Help with college choice

Parents Forum
1

<p>Dear all:</p>

<pre><code>My kid is admitted into a number of colleges. After much consideration, we kept UIUC and University of Maryland.

He wants to study engineering for his undergrad. he was not admitted into UIUC engineering, but into the engineering program of UMD.

How hard is it to transfer to engineering at UIUC?

How friendly are the two colleges to people from other states and other countries?

What is the course workload like at these two colleges?

Whar do you know about the teaching effectivenss at the two schools?

Any other input is greatly appreciated.
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2

<p>UIUC - Univ of IL - Urbana Champaign?</p>

<p>I don’t have recent info, so it might have changed. You might need to be Junior in order to transfer into the Engineering college. I assume child was admitted into Liberal Arts and Sciences? The child can take all the classes they will need towards engineering (math, physics, chemistry, and engineering specific ones). Only challenge might be if classes fill up. Don’t know if Engineering College gives preference. But, I think math, physic, chemistry is taught by LAS, so that would not come into play. I believe Computer Science is offered by both LAS and Engineering. If that is his desire, then LAS is fine.</p>

<p>Both schools are large enough that “other states” is not a problem. “other countries” is not a problem either, but more a self selection of the international students. Enough of them that they socialize within their group - easier to communicate.</p>

<p>I believe UIUC is a top 10 engineering school. Don’t know where U of MD (college park I presume) is ranked. I would put more weight on that than “course workload” or “teaching effectiveness”. If you really want “teaching effectiveness” then Olin is the college to look at.</p>

3

<p>If he knows he wants to do engineering, and UMD admitted him into that program and UIUC didn’t, then IMHO the choice is made. He’ll be taking a tough course load, and it is not easy to transfer into engineering at UIUC. If he’ll be just as happy studying something else, fine, but it doesn’t make sense to me to go to a school that may not let you into the only major you want.</p>

4

<p>It sounds like major is most important to you. If other factors are being considered, I’d look at housing and the residential experience. Lots of complaints at Maryland re housing, not enough of it.</p>