I think the only thing that would genuinely attract most OOS STEM students is SERIOUS merit money, as in full scholarships. I’m not sure there’s anything the university can do to attract OOS students interested in the liberal arts.
I’ve never looked closely at the school (although I’m aware it’s very highly rated in engineering and CS), but the descriptions of the campus and location here in this thread are enough to keep me from ever suggesting it to anybody but a wealthy family whose kid is laser-focused on STEM fields and wants a more affordable and or more likely-to-be-admitted alternative to Carnegie-Mellon or MIT. Maybe that’s a potential niche worth targeting?
UW’s Comp Sci faculty totals about 50. Madison area has fair number of software cos including the rapidly growing EPIC that hire many UW grads so many prefer to stay local after college and can earn a good living in town.
@Purple Titan As usual, you do make some good points. However, I am not suggesting that they will pull all of the kids from neighboring states, just that they could attract more than they do currently without much difficulty.
I think that Illinois generally has a stronger reputation that Purdue and Indiana. Definitely better than Mizzou. A peer with Wisconsin, but there still would be some kids who would prefer it. They could definitely do a better job of attracting top students in nearby states than they do now.
A kid that does not get accepted at Michigan, for example, might be a good fit at UIUC.
@LucieTheLakie, I’ve visited Chambana, and it doesn’t seem all that bad. It’s certainly not as bad as New Haven, and tons of kids would give their left arm to go to school at Yale. Granted, I didn’t stay for many days and it’s not as picturesque or fun as Madison, but it does seem as if many rich kids go to an OOS school more for “the college experience” of getting drunk, attending football games, and partying than for an education. I mean, how are Colorado-Boulder or PSU stronger in liberal arts than UIUC? Both are generally deemed more picturesque, PSU is a football power, and Boulder has the slopes, however.
@Much2learn: They may be able to pull more, but enough to make any sort of meaningful impact? No. Just look at how many kids UW-Madison pulls from Midwestern states other than MN (whose residents pay in-state tuition at UW-Madison) or IL (which obviously can not be a source of OOS students for UIUC), and keep in mind that UW-Madison (which is cheaper OOS, more well-rounded, in a prettier/more fun college town, with a better football team) is pretty much the upper limit in terms of how much UIUC can draw in. Also keep in mind that the HS population in almost all Midwestern states is flat or declining.
I’m an infrequent CC poster but felt that I could offer my perspective as a former UIUC grad (Business-1988) who finds himself 27 years later as a parent of two high performing high school students (senior girl, junior boy) in the Illinois suburbs. I’m largely in agreement with PurpleTitan but thought I would add my two cents…
The idea of being accepted to a specific college at UIUC is nothing new. In 1984, I chose UIUC Business over admission into liberal arts at U of Michigan (pre-business). UIUC has always had a hierarchy in terms of acceptances into the various majors: Engineering > Business > Liberal Arts > back doors (Education, Agriculture, at least it used to be that way). The acceptance rate is relatively high at UIUC because those rejected by Engineering and Business are usually accepted into liberal arts.
It seems to me that UIUC is a very fine school that is struggling with both marketing and economic issues. From a marketing standpoint, it is hurt by having a campus in a rural area (2 1/2 hours from Chicago) and also because the football team has had a 10 year period of poor performance. UIUC has a national reputation for engineering and business but perhaps not to the extent that it would attract OOS STEM stars who could get into top tier in-state and private engineering and business schools. It is also getting picked apart by some of the other Big 10 schools. U Mich attracts top Illinois students with a better national reputation and a better football program. NU attracts academic superstars in Illinois who are interested in going to a more exclusive “Ivy-caliber” school. Indiana attracts Ill. students with its prettier campus, somewhat easier admissions standards, and its own top-flight business program. OSU and Iowa continue to target Chicago area students who may be looking to get “farther away” than just 100 miles to the south. Minnesota attracts Ill. students with its urban locale and its lure of OOS waivers to its top students. For example, I could not even get my own daughter (humanities star, not interested in Engineering) to apply to UIUC because she preferred an urban setting and desired a more scenic campus. But she did apply to U Minn, which offered her admissions into its honors college along with an OOS tuition waiver. With in-state tuition at Minnesota being approx $14k and in-state tuition at UIUC approx. $16K, Minnesota has made it cheaper for her to go OOS. My son (a high school junior, a likely NMF) would be a much better fit at UIUC and will certainly apply there next year but its possible that he could be lured away by a more highly ranked school or by a school that discounts its tuition to the point where it might be cheaper for him to leave the state. Unfortunately, Illinois’ tight budget situation appears to not only be affecting UIUC’s marketing efforts but also its scholarships which could keep Illinois’ finest in in-state.
