I was researching this school and saw that it has a 59% acceptance rate, which is not that selective when compared to others schools. In US News it says it has a 62% acceptance rate, which is even less selective. Also, there is a graph where GPA and SAT/ACT scores of admitted students are shown, and they are pretty diverse, having many admitted students all over the graph. However, on many sites it is shown the average SAT scores of admitted students, and they are pretty high, especially math, being the 25th percentile a 700. How come the SAT scores are high but the graph and acceptance rate say the opposite? Maybe the graph is wrong but still the acceptance rate is above average. Just how selective is this school? I know the engineering college is more selective than the others in the school, but how much? Please someone explain, thanks!
Selectivity is very dependent upon major. Engineering and Business have much higher standards. Engineering students comprise about 23%, Business 8% of the university. You may find this helpful: http://engineering.illinois.edu/admissions/undergraduate/
Selectivity ultimately has very little to do with the quality of the school. UIUC simply doesn’t pad their selectivity rating like the “top” schools do. They are a much larger school, which allows them to accept more applicants. And they have some programs that are not as highly ranked as physics, engineering, accounting, etc.
Many programs within UIUC have a substantially lower acceptance rate. Physics, engineering, business, and accounting all have pretty lower acceptance rates as I recall. However, the “selectivity” of UIUC did not play any kind of part in my decision to go there.
^^ True.
UIUC’s undergraduate population is above 30K. That’s a lot of students. With such a large quota to fill for each coming class, admissions needs to work with the numbers they get and the quality within those numbers. A smaller institution, like Yale, has an undergraduate no larger than 6K, and with its popularity worldwide and Stateside the number of applications will be mucho grande - and thus a stark difference in acceptance rate: a tiny 6.3% according to wiki for its 2014 incoming class.
Larger schools will have a much higher acceptance rate due to the number of slots available per class, and smaller schools with have less. The numbers work themselves out in the end.
A more apt comparison would be comparing similar undergrad populations to UIUC. Take Michigan, for example. According to wiki its undergrad is a bit above 28K. Its acceptance rate is half of UIUC’s at 26.2 in for 2015. If we follow the wiki article, back in 2010 the university’s acceptance rate was 50.6% – the admission committee decided to become increasingly more selective. Another public institution, Berkeley, has an undergrad a little over 24K (as of 2014); its 2014 acceptance rate was 18.1% and became a bit more selective for 2015, dipping to 16.9%.
Now, should UIUC follow Michigan’s and Berkeley’s steps? That’s a good question if I say so myself. I’d suppose that UIUC’s overall student is a little weaker than said schools (just conjecture on my part purely based on my observations, being that Michigan and Berkeley are considered tip-top publics when talking about non-Ivies and non-elite privates) so it may struggle to find the students that apply, get accepted and decide to attend higher ranking schools. How the school dishes out aid - both financial and merit - is also different from the elites. It’s a tough road being a public.