Hi, my name’s John. 16 years old, male, junior in High school. I want to know what my chances are of getting into University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. I heard they are expanding their acceptance rate by 15% which is great for me.
My fresh and sophomore years I slacked, but this last semester I did well with 3 A’s, 3 B’s, and 1 C. I made honor roll(every semester I believe), and my accumulative GPA is 3.1 which in my opinion is awful… but whatever.
I’m not involved in any after school activities. I am a boy scout and I will be getting my eagle scout soon, and I am apart of a couple clubs outside of school.
For my major, I want to do either computer science or computer engineering. I just want to do something with computers- it’s my passion. I know computer engineering at UofI is very difficult because engineering is a hard area of the school to get into (I’ve heard). I am also considering purdue. I don’t have any idea really about colleges as noone has talked to me about it. I would also like suggestions for majors maybe. I just want to do something with computers. Please help. Thanks
I’d say its not looking great with your GPA, which isn’t bad assuming you’ve been taking fairly rigorous classes, given how competitive the program is. If you want to stay in the midwest, most Big 10 schools have pretty good CS programs like Purdue, Minnesota, Wisconsin etc. Another option is spending 2 years at a local community college and then transferring.
If you want to do something with computers CS or CE is your best bet, CE is more hardware oriented and I’m sure you can find some interesting discussions by looking around the web.
Thank you.
I have never taken honors or AP classes my first 2 years (I slacked). This year I took 2 honors classes, next year I am taking 1 honors class and 1 ap class. I’ve been told I can choose my major as something random like sewing or woodworking lol at U of I then change majors to computer engineering. Would that work? I’m just scared I will be stuck in some sewing department of the school if they don’t let me transfer.
As for top 10 CS schools. Names please?? Purdue seems cool and wisconson madison is also nice but isnt madison also hard to get into? I would like to stay in midwest as I live in chicago. My DREAM school is Northwestern but I’ve already given up on that lol.
CE would interest me more, I love electronics and hardware more than software. Thanks for help 
If you want to do CE you can put down General Studies as a second major and then try to transfer, though it’ll be pretty tough since you need to have a 3.5 GPA, equal hours of solid As and Bs, to do that.
Big 10 refers to the athletic conference almost all the big state schools in the midwest belong to, e.g. UIUC, Ohio State, Minnesota, etc, though in general it just means the large colleges in the midwest.
For more specific suggestions try: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/
EDIT: Also if you want to stay close to home, check out Illinois Tech or UIC.
Thank you. My dad was a lawyer at John Marshall Law School so he wants me to go to a really good college. I don’t think he mentioned UIC or Illinois Tech. And I believe I have looked those up and they weren’t super great colleges.
Right now I’m considering purdue, or U of madison. I’m not sure if I should try transfering.Idk.
Id definitely apply to those, and find a few more as well. Worst case scenario you can do a year or two at a CC and transfer somewhere.
Both Illinois Tech and UIC have strong engineering and CS programs and Illinois Tech grads do very well in getting jobs and having high salaries 5-10 years after graduation. Not sure what you looked up to see how “good” these schools are but all rankings have flaws. It is always a risk to hope to transfer into the Engineering college from a different major when there is such a high demand for engineering majors. Your best strategy is to apply to the schools you really want to attend and then a few others that you would be wiling to attend if you get into their engineering or CS programs. That way you have a choice.
You have a bit of time left, go visit all the schools that are in the general area which have the majors you want. The engineering programs near Chicago include Purdue, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UIUC, UIC, Illinois Tech, Rose Hulman, and NIU.
How high are salaries in Engineering and CS programs from Illinois Tech? I got a thing in the mail from them and they seem promising. Very nice school it looks like and I would be happy to go there for sure!!
I think I’ve narrowed what I want to do to Computer Engineering but I am subject to change.
Anything you can tell me about Illinois Tech? Do they have dorms? Is it like an online college or what? Or is it an actual campus university? Thanks
Illinois Tech is the trendy name for IIT, or Illinois Institute of Technology. It’s a legitimate private, national university with fully accredited undegrad and graduate level programs. It’s a real campus with dorms in the main campus on the south side of Chicago near Comiskey/USCellular/GuaranteedRate park, though it also has commuter/online options and satellite campus offerings, too. Not to be confused at all with ITT, a bankrupt college offering mostly online and commuter programs for associate’s degrees.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/iit-1691
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/illinois-institute-technology/
http://web.iit.edu/
Their undergrad engineering program is tied with UIC at #63 in the nation, according to USNews rankings. Pretty solid programs at both, though not in the same tier as UIUC of course. Another school to consider with easier admissions than UIUC- Iowa State is a very good engineering program that is also affordable and not too far from Chicago. You mentioned Purdue, which is an excellent choice for Computer Engineering and Computer Science, probably in the top 20 in the country, but also probably close to UIUC in admissions difficulty for those programs.
@cooledwhip - Disclaimeer: I have been a professor of physics there for the past 34 years.
Yes, Illinois Tech is a real university, it is 125 years old. The campus is between 31st and 35th Streets on the South Side of Chicago, roughly halfway between UIC and University of Chicago. We are just across the expressway from the White Sox stadium and connected to the Chicago Loop by 2 elevated train lines. Illinois Tech is part of the [Association of Independent Technical Universities (AITU)](http://theaitu.org) which include MIT, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Drexel, Stevens, Harvey Mudd, and Rose Hulman among others. The student body is about 3,000 undergraduates, most of whom live on campus in dorms or fraternities/sororities. We also have about 5,000 graduate students, and must about every STEM department has a PhD program.
