<p>I haven't posted a whole ton to the CC forums - I basically just fill out bunches of college visit reviews cause I applied to way too many schools - so please don't judge me if this is in any way "noob"-y. May 1st is coming up and I'm nervous so I need your help.</p>
<p>I never considered IWU. My mom told me to apply and so I just did, and visited after applying. But then I ended up liking it. Sooo my two finalists are UIUC and IWU. I want a stereotypical college campus feel - checkmark for both, even with IWU being a small version of it. I'm an undeclared major, so that doesn't really help. I really enjoy music but do not plan on making a career out of it - either way, both schools are good at music (I don't know which is easier to get into - if I ever decided to do music, it'd be music ed.). Sciences are cool to me, but are not my strength. I thought it'd be cool to try out engineering - I've heard that CS (one of my main interests in the engineering field) is impossible to transfer into at UIUC. I want to have a social life in college and come out of my bubble; I'm the type who's shy at first, before you get to know me really well, and I tend to need a push to try new things (I'm curious, but never enough to actually follow through without that push). I figured the large school setting of UIUC would be better for me because of that - there's 30,000 undergrads, so how could I not find something to do or someone to hang out with? On the other hand, it could overwhelm me. IWU has 2,000 people. My high school has about 2,000 people in it... I'm not sure if I'd really like to do that again, with feeling like I know everyone to some extent by the time I graduate. IWU is a really good liberal arts college, but I'm under the impression Bloomington-Normal is boring - then again, I also hear that Urbana-Champaign is "a corn field".</p>
<p>IWU:
* Bloomington-Normal = not best college town; State Farm centered
* 2,000 undergrads + 0 grad students
* could feel too small - get to know everyone too fast
* liberal arts college
* good for undeclared majors?
* good music program
* best friend will be attending after 2 years in community college
* cost of attendance: $7,000</p>
<p>UIUC:
* Urbana-Champaign = college town
* Urbana-Champaign = corn field
* 30,000 undergrads + 10,000 grads
* could feel too big - overwhelmed by all the people
* could have lots of opportunity to meet different types of people
* large state school
* hard to transfer into CS
* good music program
* lots of people from my school go here - I'm not friends with any of them (nor do I intend to become friends)
* cost of attendance: $11,000</p>
<p>I can make a pros and cons list but I'm having trouble deciding between the two. If anyone has any experience with either school, please let me know...</p>