My son is accepted to UIUC Engineering honors program(James Scholar). I’d appreciate if you can share some your experience and opinions about UIUC and its honors programs.
-Wayne
Hi, I’m a current CS student who didn’t get James Scholar on admission but entered the program my sophomore year. Honors at UIUC isn’t considered much more than a resume filler, though there are some benefits.
James Scholars get to register at an earlier time than most students after their first semester. However, some departments will restrict classes by major, the CS department and Statistics department will do this, though I’m sure there are a few other departments that do it as well. This is to ensure students in their majors can get priority on the classes they need. But if you’re not taking restricted classes you can pretty much make an ideal schedule for yourself. The other benefit is access to some James Scholar-only Honors classes. I can’t speak for other majors but in CS they are supplements to core classes which go into a bit more detail about the topics and usually have a project component.
As for requirements, you need to keep up a GPA, which depends on the major, but is generally around a 3.5. In addition, you need to take an honors course each year, or have a minor. I personally have a physics minor that I’m working on for my honors requirement.
Hope this cleared up any questions, feel free to ask if you have any additional ones.
Thanks a lot for sharing this. I do have more questions. Do James Scholars live in separate housing? Do James Scholars have any advantage in finding research opportunity or accessing professors? What kind of support and guidance do James Scholars mentors provide? Thanks!
I am a current engineering student in James Scholars. James Scholars do not get separate housing. In general you can kinda get better research opportunities due to doing honors projects for classes. However, when I have talked to professors about research more look for classes, class performance, and projects (which can be done outside of the honors projects). The mentors are more or less the same as what other non james scholars get. I am pretty much in James Scholar only for the choosing classes sooner than others (Which is VERY helpful).
Just to add on to the previous post, there is an “Honors LLC” in one of the newer, nicer dorms on campus, Nugent Hall. http://housing.illinois.edu/Living-Options/Living-Learning-Communities/honors-llc
However you can choose to live more or less anywhere depending on what’s available.
Well those aren’t connected with James Scholars. Even then my brother was in it at Hopkins and it really wasn’t any different than any other floor on his dorm except he moved in earlier… So he got to socialize a bit sooner. James Scholars are fairly common, but it is so nice to be able to sign up for classes sooner.
My S was admitted to Engineering Honors program. Was assuming they might have separate housing as other colleges do. This thread is helpful. Any one heard about any merit scholarships? Any idea when they start releasing?
Merit scholarships? UIUC is known for not giving much or any merit money. I have heard maybe $2-3K unless the student was really unique URM, EC’s etc…
I will say that I heard recently the College of Business may have outside scholarships to those students.
Hi Mollysan and MerryLee-
Here is what I understand from our visits and questions to admissions staff.
Merit scholarships at UIUC are rare to start, and many are given to URM (which includes women in engineering and computer science). Some are given to top out-of-state applicants, where the amount of merit aid is still less than the tuition differential for non-residents, so the U still comes out ahead on tuition. It’s still possible for any student with great stats/application. http://engineering.illinois.edu/admissions/cost-and-financial-aid/freshmen-engineering-scholarships.html . The amounts range from $2000 one-time to $15,000 per year. More info on how they are awarded is here: http://engineering.illinois.edu/admissions/cost-and-financial-aid/scholarship-faqs.html
Some early action admits from all schools have already received campus-wide merit scholarships. My student knows someone who received the Provost full-tuition scholarship with their admit notification, for example ( https://admissions.illinois.edu/Invest/scholarships-all ). I am also aware that at least some engineering early action admits received emails indicating they qualified for an engineering scholarship, but the type and amount was not indicated. I assume that the rest of the notifications and the amounts will be announced around the end of February, like last year. There is a thread in the archives of this forum about some that received them here: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-illinois-urbana-champaign/1857509-engineering-scholarships-p1.html . I do not know about the business school, but they have some info here: https://business.illinois.edu/undergraduate-affairs/current-students/scholarships/
All James Scholars and Campus Honors students qualify for honors housing community linked above: http://housing.illinois.edu/Living-Options/Living-Learning-Communities/honors-llc . This is not guaranteed, though, and I understand that it will fill up quickly based on random housing selection lottery times this summer. If you took the tour on campus, you probably saw a dorm room at ISR (Townsend/Wardall). This is the closest university dorm to the engineering campus, and many students there are in engineering along with many from fine arts (as it is next to the Krannert center). I’m not sure how fast ISR fills up, as it has a great location, but is also an older dorm mostly with conventional doubles and community bathrooms. The newer dorms are much farther from the engineering campus, but it isn’t a huge deal, since there is a good bus system. Also, unless your child has a lot of AP credit or tests out of the core classes, many of their 1st and 2nd year classes will be on or around the main quad, with only a few in the engineering north campus.
ISR fills up super fast if you’re a guy, like it was all full by the start of the second day of the lottery. For women, it filled up near the middle of the lottery period. If you get a late day expect to live at PAR or FAR, not that there’s anything wrong with those dorms.
As for money, I got 5K in merit as an instate student and am not a URM nor did I have anything special EC-wise.
@literallymarx Your $5000 was merit (& not federal loan)? Congrats!
@MerryLee Yeah, it was a grant from the College of Engineering rather than the university itself if that makes a difference.
My son got a $2,000 per year, James scholar, ChemE, instate, white male no hooks
@perch1024 @literallymarx For anyone who received merit aid, can you please also list the name of the scholarship so we have an idea if it was campus wide or specific to a school like engineering? Also, did it come with your admissions notice, appear in your illini account or did you receive a separate mail/email? Thanks!
I think the award letter came with the admissions notice if I remember correctly, it showed a cost to attend with any grants/scholarships/work-study you got and any loans you qualified for. Personally, mine came directly through the Engineering college and had some generic name like IL Engineering Scholarship.
Thanks, I will start a new thread to keep track of merit so as not to completely derail this honors thread. Congrats to all those who received merit, I know even small awards are rare and also a pretty big deal at UIUC.