Illinois to get harder for residents; Parents outraged!!

Parents Forum
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<p><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0605100192may10,1,4149184.story?coll=chi-news-hed%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0605100192may10,1,4149184.story?coll=chi-news-hed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>University of Illinois' goal to raise its academic reputation also has raised the anxiety level in high schools, where some students say they fear they might have a tougher time getting into the state's flagship campus.</p>

<p>To address those worries, U. of I. at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman on Tuesday met with Chicago-area high school counselors to explain why he wants to attract more out-of-state, minority and international students--and how that could help their students.</p>

<p>"Let me be clear about one thing: We are trying to create the best education for the students you send to us," Herman told the counselors. "This is why we are trying as hard as we can to attract the best students we can and those who give us as broad an experience as possible."</p>

<p>Among other goals, the University of Illinois' wide-ranging strategic plan calls for increasing the percentage of undergraduates who come from outside of Illinois to 15 percent, from 10 percent. The university has the smallest percentage of non-resident students of any Big 10 university, with seven of the public universities drawing more than 25 percent of their students from other states.</p>

<p>Herman also said he wants more students from the top 10 percent of their high school classes, a category in which Illinois ranks significantly lower than other public universities such as the University of Wisconsin, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan.</p>

<p>Tom Higgins, a junior at private Morgan Park Academy on Chicago's South Side, questions the reasoning behind making a state university into a more elite institution.</p>

<p>"It is a state school and one expects that to be more open than private schools," said Higgins, who is considering applying to the U. of I. "Isn't the idea behind public education that education is supposed to be available to everyone?"</p>

<p>Herman said he's heard those concerns but won't let them affect his goal to make U. of I. the nation's premier public university, a plan that includes raising the academic selectivity and diversity of the student body.</p>

<p>Freshman class to shrink</p>

<p>The five-year plan also includes gradually decreasing the size of the freshman class from about 7,500 this year to 6,500 by 2011, which admissions officials said was more a return to normal than a drastic change. The university had an especially large freshman class this year, 7,563. In 2002, there were 6,366 students in the class.</p>

<p>As class size has risen in recent years, however, the academic quality of the student body has declined. About 55 percent of freshmen in 2001 graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes compared with 47 percent of this year's freshman class. Officials hope to increase that to 75 percent in coming years.</p>

<p>Several guidance counselors who attended Tuesday's meeting said that families are most upset about the university's goal to increase the number of non-resident students.</p>

<p>But Herman said that change would also help the bottom line. Those students pay about $15,000 more a year in tuition than Illinois students.</p>

<p>"Multiply that by 100 and what do you get? How many extra teaching assistants? How many more faculty can we hire? How many more classrooms can we refurbish?" he asked. "That is not a reason for doing it, but it is a benefit."</p>

<p>That didn't appease the counselors, who said it already is difficult for students to get into the university. Several mentioned the strategies that some students resort to, such as declaring less popular majors to improve their chances.</p>

<p>Amy Thompson, president of the Illinois School Counselor Association and a counselor at York Community High School in Elmhurst, said she worries about the students who are academically qualified but not in the top 10 percent.</p>

<p>"The top 15 percent of our kids don't have as many options," she said. "I always feel for the students caught in the middle ... they have to pay out-of-state tuition to go to a Big 10 school."</p>

<p>At Lincoln-Way East High School in Frankfort, which sends about 60 students to U. of I. each year, counselor Jim Martin said Illinois students shouldn't be passed over in favor of out-of-state teens.</p>

<p>"Look at our kids first," said Martin. "We pay our taxes. We represent Illinois. ... I understand diversity, but if you are going to cut away from us, that hurts us.</p>

<p>"The kids who haven't gotten in, they have said, `Why are they becoming the elite?'"</p>

<p>Several counselors pointed out that other neighboring Midwest states have more than one flagship campus, which gives their students more in-state options for college, along with the cheaper tuition that state schools offer to their residents. For example, Indiana has both Purdue and Indiana Universities and Michigan has both the University of Michigan and Michigan State.</p>

<p>Illinois has 12 public university campuses, but none has the reputation of U. of. I., leaving many students vying to get into a single school, counselors said.</p>

<p>Fewer in-state alternatives</p>

<p>Herman acknowledged that concern. "Part of our issue is how to balance the fact that there are fewer in-state alternatives," he said. "We recognize that fact and the question is how to preserve some balance with our ... goals."</p>

<p>Other counselors said they worry about students who can't afford the cost of a private university but don't want to attend the state's other public universities.</p>

<p>"For many students, it's really important that they stay in Illinois from a cost viewpoint. This definitely will have an impact citywide in Chicago," said Marina Medina, director of counseling at Northside College Prep.</p>

