University of South Carolina PhD in criminology?

[christinitalabarista]

Hi Everyone!

I was recently accepted into University of South Carolina's PhD program in criminology & criminal justice. They offered me full tuition and funding (18K a year)as well as a RA/TA position. 

I'm super excited and feel very blessed, but I'm starting to have some doubts. I've had some professors tell me that I should just try applying again next year to more programs to get into a "better" school. I know USC isn't as highly ranked as a lot of other crim programs, but they specialize in what I want to do (program evaluation/correctional programming). 

Has anyone attended USC and have any thoughts on it? And do rankings not matter as much if the school has a particular specialization? Any advice/comments are greatly appreciated!