It is extremely difficult to do so because of space issues. There is no combination of stats that will guarantee a transfer like with other Engineering majors. Students with 3.9+ GPAs and A/A+'s in the core curriculum frequently get rejected.
The extreme stress you'll be under if you choose to attempt this anyways is not worth it and has crushed many extremely capable students.
If you’re looking for anything else, take a look at the transfer requirements and be aware that with UIUC grading, pluses and minuses on your letter grades affect your GPA, which might not have been true at your high school (At mine any B/B-/B+ was a 3.0 for example.)
Basically, go somewhere else if you want one of those three majors where you got in directly or try to transfer to UIUC after 2 years if you still really want to go here.
My understanding from speaking to an admissions counselor this morning is that the PREP program is brand new, and does not have a track record viz. students transferring into specific majors. I was told that PREP was extremely competitive to get into (but obviously less so than certain very popular Engineering majors such as CS, since students get diverted to PREP after being denied for something in engineering). Based on this, I would assume that anecdotes based on students attempting to transfer from DGS in the past may not be predictive of what will happen with this new program for potential future transfers.
That being said, I definitely agree it would be ill advised (to put it mildly) to enroll in PREP with one’s heart set on any of the three “restricted majors” since admission to those majors is clearly not guaranteed.
I also learned that some students were evaluated for PREP without consideration of their second choice major (I guess the admissions folks assumed people would prefer PREP to their second choice major, which seems like a strange assumption for students who requested one of the restricted Engineering majors as first choice and something in another college as their second choice). The admissions counselor told me that students admitted to PREP can request a program change to their second choice major without giving up their spot in PREP (though any student interested in doing this should, in my opinion, talk to someone in admissions before proceeding).
PREP sounds like a good option for students who have their heart set on engineering but are flexible about which specific major they want to pursue, and a terrible choice for students who have very focused interests in restrictive or limited capacity majors (such as CS).
ETA (for clarification): Program change requests that are successful (e.g…, result in admission to a major in another college) WOULD result in being removed from the PREP program, but if not admitted to the second choice major, a student would still keep their spot in PREP (at least, that was my understanding based on talking to the admissions counselor).
True, but I don’t expect any reason for those majors to lighten up, since the restrictions are more rooted in space rather than ability. I’d bet the majority of people who applied to CS would do just fine in the curriculum, it’s just a space issue.
But assuming that some spaces do open up each year, it seems likely that students applying from PREP will experience higher success rates compared with all students applying from DGS in the past. OTOH, since PREP is a new program with no track record, and it clearly does not provide any guarantee of admission to restrictive majors, I agree that it would be a bad idea to enroll in PREP with the expectation of transferring to those majors.
Yes, it’s difficult to transfer into these engineering programs. Having said that, if you don’t apply for a transfer, you’re guaranteed not to get in. Give it a shot.
I’m not sure if you go here, but you generally need to spend a year to two years (with the current CS curriculum I believe it’s 3 semesters since you need to take CS225, the fourth class in the CS intro sequence) before you can transfer. If you don’t get in, which is extremely likely, you either need to pick a major you don’t want or transfer to a different school. There are literally kids who get all A/A-'s that do not get in. Go on r/uiuc and ask any current student about this, they will agree with me.
EDIT: that being said, if you’re open to alternate majors then this isnt as big of a deal
There is no disagreement that transferring into these programs is very difficult. My point is that if you’re in DGS or PREP, then you should try to get in, if that’s what you’d like to do. The odds may be long but there is a transfer process in place for a reason. Some people drop out. Slots become available. Try. While the odds are long, it’s not impossible to transfer in, and it’s been done by many before. It also goes without saying, that you have to meet the transfer prerequisites prior to transferring.