well: be unique!

Try to imagine this: universities typically want students attending their schools to be well-rounded, smart, and, well, human. Who is the student universities will want to accept? One who earns high marks and says whatever the school wants to hear? Or one who earns high marks and has a unique form of expression? The first option will probably do fine in USC, earn their degree, and work for someone to be another cog in the socio-economic machine. The second option will both do fine in the school and earn their degree; however, their unique qualities will make them more suitable for the school’s environment, and more likely their unique traits will resonate through their future career.

This is what USC, as well as many other universities, are fighting for. The short answer questions are a fine-tooth comb that helps them determine who the unique candidates with pioneering potential are.

Comparing the average acceptance rate to that of our clients, it is clear that giving your essays and short answer questions a unique twist is important.

This means in these questions you can’t be thinking in the mindset of, “What does USC want to see in my short answer question essays?” Rather, you need to think, “How can I demonstrate myself in a unique manner that shows I am a suitable candidate?”

Okay, so it’s important to show that we’re unique, right? Well, how on earth does one show that they’re a strong candidate as well through their favorite snack?

And the answer to that is… well, it’s hard. You must get creative.

The admissions committee at USC will be analyzing your answers here to some degree. However, they won’t know whether you’ll be a great engineer or business person based on your favorite snack.

Nonetheless, an interesting answer still helps admissions officers differentiate you from the rest. So, answer the question to highlight your unique character.

For instance: let’s say you’re applying as an engineering or computer science major. You choose The Godfather as your favorite movie. Such a movie may show an appreciation for film direction fundamentals in the wake of a hard science field. This adds a level of depth to you that exists beyond your major and future career interests. (effectively adding to the school’s diversity.)

This is how to answer the USC short answer questions. Unique answers demonstrate you can contribute some character or personality trait that is valuable to the school or your discipline.   

Alright, with us so far? Great!

Here’s a summary of how to answer the USC short answer questions

1. Some answers are better than others, so be unique. Don’t just go for the obvious answers.
2. USC gives these short answer questions because they want to differentiate between the robots and unique individuals.
3. Show you’re a great candidate by demonstrating personality traits that USC would find useful for your discipline.

With that said, let’s get more in-depth about each USC prompt.

How to Answer the USC Short Answer Questions

Table of Contents

1. Describe yourself in three words.
2. What is your favorite snack?
3. Best movie of all time:
4. Dream job:
5. If your life had a theme song, what would it be?
6. Dream trip:
7. What TV show will you binge watch next?
8. Which well-known person or fictional character would be your ideal roommate?
9. Favorite book
10. If you could teach a class on any topic, what would it be?

1. Describe yourself in three words.

First Word:
Second Word:
Third Word:

Note: Because this is one of the most important parts of the USC short answer questions (including “dream job”) we would highly suggest speaking to us about your answers to this question prior to submission.

Remember: words are not limited to adjectives. Words like samurai may signify that you are someone of strict discipline, respect for tradition, and an appreciation of the arts such as poetry.

Be careful with the connotations of your words, though. Using words like “Batman” is a creative way to stand out amongst the rest of the applicants, but you’d also be wrestling with the dead-parents bat-outfit shenanigans.

You should also consider that the first, second, and third words may be used together to create one whole phrase.

For instance, we had a previous client use the words, “ready, set, go”, and this described their ferociously competitive nature. The only thing we would say about following this format is that you should use this if you feel that it truly resonates with your character.

The good thing is that this is a very creative way of approaching the admissions process at USC and there is no doubt that you will stand out. The disadvantage, however, is that you will lose the opportunity to have 3 separate words that individually show your character. In the end, it’s up to you to decide how you want to portray yourself.

2. What is your favorite snack?

You’re going to be introducing the reader into your life with this question –as you will with the rest of the questions.

Showing them what your favorite snack is will open up your life to the reader and allow the admissions officers to see a little bit more about you as a person. The answer should be useful in providing a window into your own personal life, and how that may fit with their campus culture.

For instance, one may say their favorite snack is…

1. Dutch Bros coffee during midnight study sessions.
2. Tears of the patriarchy you collected in Mason Jars.
3. Thai Tea –half sugar, half ice, with boba.

These answers are strong because they give a window into what sort of person you are. Here’s an analysis of each one.

The first answer tells admissions officers that coffee is your favorite snack; and this shows that despite long nights working on schoolwork or projects, you may enjoy it. That means you’ll do fine and thrive in an academically rigorous environment.

The second one is, of course, not real –unless you’re literally collecting tears with jars, but they’ll know you’re joking. What makes this strong is that it allows the admissions officers to know a little bit more about your passions and sociological opinions, which tend to get inexorably tied up with university life. Declaring this would show you would fit in with the sociological environment of certain fields or majors such as “social justice” or “sociology”. The detail about the mason jar would also show that you are the sort who loves updated trends associated with inner-city life, which fits with the Los Angeles culture that you’ll need to acclimate to in USC.