The decision to accept so many Chinese students appears to be a band-aid type approach which helps UIUC’s bottom line, at least in the short term. To be fair, I would not think that UIUC’s approach in this regard is much different than what I’m seeing at some of the other top flagship universities, such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and the UCs (although they seem to be able to better attract OOS students while UIUC appears to be doing relatively better with the international students). Although I’m speculating, I would think that Chinese students are being pulled in both by UIUC’s Engineering program but also by UIUC’s excellent world ratings (29th in the THE World University rankings, 35th in USN&W rankings of Global Universities). Also, I would guess that international students might be less influenced by certain factors that may be hurting UIUC at the moment (i.e., a relatively less picturesque campus, a struggling football team).
About a year or so ago, UIUC began a billboard campaign here in Chicago. One board shows Chicago skyscrapers and says something like - this is Illlini country. Another one has to do with x% of UIIC people come back to Chicago.
Yeah. It struck me as a - well, duh, I’m sure a good number of people in the greater Chicagoland area went to the U of I; why would I think otherwise, it’s the largest city in the state. I can’t imagine it’s all that different for any state. Why, I bet a lot of Mizzou alums live in Kansas City, and a lot of Kentucky alums live in Louisville, and a lot of Penn State alums live in Philadelphia, and … the point? (Yea, yea, the inevitable UC digression aside, because there is no thread that cannot ultimately be migrated to a discussion of California)
I think it’s a little bit of a pissing match with Northwestern who has attempted to ‘take over’ sports by putting up billboards that NU is “Chicago’s B1G team.” Which is admirable positioning, and very clever, but let’s get real - the colleges that ‘own’ college football loyalty here in Chicago are Michigan and Notre Dame, far and away. That little interactive map the NYTimes had about football showed that - and NU football was basically confined to the zip codes that constituted Evanston, lol.
Kind of silly, but UIUC made another “top” list (“The 16 Most Beautiful And Iconic American College Quads”), which it might want to tout a little since it seems many folks are uninspired by its environs:
Goodness, @illinidad, you are very invested in my opinion! Some of my students share my taste in college towns and others don’t. They are quite able to make judgments that differ from mine.
It would be in my interest to push Illinois to my in-state clients. Most will get in, and most will be able to afford it. That kind of result reflects much better on the consultant than if the students long for Michigan/Northwestern and we can’t make it work.
We still haven’t heard your answer about which B1G campus/town combinations you think UIUC matches or surpasses (using Purdue/West Lafayette as a freebie). Everybody’s got a different opinion, but I’m not exactly a lone voice in the wilderness. As the UIUC vice chancellor put it in the article, there was no domestic out-of-state population interested in UIUC when it needed one. I think we all agree that the academics are excellent and cannot be the reason for the low interest. Could just be the football team, I guess, but that doesn’t seem to hurt Indiana.
Isn’t a large component of the issue cost? If, with merit, you can attend several of the other B1G for less than in-state COA of UofI, why would you go for the OOS state cost? Excepting Accounting and some of the engineering departments, I don’t see how you would justify it. I am in-state, but I don’t think that U of I merit aid for OOS applicants exceeds the OOS CoA.