<p>One west suburban parent said the new policies are unfair to students like his son, who was rejected by U. of I.'s business school despite a 30 on the ACT and a 4.0 grade-point average.</p>

<p>Nick Spaeth plans to instead attend Marquette University with a partial scholarship.</p>

<p>"The part that was surprising was when we started hearing talk about their vision to attract so many out-of-state students," said Dan Spaeth of Elmhurst. "That is hard to swallow when you live in Illinois and it's your premier institution and you do well as a student and can't get in."</p>

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<p>I agree 1000% with the last quotation. < Not a typo for the percentage.</p>

<p>I'm an IL resident, and -- jesus... we pay taxes for U of I, and now they are moving for a shameless money grab.</p>

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<p>Outraged? Doesn't sound like it to me. It sounds like counselors and parents are concerned, and that's understandable because this will squeeze out some kids at the margins. But I don't get (from these articles) that people are outraged.</p>

<p>It's a plus and a minus for Illinois families. It's a minus for students who won't get in--but it can raise the stature of the school, improve the peer group of those who are admitted....and then there's the revenue thing.</p>

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<p>I have stated before that the big state schools with large OOS populations do it partly for the money. This helps prove that and it goes for Michigan, Virginia and UW too.</p>

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<p>I live in VA and find it ridiculous that UVa and William and Mary take in so many out of state students. Admissions at both schools told us that 1/3 of the students are OOS. UNC Chapel Hill has a max of 18% that has been set by the state legislature. I think that Virginia should as well. My parents pay their share of VA state taxes as did I from my summer job. There are many students from my instate VA hs that didn't get into these schools that had excellent stats, scores, ecs etc.</p>

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<p>The only public "higher" education that is virtually open to "everyone" is community colleges. Virtually all other types of state colleges turn some applicants down for being unqualified or lack of space. Many states have "flagship U's" that only take the creme de la creme, while those states' "non-flagship U's" take only some of everybody else. </p>

<p>I don't think public higher education was ever intended to be for "everybody" otherwise these institutions would have to be a lot bigger!!</p>

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<p>so... maybe the best solution is to have a concurrent goal --
Make U of I "the best" but also make one or two of the other 12 public unies into what U of I is now. Then there shouldnt be any outrage at all.</p>

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<p>jlauer95: Too sensible.</p>

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<p>jlauer95: that's clearly what they need to do. Maybe they could beef up UI-Chicago, which has already improved a lot in the last decade. If they can promote more campus life, it shouldn't be hard to convince kids to go to college in the city. Or else they could try to turn (most likely) Northern Illinois into a selective liberal-arts destination campus, letting UIUC focus more on its fantastic engineering, architecture, and computer science programs. To some extent, that may happen naturally as UIUC rejects are forced to turn to UIC and NIU.</p>

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<p>tartan, it still isn't very hard to get into UVA in state.</p>

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<p>It depends what part of VA you are from....</p>

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<p>No, it doesn't.</p>

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<p>The school closest to UIUC in terms of student profile is University of Illinois at Springfield. Looks like the task of bringing two schools up to UIUC level will not be an easy one.</p>

<p>UIUC: average ACT 28
UIS: average ACT 25
UIC: average ACT 23
ISU: average ACT 23
NIU: average ACT 22
SIU: average ACT 22
EIU: average ACT 22
WIU: average ACT 21
NEIU: average ACT 19
CSU: average ACT 18</p>

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<p><<<< Make U of I "the best" but also make one or two of the other 12 public unies into what U of I is now. Then there shouldnt be any outrage at all. <<<</p>

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<p><<<< The school closest to UIUC in terms of student profile is University of Illinois at Springfield. Looks like the task of bringing two schools up to UIUC level will not be an easy one.</p>

<p>UIUC: average ACT 28
UIS: average ACT 25
UIC: average ACT 23
NIU: average ACT 22</p>

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<p>It does look a bit daunting but it can be done - just not overnight. The suggestions others have made seem reasonable. </p>

<p>There is no reason that a state as populated as IL should have one "top" public that is SO much better than the others. When CA had the problem that everyone felt that they had a right to Berkeley or UCLA, a few other UC's got more "beefed" up.</p>

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<p>jlauer,</p>

<p>There's also the fact that UCSD has been managing to make itself into a research powerhouse on its own.</p>

<p>I dunno how the UI system works, but the UCs have a lot of independence to set their direction.</p>

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<p>Then the answer might be to challenge the "top" other 3 to become better. Partner with corps or whatever to reach the goal of having some "area" that it becomes "known for"</p>

