Hello,
The purpose of this thread is to see how many OOS students accepted to UIUC-Class of 2020 Engineering are planning to accept paying full tuition?
Please post the following.
Major accepted to :
Reason for joining at full tuition :
Thoughts on how you may gain out of this investment:
Start with us:
Major : Computer Engineering
Reasons : Not sure yet. Worrying if we must.
If son (we) choose to join, may end up paying full or almost full tuition as it looks as of now.
Not accepted into honors
No merit scholarships awarded with the notice of admission.
What are your child’s other options? If he/she can get a lower price at another good university, I’d definitely consider that strongly before paying full price at UIUC.
My son’s situation is similar to yours: OOS, computer engineering, no merit money (or honors).
Of course I’m biased, but I think my kid was a very strong, well-rounded applicant: very high ACT, gpa, and class rank; plenty of honors, awards, and ECs (math, technology, and lots of music); weekly community service; part-time employment (significant hours over the past two years). But we have come to accept that the outlook for merit scholarships for non-URM males in engineering is rather bleak these days.
Consequently, he will likely attend Wisconsin (in state), Minnesota (in-state tuition/university honors/small merit scholarship), or one of several private schools that is offering enough merit aid to keep the cost well below that of UIUC.
We’d like to be able to keep Illinois on the list, because computer engineering is so strong there. My husband (an engineering prof) has great respect for their ECE department and feels it is worthy of its #5 national ranking, based on experiences with grad students and professors with whom he’s worked over the years. Sadly, the cost is too high for it to seem like a reasonable choice.
@Mtriplee Accepted to Ohio State, Texas A &M, and UIUC.
Both OSU and TAMU are very good engineering schools, and I know they are fairly generous with merit aid for OOS students, so those seem like great options. Best of luck in your decision!
We are in similar situation except we have GA tech OOS instead of UIUC. The other choice is TAMU which gives us nice scholarship. I am leaning towards TAMU. It is a tough choice. You want the best for your kid but I am not sure how to justify the cost.
@conference Is GA-tech you kid’s top choice?
I’m thankful that UIUC isn’t my son’s favorite, because then we won’t have to feel we’re letting him down when it gets scratched off the list. 
I think the main reason he’s interested is because of his father’s opinion, and because he knew it wasn’t a given that he’d be accepted. He visited TAMU (and others in TX) last summer and was impressed, but ended up not applying due to the distance from home. Texas has some great universities for engineers!
Madison is a great place. I have a friend that works for EPIC. If we were instate for Wisconsin, we would definitely fo there. We have not been to TAMU. Only know it is a big school. He would really like to go to GA tech. There are some high tech companies in Texas. Possibly good job and internship opportunities.
The pay scale ROI reports links are below : GTech is high in ROI for Computer. Both GA Tech and UIUC are pretty good at internship / employment opportunities.
State of the art facilities, cutting edge research etc.
While TAMU is a very good engineering school, for computer engineering, GA Tech and UIUC seems better.
http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/major/engineering
http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/major/computer-science
Excerpts from the CS one :
Rank School
1: Stanford
4: UC, Berkeley OOS
8. Georgia Inst, OOS
13. CMU
40. UT, DALLAS, In State
46. UIUC (OOS)
50. Ut Austin, In State
64. UT, Dallas (OOS)
67. UMich, In State
68. Texas A & M, In State
91. UT, Austin (OOS)
108. OSU, In State
I was listening to a GA Tech professor in NPR science Friday doing research in ‘Interactive Computing’. Pretty cool and fascinating stuff.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/storytelling-teaches-robots-right-and-wrong/
I hope I will get a robot that does cooking and cleaning.
I think at the end of the day, you have to decide what is right for your child and family. Ranking and statistics give a starting point. Everyone is different. We are more than a data point.
Mom2move, thanks for the link to the NPR segment. It sounds interesting. I am ok with the cooking but if you ever find one that cleans, please let me know.