@Hanna: IU is also cheaper and gives out more merit money. Also, compared to UofI’s b-school (actually, any other undergrad b-school), Kelley is absolutely massive (so more room for OOS students there). IU’s music school (Jacobs) is also top-rated and I’m sure a draw to some OOS students. And while they are equally terrible in football, being a tradition-laden powerhouse in basketball doesn’t hurt.
BTW, I’m sure Mizzou would like to claim KC as Tiger country; my sense is that KU draws the most loyalty there.
Mizzou does win the StL region over UofI, however, though that’s mostly because loyalties (and alumni representation) are demarcated by the Mississippi river, and the MO side has several times more people than the IL side.
Not really, although UIUC would surely be more popular if it were cheaper. The vast majority of Illinois residents at Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, etc. aren’t getting any meaningful merit aid and are paying more than they would pay at Illinois. The COA at most of these schools is in the $45k range, with Michigan notably higher, and none hands out merit aid to a huge portion of OOS kids the way some SEC schools do. The last time I looked at the data, Minnesota and OSU were the biggest bargains, and they don’t attract that many Illinois kids compared to the four I named.
@Hanna, IL kids wouldn’t be going to UMich because it is cheaper. That’s for sure.
UW-Madison doesn’t hand out hardly any merit money to OOS, but tuition, fees, + R&B is just a few thousand more than the UIUC in-state costs for the most costly majors (engineering, business, and chemical/life sciences).
That’s true for UIowa as well.
And from looking at what kids are posting about their options on CC, it looks like getting at least some merit money/discount (so that costs are comparable to UIUC in-state) to UIowa, IU (and ISU, and Mizzou) doesn’t take much. But those 4 schools are also taking in IL kids who can’t get in to UIUC (or at least in to UIUC in the major that they want).
Note that the 25th percentile ACT (the one where 75% of the student body get or surpass) at UIUC is 26. At IU, it’s 24. At UIowa, it was 25 in 2013, but that was a big jump from 22 in 2012. At ISU, it’s 22. At Mizzou, it’s 23.
It seems to me that Illinois and Purdue should be able to take advantage of the increasing popularity of engineering programs.
In Illinois’s case, they may be scrambling for the total number of students they want while turning away a lot of excellent students applying for engineering and business programs. Maybe they need to adjust how large each program is to better match demand.
It also seems like they could work harder to strengthen the alumni network. I have the impression that Northwestern, Wisconsin and Michigan all do a better job of that.
Yes, it’s true that not getting into the UIUC major they want can be a factor for some Illinois kids going to Iowa, but not so much for IU, which doesn’t have engineering, and whose business school is probably more selective than Illinois’. At any rate, we’re talking about kids from families with the financial resources to pay for the OOS schools. The average ACT in that population is way higher than the state average, and probably in the neighborhood of the 25 or so kids need for UIUC LAS.
“It also seems like they could work harder to strengthen the alumni network. I have the impression that Northwestern, Wisconsin and Michigan all do a better job of that.”
They do, but I think that’s strongly related to the experience alumni had when they were students, not the excellence of the alumni affairs staff. Looking at Notre Dame as an exemplar of a loyal alumni network, they’re working on that from day one, minute one, when an applicant becomes an accepted student. I worked on my college reunion last year, and there wasn’t much we could do to excite an alum who didn’t graduate loving the school, or discourage an alum who did.
I haven’t seen alumni giving rates for the various Big Ten schools. Maybe someone with a USNews subscription can look them up and see how Illinois is doing relative to its peers.
@PurpleTitan For the earlier comments about Facebook Recruiting, If you wanted a job at Facebook or any other prestigious Silicon valley company, then just go to a Silicon Valley area school, like San Jose State, UC Santa Cruz, or Santa Clara University. All of these have pretty easy to enter Computer Science programs and, as I said, Facebook and the other prestigious Silicon valley companies recruit from them.
Engineering still seems to be a bigger draw to Asia/SE Asia than among US kids. I think that also hurts attractiveness of heavy engineering schools like UIUC and PU to US OOS students.
Allowing this massive influx of Asian students is going to create anti-Asian sentiment among the younger generations. Getting beaten by them in school/college and in the job market is going to create hatred.