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<p>Cavalier, Kids in Northern Virginia definitely have a harder time getting admitted into UVa as compared to the rest of the state. </p>

<p>From the Post:
Whenever the University of Virginia rejected one of the bright students she advised at Langley High School in Fairfax County, Margaret Brinker blamed it on geography. The university had to put a limit on how many students it accepted from Northern Virginia, she suspected, because it feared the wrath of legislators and their constituents from other parts of the state.</p>

<p>It's a claim that U-Va. officials strongly deny, even as many other public colleges, including the University of Maryland, acknowledge that they strive to enroll a freshman class that reflects their state's geographic breadth -- from the suburbs to the cities to the far rural corners.</p>

<p>"We don't think in those terms," said John A. Blackburn, U-Va.'s longtime dean of admission. "We do not try to shape our class based on where applicants live or go to school," other than a 2-to-1 ratio for Virginians versus out-of-state students.</p>

<p>Yet an analysis of admissions data by The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com shows that despite Northern Virginia applicants having, on average, the strongest test scores in the state, a smaller percentage of the area's recent applicants were admitted to U-Va. Of the current sophomore, junior and senior classes, 47.7 percent of Northern Virginia applicants to the university's College of Arts and Sciences were admitted, compared with 54.5 percent from other urban and suburban regions, such as the Richmond and Norfolk areas, and 54 percent from rural communities.</p>

<p>It's not that Northern Virginia -- a region with some of the nation's best high schools -- is underrepresented in the student body. Blackburn points out that nearly half of the university's current in-state undergraduates are from Northern Virginia, even though the area accounts for only about a third of the state's college-bound high school students.</p>

<p>One factor at play in the statistics is that Northern Virginians are much more likely to try to get into U-Va., with Blackburn's office receiving applications from some students who were ranked relatively low in their graduating classes.</p>

<p>From other parts of the state, only the very top high school graduates tend to apply, which may partly explain the higher success rate for those areas. "I've never had more than three or four [students] apply" in a year, said Patsy Huff, director of guidance at Virginia High School in Bristol, on the mountainous Tennessee border. "And I've never had them get in unless they were in the top 10" of a graduating class, which usually numbers about 150, she added.</p>

<p>Getting into U-Va. -- consistently ranked as one of the best public universities in the country -- has become a Holy Grail of sorts for families throughout the state, one whose elusiveness has increased with the growing size of the applicant pool. The Post set out to assess how various factors, besides the standard measures of applicants' high school grades and test scores, may influence admission decisions.</p>

<p>The analysis was based on data from all 16,316 applications submitted by in-state residents in 2000, 2001 and 2002, obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Among the findings:</p>

<p>Black applicants appear to have had an edge in the process. Though as a group they had lower SAT scores, about 69 percent were offered admission, higher than any other racial subset.</p>

<p>Though Hispanic students have traditionally been viewed as beneficiaries of affirmative action, they appear to have had no special status in the U-Va. admissions office. The relatively small pool of Hispanics had test scores close to the average for all other ethnic and racial groups and were admitted at a similar rate over the three years.</p>

<p>Legacy admissions -- the practice of granting an edge to children of alumni, often used as counterpoint in affirmative action debates -- made a difference at U-Va., but perhaps not as much as detractors suggest. Though 57 percent of legacies gained admission, compared with 50 percent of non-legacies, they also had somewhat higher test scores than other applicants.</p>

<p>U-Va., like many universities, has long acknowledged its tendency to grant an edge to legacies -- as a means of stoking alumni loyalties -- as well as to minority candidates, as part of an explicit goal of creating a racially diverse class. But officials disavow geographic diversity as a concern in the admissions process.</p>

<p>"We try to be fair and consistent across the state," Blackburn said, cautioning that standardized test scores, which are significantly higher among Northern Virginia applicants, do not give the full picture of a candidate's merit. U-Va. also looks at essays, leadership qualities, intellectual achievement and life experiences.</p>

<p>If anything, Blackburn suggested, U-Va. officials may grant an edge to Northern Virginia -- admitting students with lower class ranks than they might otherwise "because of our respect for the quality of the [high] schools."</p>

<p>Those include the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, which probably sends more students to U-Va. than any single high school sends to any single selective college in the country. According to Jefferson counselor Robyn Lady, U-Va. accepted 80 percent of the Jefferson students who applied in 2002. She said 136 of them -- about a third of the senior class -- went to Charlottesville.</p>

<p>Other Northern Virginia high schools have nowhere near that kind of success getting students into U-Va. Cheri Eddy, the career center specialist at Chantilly High School in Fairfax, said this year's numbers were typical: Of 87 seniors from a class of 566 who applied to U-Va., 36 were accepted, 20 were waitlisted and 31 were rejected. She said at least 26 decided to go to U-Va. She was not certain if anyone from the wait list got in.</p>

