<p>competitive high school (naperville, IL)
Female (i heard females get minority status in eng? true?)
ACT: 29
GPA: 4.1
Rank: top 12%
classes, all honors except for english
will graduate with:
6 english (i'm on newspaper so it's a class, ap lang and comp)
5 math (ap stats)
5 science (AP chem)
4 history (ap world and ap gov)
4 yrs of spanish</p>
<p>EC: 5th place state winner in advertising (journalism), NHS, spanish NHS, freshman mentoring program, and volunteering at hospital, and part of a nationally award winning newspaper... </p>
<p>(i'm worried my ACT is too low, or just on the brink of ok for u of i eng please post comments.. advice needed)</p>
<p>i'm thinking of applying LAS and transferring for fear of not getting in to eng, or applying general engineering and then transferring... advice would be greatly appreciated.. </p>
<p>Women are treated as URM's for engineering. Your rank/ACT are in the middle 50% of those usually admitted for engineering although in the low end of that range. Having a lot of honors/AP's will help. If you have had calculus that will also help. It is somewhat easier to get admitted to general, industrial, nuclear, and engineering mechanics than other engineering programs. Though nuclear enrolls only about 20 per year, it only gets about 50 to 55 applicants and they admit 70% of those to get 20 to enroll. Essays will be important because of your stats and you will need to discuss why nuclear because so few these days are even interested and they are looking to admit persons they think will actually stay with nuclear rather than switch later. Apply at first opportunity you can (late Sep) because early applicants have somewhat of an advantage over late applicants. With good essays, your chances of admission are probably better than 50%. Not as good as LAS but it is no guarantee you can switch later if you are in LAS. You need to have a fairly high college GPA to switch (in the 3 range for nuclear) and complete typical courses that engineering majors take in the first two years. A number of those courses, particularly physics and math, are known as tough grade courses (example: it is not uncommon for 35% of the Physics 212 class to get a D or F) and many LAS students who had hopes of transfering to engineering are thus convinced otherwise. It is easier to switch programs within engineering if you start in that college because minimum GPA's needed are lower than if transfering from one of the other colleges.</p>
<p>URM means?? i'm re-taking the ACT and hopefully that will help... i wish i could have taken calc but bc i only tested into honors math as a freshman i couldn't skip a grade.. only take accelerated</p>
<p>oh and one more question, does u of i take your highest composite ACT or does it add up your highest section scores to make the highest possible composite?</p>
<p>sry.. to ask more questions but if i can leave out my rank, should I? (i have the option to omit rank from my transcript when applying to colleges)</p>
<p>URM is under-represented minority (i.e., the answer to your minority question). UIUC uses highest composite ACT for admission and does not mix and match section scores from multiple tests. I would not omit rank for UIUC. It relies on rank and it will estimate what it is if you do not submit it. You cannot apply "undecided" to engineering (choosing "undecided" on the application form automatically puts you in LAS); you need to pick one of the engineering disciplines and many who are undecided choose general. Your chances for general are about the same as nuclear.</p>
<p>Chemical engineering is actually in LAS -- a quirk of history. However, it follows the same admission criteria and general course requirements as the engineering college and it is somewhat more difficult than nuclear for admission. Unless things have changed, there is nowhere on the application to choose "undecided" for engineering.</p>
<p>yeah i know, my sis is in chemical eng after transfering (she was originally international relations, then after a 5 on the AP calc exam changed her mind) and she has managed to keep a 3.7 gpa, so that's why i'm not too afraid of transferring but i don't know if it's worth it to apply engineering and not get into u of i at all or apply LAS and then transfer</p>