The third one shows that you are connected deeply with your culture. If you are a person who holds their cultural roots deeply, you may want to consider showing that part of you. The details about sugar and ice levels as well as a topping of choice show that you are well-versed in the Asian food culture. It’s a way of proving that you truly are living in your culture and not just using it as a scapegoat for your college admissions essays.

What you don’t want to say is things like…

1. Chips Ahoy
2. Hot Cheetos
3. Wheat Thins

These don’t work because they don’t really tell us much about you. There are plenty of people who like Chips Ahoy and Cheetos, but it would be difficult for an admissions officer to read that and draw from it any valuable information about you as a candidate.

Saying that you love certain things from a unique perspective, however, will help you stand out in the admissions process and even help them know more about you.

3. Best movie of all time:

There’s no wrong way of answering this. The common thing to think is that putting an answer like “The Force Awakens 2015” would make a deeply offended Star Wars fan in the admissions office scoff to themselves and think, “I wouldn’t want a Mary Sue apologist in my school! Rejected!”

Think about this scenario for a second and imagine yourself in the admissions officer’s shoes. Remember: these people are human too. Will you think to yourself that whilst having the admissions decision hang over the student’s head?

Unless you’re psychopathic, the answer to this is no. No one is going to judge you so harshly for your taste in movies that it would warrant a rejection from USC.

The only thing you can miss out on this question –and it’s actually quite important here because every advantage counts—is that you did not use a movie that shows your character.

Your movie should tell a story about you as a person to the USC admissions officers.  

If you said for instance that your favorite movie was “Children of Men 2006”, you’d demonstrate yourself as a person who appreciates artistic film that gets into the nitty-gritty dystopias.

This would add more flavor to the application and your readers will have a more fleshed-out idea of what your personality is like.

Here’s another example:

Computer science major who likes “Akira 1988”, a dystopian movie and classic Japanese animation. This movie would pair nicely with a computer science major as the fictional themes touch upon the effects of a futurist society gone wrong. These ideas would pair with a major in computer science and show you have a unique vision that is unique from the rest of the computer scientists who may not have the creativity to think big and draw from fantasy.

4. Dream job:

This one is one of the most important, so we would suggest that you speak with us at least once to see if your answer is sufficient.

It’s not easy to know how to answer the USC short answer questions, especially with how few words you can use. In fact, we would say that this is the most important one since it is directly tied up with your reason for pursuing a degree at USC, to begin with.

In other words: this section may make or break your application.  

Try to be honest with this one and have it correlate with what your decided major is. However, we would also suggest that you have a vision for WHAT YOU WANT TO DO added in there.

Most people don’t have dream jobs. Take any incredible job such as working for Goldman Sachs or being an engineer at Boeing. Imagine yourself doing that for years until you retire at 65. It’s not a pretty sight.

Instead, most people have a vision for what they want to do. That doesn’t mean sipping cocktails on an island. That means they want to pursue a field and contribute something great to it, whether it is to start their own business or create their own project or initiative.

So, a real dream job can be something like founding one’s own initiative to help provide clean energy to poor countries. Or, founding A studio to create your own films.

Dreams tend to be more far-sighted than near-sighted. Near-sighted goals will include working for other people until you reach retirement age. Typically, a dream job will be more profound than that and demand that you have a vision for what you want to do.

Think of this as the “ultimate goal career” you want to achieve. Any regular job will hardly help you stand out amongst the rest of the admissions pool.

5. If your life had a theme song, what would it be?

For obvious reasons, avoid any songs that are commonly played on the radio and appear far too often. Sadly, that means you can’t use Drake or BTS.

Popular songs are popular for a reason. But, we still want to stand out from the rest of the admissions pool. Common songs loved by all make it harder for admissions officers to interpret your character, not easier.

However, this section is quite easy because anything that you typically listen to would work fine.

Some people don’t have a good song that fits their personal life or their character. In fact, some people listen to sad music despite never being sad. Others listen to battle music despite being shy and introverted!

And that’s okay!

Use the song you love most (as long as it’s not generic.) If it truly speaks to your personal life and character, it will resonate throughout your application and work very well. If it doesn’t that’s fine too, as a personal song will still give your readers a window into your personality.

6. Dream trip:

This goes hand in hand with the previous short answer questions. As we said before, make sure your answer shows something about you as a person and isn’t something arbitrary.

A trip to your favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant at 2:00 AM shows that you are someone who appreciates the inconspicuous and loves time alone to think deeply. Most people don’t get obscure food in the middle of the night without a night walk filled with deep thinking and appreciation for the silence.

Remember: trips are not just the place you go to. It is also what you do there.

