<p>My kid was admitted into some universities. After some consideration, we kept UIUC and UMD. He wants to study engineering for his undergrad.
He was admitted into a non engineering program at UIUC, but into an engineering program at UMD. To help us with decision, we need more information. Please help with the following questions:
1. How open and friendly are the two colleges to outsiders?
2. How hard is it to transfer into engineering at UIUC?
3. What is the course workload like at the two colleges?
4. Do anyone know about the teaching effectiveness at the two schools? Some univ pays more attention to teaching even if they are well known for research.</p>
<p>If your costs are the same, the only thing that matters is that your child wants to major in engineering and UMD has admitted him to that program. If he chooses UIUC there is no guarantee whatsoever that he will be able to transfer into engineering. Even if he does, it will almost certainly require a full four years more to finish that program, which means you will be paying for five full years of college.</p>
<p>What do you mean by outsider? Are you in another state, or another country? If your son is an international applicant, he should be communicating with the International Student Office on each campus to find out about their orientation and support programs, and to find out if anyone from his country is currently attending and is willing to chat with him about life there.</p>
<p>For questions about transferring into engineering at UIUC, you son should ask the engineering program at UIUC. He also could ask here [Engineering</a> Majors - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/]Engineering”>Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums) or here [University</a> of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-illinois-urbana-champaign/]University”>University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>It seems to be an easy choice – if your child wants to study engineering he/she should go to UMD where he/she is in the engineering program. It is often very difficult to transfer into an engineering program as many of the courses start freshman year and have to be taken in a sequential order. My cousin got an engineering degree at UMD an has done very well.</p>
<p>I would research both schools to see who does a better job of graduating their students on time. I would also cross reference the quality of the faculty based on what percentage of the faculty hold terminal degrees in their field. I like to see at least 80-90%.</p>
<p>Also…what percentage of the students come back after freshman year. This number should be higher than 75%.</p>
<p>You can probably get this inoformation from the college.</p>