The University of Southern California (USC) is a private research university with an undergraduate enrollment of 20,790 students, plays a total of 21 NCAA sports, 9 of them for men and 12 of them for women. In the 2021/2022 season, the University of Southern California had a total of 581 NCAA athletes comprising a mere 3% of the total student body.

USC is likely to have recruited many of the athletes on its NCAA sports teams through the Division 1 athlete recruitment process, enabling these recruited athletes to leapfrog the normal admissions process. It is our best estimate based on team profiles that about 50% to 75% of their teams comprise of recruited athletes while the remaining athletes are “walk-on” athletes who were admitted to USC on merits unrelated to sports.

How Top Colleges in Division 1 Select their Athlete Recruits

The table below lists the NCAA and varsity sports played at the University of Southern California and the number of athletes in each sports team.

All data compiled from University of Southern California athletic website.