<p>Several high school guidance counselors in Northern Virginia said they were not surprised by statistics showing that their students have a comparatively difficult time getting into U-Va. And among their students, the rumors of "anti-NoVa" bias looms large by the time they get around to applying.</p>

<p>(The Post's analysis defined Northern Virginia as Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties, as well as Alexandria, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park.)</p>

<p>Ben Maskell spent much of his senior year at Langley High agonizing about the daunting odds he was sure he'd face at U-Va. "I thought there was no way I'd get in," he said. "You have an overwhelming number of qualified people from up here -- the top 10 percent [of a high school class] are all people who have 4.0s. . . . From another part of the state, it's not so high."</p>

<p>He got in, though. Now a rising senior at U-Va., Maskell doesn't get bent out of shape about the supposed bias anymore. He still believes it exists, recalling a friend from "the sticks" who was in the top of her small-town high school's graduating class but struggled at U-Va. and eventually transferred to another state school.</p>

<p>But he calls it "a good thing" that makes the campus more diverse. "If they said, 'We're going to take the top 30 percent,' they'd all be from Northern Virginia," Maskell said.</p>

<p>If there is a bias against Northern Virginians, downstate students don't see it. Will Sowers recalled that at his orientation three years ago, it seemed that nearly half of his new classmates introduced themselves with a nonchalant, "Oh, I'm from NoVa."</p>

<p>"We tend to think there are too many people from Northern Virginia," Sowers, a rising senior from Williamsburg, said half-jokingly -- in particular "an obscene number" from Jefferson, he said. He disputed the suggestion that those who get in from Northern Virginia are a cut above the rest.</p>

<p>"It was reasonably difficult to get in from my region," Sowers said. "There's really no perception that just because you're from Northern Virginia you're a better student."</p>

<p>Some even suggest the opposite could be the case. Courtney Lamie said that of the 250 in her graduating class at Abingdon High School, in the southwestern corner of the state, only three joined her at U-Va. "From what I've seen, most people who apply and get in are valedictorians or salutatorians and are really involved," said Lamie, a rising senior. "I don't think that's the case from Northern Virginia."</p>

<p>Hal Straus, washingtonpost.com database editor, contributed to this report.</p>

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<p>Considering that UIUC cost is already 21K +
many parents will have to send their kids to other still less expensive state schools like SIU and NIU anyway...</p>

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<p>tartan,</p>

<p>As VA resident and taxpayer, your sentiments are certainly understandable. However, do you realize that only 8% of UVA's budget comes from the state of Virginia?? Given this relatively small contribution, it is actually surprising that Virginia continues with its 2/1, instate/outofstate ratio. The applicant pool from oos is stronger than instate and frankly, the school would be better served academically by taking a larger percentage of non-Virginians. Some of the graduate schools at UVA have recognized this and gone private (ie, no state funding) and have the ability to take larger numbers of non-Virginians which has led to a higher overall student body. </p>

<p>As a native Richmonder who graduated from UVA CAS, IMO the undergraduate ratio should be driven more by the quality of the applicant pool rather than by the politicians in Richmond. A couple of quick stats (from 2005 entering class) demonstrate the great advantage that instate applicants have over out of state:
1. instate applicants make up just under 40% of total applicants, but are accepted at a 51% rate.<br>
2. out of state applicants make up over 60% of total applicants, but are accepted at only a 30% rate.<br>
3. as previously noted, the ratio of matriculating students is 65% instate, 35% outofstate
3. while I have not seen published data on average gpa and sat scores for instate vs outofstate applicants, anecdotally I think that all would agree that the oos applicant pool is stronger (and potentially a lot stronger) than the instate applicant pool
4 instate tuition is rougly 1/3 that of oos</p>

<p>If UVA wants to maintain or improve its academic reptution, then perhaps a 1/1 ratio (or even higher in favor of oos) would move in that direction while still giving some level of preference to Virginia applicants. Even without changing at all, UVA is still a terrific school. But the current accomodation to Virginia residents has a cost as it dilutes the academic quality of the undergraduate population and impacts how the school is viewed by top high school applicants (instate and outofstate). This may partially explain the relative yields (instate 71%, outofstate 35%) and why UVA will usually lose out when it goes head to head with schools like Princeton, Duke, etc for the best students.</p>

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<p>Does anyone know why only 10% of UIUC is out of state? Do they raise the bar for admissions from OOS or is there a state mandate like UNC that limits the percentage?</p>