It would not be enough to say that you would like to go to Japan. However, saying that your favorite dream trip is “getting lost in Neo Japan’s downtown lights” would show you have an appreciation for wonder and awe at the beauty.

On that note, don’t say common things like “long walks on the beach”. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s been overused on dating site descriptions so often that it is essentially impossible to know what sort of person you are from it.  

Also, we would suggest that you don’t connect your dream trip with your career. If you are an engineer, you wouldn’t want to say that you want to take a trip to an oil rig and appreciate the engineering work. Remember: university admissions officers want to see that you are human, so show a dream trip that shows you are human and beyond your career.

7. What TV show will you binge watch next?

It’s important that you choose a shoe that isn’t something that comes with a bad connotation. That doesn’t mean shows that cover dark topics. Hannibal is a great one, for example. What you probably don’t want to use are shows like Jersey Shore or My 600lb Life. These shows carry with them a bad reputation and they may give a negative impression to USC’s admissions office.

As always, choose a show that demonstrates your character.

Shows like Mad Men would show that you know the dangers of unhinged capitalism and materialism. Shows like The Sopranos would show you can understand the dangers of tyrannical powers.

Many of our students happen to love anime, and they may feel insecure about talking about it in an academic setting. So, can we talk about anime in this section?

The answer to that is, yes. You can talk about anime. However, some choices can be bad. Overall, it can really be a hit-or-miss situation.  

USC as well as any other university is open to anime. However, some choices are a bit distasteful. For obvious reasons, you’d want to avoid shows with unnecessary perverted images and shows that appeal to the sort of “low-brow” audience like Jersey Shore.

Because anime can be a hit or miss, we would suggest speaking with us about it prior to submission.

8. Which well-known person or fictional character would be your ideal roommate?

There’s no real disadvantage to choosing a well-known person or a fictional character, so you can choose whichever you like.

The only rule to this is that you should think of this as the TV show question. Think of a person or character who will have a positive connotation to your life. You don’t want someone who will show the admissions officers that you have a bad taste in people.

This question is also a way for admissions officers to know whether you will get along well with people you dorm with at the beginning of your quarter. If you are the type of person who would not get along well with living with other people, that may show through the answer that you give in this question.

Try to go for people who will make your positive traits shine and not reveal any negative traits.

For instance, Elon Musk would be a great roommate for those who always want to collaborate with other people and get their hands working on new projects. This choice will show admissions officers that you are a person who loves to collaborate with like-minded individuals.

9. Favorite book

Please don’t say that you don’t read. We know that this seems obvious, but we really don’t want to go that route when applying to academia.

On that note, there are actually very few people who do read often, and that’s understandable! In the age of technological innovation, there’s very little time to read books. Most people do their reading through social media and online articles.

So, what should you say about this one?

The rule still stands that you should choose something that demonstrates your character and is not too mainstream. However, there is another rule here that I think would be worth noting.

Do not use young adult dystopian novels in your answer. The reason for this is that the sudden boom in YA dystopias tends to be overused. There are great ones out there, but writing about it would make it difficult for you to stand out since you’ll be competing with the rest of the application pool with the same theme.

You don’t even need to have read the whole book to answer this question. You simply need to have read a bit of it to call it a day.

If you have not read many books that you feel comfortable using or you want suggestions for a good book, we would stick with ones that have archetypal themes that play a significant role in your everyday life. These books typically have patterns of symbols that work as great signifiers of your personality and can give the readers a great idea of who you are. Even better, it could even match with your major and field.

Talk with us if you want a good list of books that may serve as a good fit for you and your major!

10. If you could teach a class on any topic, what would it be?

Whatever you do, resist the urge to answer this prompt with your major. Instead, use the USC short answer questions as a way to creatively stand out.

Teaching a class about art as an art student or biochemical engineering as a biochemical engineering student is boring. These answers are no-brainers, and there’s NO REASON to think any school would ask a question pointlessly. So, think of this prompt as, “If you could give a Ted Talk on any subject, what would it be?”

Perhaps you’d like to discuss the problem of growing up as a man with society’s expectations of manhood. Maybe you’d like to teach a class on how to be more assertive as a woman since you’ve seen female friends never ask for raises or refuse to raise their hands in fear of being disagreeable.

These sample topics demonstrate a willingness to defy societal expectations and thus complement USC applicants looking to get leadership positions.

Whichever subject you choose, it will show admissions officers your priorities, experiences, and expertise. You may not be experienced in your intended major –because who is at this age anyway? However, everyone has unique experiences that give them the wisdom they can teach others. Make sure what subject you want to teach says something positive about your personality.

It’s not easy to know how to answer the USC short answer questions. There are a lot of nuances in each question. Additionally, you only have one chance to do it right. That’s why we suggest speaking with admissions experts who can help hold your hand throughout the process. Our team has helped students get into schools such as UCLA, UC Berkeley, and, of course, USC.