<p>This is for my brother. I'm looking out for him because he's really smart, but doesn't give a crap at times.</p>
<p>Here's the situation. We live in Illinois. It's home to Urbana Champaign, which is also home to one of the better engineering programs.</p>
<p>I'm encouraging him to become an engineer considering he got a 36 on the math portion of the ACT. He loves dealing with science and numbers and so forth. It's a very good career and it'll be to his advantage. I recommended aerospace to him, considering Boeing is right down the street from us.</p>
<p>Now either he can apply directly to the school. Considering certain situations and events in the past, I'm very confident he will get in. He's taking AP classes left and right for his approaching senior year.</p>
<p>Now instead of sending him straight to UIUC, I was curious whether or not I should send him to my current CC (William Rainey Harper Community College aka Harper College =D ). My reasoning behind that is finance. Instead of dropping 15k each year, it'll be roughly 4k a year. With his High School presence including Top 5% of his class, I'm pretty sure he'll make a good candidate to the engineering program.</p>
<p>The only thing holding me back from all of this is the fact he might hurt himself by attending the CC. Transfers students, from my experience, are looked down upon for some reason. Would he be hurting himself by going to the CC? Should he go straight to the school?</p>
<p>He should go straight to a 4 year college, as it is getting more and more difficult to transfer into good colleges/ universities these days. Many colleges are finding their "yields" are increasing, and their incoming Freshman classes are over enrolled. More freshman than expected means fewer openings for transfer students.</p>
<p>While it's nice to see you have an interest in your brother's future, you might want to consider whether you're capable of influencing him to this extent. He may very well want to do whatever he wants, so don't be pushy (i.e. "send him to wherever")</p>
<p>On that note, UIUC has a 47% transfer admission rate. With his stats, I don't see any harm in attending a CC for a year or two so long as he takes the required courses. However, I wouldn't recommend it since he's only going to college for 4 years and only gets this experience once. Community college lacks the social and academic experiences he will find at a university.</p>
<p>Who is paying for his education? Will there be a possibility of financial aid and about how much? Does UIUC offer merit aid and might he get some?</p>
<p>I think in considering the two options, it would be important to delve a little further into what brand brought up - transfer rates into UIUC. I would have your bro contact the cc and see what the transfer success rate is into UIUC for majors which interest your brother.</p>
<p>I also second what brand is saying about amount of influence by you on your brother. I think it is tremendous that you are looking out for him this way, helping and trying to guide him. Just do be careful. I know of great math/quant types who went for Engineering - maybe unduly influenced by parents or others, maybe not - who got the degree (and did well doing it). But once they graduated, they really didn't want to pursue that career. </p>
<p>So make sure he is running the show and you are there to offer help and guidance.</p>
<p>All the more danger of guiding him into something. So, I would suggest helping him find a University where he could go in any direction for a major, because he'll probably figure it out in a year or so.</p>
<p>If he <em>is</em> at all interested in Engineering, it is wise to start out with that major because it is way easier to transfer out to anothe major than it is to transfer in to the Engineering majors.</p>
<p>His not having a clue could be an argument for the cc route. But I'd still want to know more re who is paying, whether there is a chance for need-based or merit aid and what the track record of that particular cc is for admit to UIUC in Engineering and/or other majors.</p>