<p>Our son has been admitted to UIUC BioEngineering honors program. He has been fortunate enough to get a pretty good scholarship package (achievement & engineering award) of about $22k. He has not heard from the top tier UC's as yet, but considering the fact that UC's do not give anything to middle class state residents and UIUC will cost $3k less than UC's, we are taking this offer very seriously. I am EE myself and have friends who graduated from UIUC couple of decades ago. Therefore, I know about the strong reputation of their EE programs, but I am not very familiar with their BioEng program except that it is new. It will be very helpful to get some advice on the following topics :
- How good is UIUC bioengineering program?
- Our son is considering medicine after BS, how hard is this program in terms of getting decent GPA?
- How is it socially for students who grew-up in cosmopolitan cities such as bay area?
- How does the educational experience at UIUC compare to top UC's such as UCB, UCLA, UCSD?</p>
<p>It will be helpful to get inputs from a california resident who chose UIUC over UC's. I have a friend (UIUC graduate himself) whose son chose UIUC over UC's but returned back to california after a semester. This example puts a negative bias on this option but I am hoping to hear about positive experiences.
Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>My son is in a similar situation in that he has received a Full Tuition Non-Resident Scholarship to the University of Utah’s Bioengineering Department (Considered a top 20 school in this discipline). He also will probably get accepted to UCLA, UCSD and UC Davis and has already been accepted to Cal Poly SLO (which has an excellent Engineering School but not acclaimed for Bioengineering).</p>
<p>As with you, not expecting much in the way of financial assistance with Cal Poly and would only get a minimal amount from any of the UC’s. Hence, out of pocket (parental contribution plus student loan and/or work study) for any of the California schools would be somewhere between $23K and $28K annually and will go up his sophomore year when my daughter finishes her undergraduate this year (thus, only having one dependent child attending college which drives up the UC or Cal State cost considerably). </p>
<p>Conversely, with the Full Tuition Scholarship, the cost of Room/Board/Books/Travel at U. of Utah will be less than $12,000 annually. In a nutshell, I have told my son that I would provide $15K annually towards college and he will have to take loans out, do work/study and provide some funds via a summer time job. So, he can weigh the cost of finishing his undergrad without any debt or possibly having $20K to $25K in loans at the end of his undergraduate studies. Funny, Utah doesn’t sound that “cold” to him when put into perspective :)</p>
<p>As for UIUC, I’ve got to believe that it will be an excellent experience for your son unless he’s not one to get out an socialize (i.e. join a club, go to Football games, etc…).</p>