To answer @illinoisx3 yes, we are using Illinois Tech now instead of IIT because the students have called it that since the 1950’s and because IIT is hard to pronounce and leads to confusion with the failed for-profit school. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to correct people about the name! The two consecutive vowels just don’t roll off the tongue easily…
Our students do very well in salary and job placement. This is partly because most of them are Engineers or Science majors and these generally have lower unemployment rates and higher salaries. Even so, the salaries that our graduates get are in the top 20% for engineering and 5% overall. This is anecdotal, but my son graduates from Illinois Tech as a Computer Engineer in 2010 and got a very good job in about 1 month at the height of the recession. He has now changed companies, been promoted several times, and doing quite well.
Rankings in general have to be taken with a grain of salt. For engineering, the most important thing is whether the program is ABET accredited because that is the gold standard for engineering and guarantees employers a certain level of competence. The second thing is whether the school is affordable for you and the third is whether the school is a good fit for you. If you want to be at a small research university then Illinois Tech is a place to look at, along with many (not all) of the AITU schools. If you want a big school with less of a focus on STEM, then UIUC, Purdue, or UIC might be more your style. My other son graduated, as I did, from UIUC and it is an excellent school
Are you signed up to take the ACT or SAT? I think Illinois high schools still offer a “free” one to 11th graders. Sometimes it is in April but check with your guidance office. But you might want to take a real one earlier so you have some time to study and retake. Also, knowing what your scores are will give you an idea on how your stats compare to the other mid-50% students at the different college/univ
Is there a reason you don’t have much school related EC’s? I know BSA can take up a lot of time along with Venturing (if you are also in that).
Have you looked through the UIUC thread on applications? See how many got denied or waitlisted for computer science. Some did not take advantage of listing a 2nd major and now regret it because they can’t go back and add it in because decisions have already come out.
UIUC admits directly to the major. Some college/univ don’t. So that might something to look into while reviewing schools. The plus/minus for that.
Affordability. Talk to your parents and find out how much they can contribute towards your schooling. Your parents may have to have a talk between them before they can give you a final $ answer. Make sure you get at least a price range. You need to know if a school is affordable for you and your family.
THATS IT. I confused it with ITT. I always see the terrible commercials on TV about ITT’s online program.
Affordability is not a problem, I mentioned before I REALLY am not trying to show off but my dad has an account for me and I can go to nice colleges.
For my Minor I want to do business possibly. That way having a major in Comp sci engineering and minor in business they can both benefit eachother.
Thank you xraymancs for the reply its very cool to have a teacher from the university respond to me! I am very interested in the school now, my family and I are excited and it seems like a very nice school. I went online and the online virtual tour was really cool. The robotics room looked like a LOT of fun. Just a question, do freshmen students have to stay in a dorm their first year?
My school is doing the SAT and I am in SAT classes now but I am possibly going to do the ACT on my own over the summer and take the fall test.
I was accepted EA this year for engineering. Few tips: Study hard for ACT or SAT, I did and it paid off. I got a 2210 and it helped tremendously. If you really want to get in you need to show dramatic improvement GPA wise because the engineering college is much more selective than the the other colleges. You can find all that data online. Also just get more involved, play a sport that doesn’t cut even if you’re not athletic like track. Also don’t rely on backdooring into engineering, they look at your highschool stuff too
Backdooring into engineering? What?
And what is EA?
Yes I am for sure showing improvement in my GPA. I started HS with 3.0 and after this past semester I had 3.1. After this next one I should be 3.15 and my hopes is to get to 3.2/3.3 by the end of senior year. Not sure if it’s excellent but I know it’s really bad compared to other people’s GPAs. The important thing is that I tried and I am taking harder classes and doing better in them than anytime in my life before.
And I thought the SAT was on a 1600 scale? Also should I do the SAT essay or not? I hate doing it and I would rather not as it shows no academic performace scale whatsoever.
CS and ECE at Illinois are very competitive. Your GPA is a bit of a yellow flag because math/science/CS/CE courses here are very demanding. You’ll need a 1550+ on the SAT (imo) to be able to offset a 3.1/3.2.
That being said, I recommend you apply for direct admission next year. I’m a freshman in CS and I’m learning a lot. The CS/CE opportunities here are hard to match anywhere else!
I also want to say that an engineering education does not have to be ABET accredited. CS at the Univ of Chicago is not abet-accredited. However, they have very good placement in big 4/unicorn software companies. Lack of ABET simply means that you can’t get a job with the government.
I would like it to be ABET credited though. I agree my GPA is awful but that’s a result of a terrible record freshmen year… Does UofI at champaign look at freshmen year scores as well? I’m very interested in I llinois Tech now. Are they Abet credited? Thanks
UIUC considers freshman year grades, but if you have an upward trend they can discount a bad semester or two. NIU will get similar in-state company recruiting (eg State Farm, Caterpillar), but probably won’t get Google or Facebook recruiting on campus.
As for backdoor to engineering, I think that means attending UIUC as undeclared (DGS) and then transferring into CS/CE. Like the poster said, that is very difficult to achieve.
Ok I most likely won’t try backdooring then. I’m really interested in Illinois Tech or UIC. Will those be picked up by Google or Facebook, etc?
And yes my grades are REALLY an upward trend. I have a very high GPA compared to my first two years.
@cooledwhip - Sorry about the late response. Students who choose not to commute live on campus the first two years. The [url=“https://web.iit.edu/housing/first-year-student-live-campus-residency-requirement”}policy is very clear and many other universities have the same requirements.