<p>Anyone know where I can find acceptance numbers for individual colleges?</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but U of I is pretty intense to get into. I do know that.</p>
<p>The reason I am asking is because the abnormally high acceptance rate of 70% for a school with such high reputation. From what I heard, UIUC is on par with UCLA, UCD, and UCSB of my state. The acceptance rates are much lower, especially UCLA (~20%). I got into college of engineering with UW GPA of 3.33 and SAT of 1910, which is close to no chance to get into UCLA according to many sources, though I have taken a lot of AP classes. This leaves me puzzled why UIUC have such high acceptance rate even though it’s consider one of the top school for engineering (ranked #2 for EE by US news, right behind MIT).</p>
<p>Probably because of the job market around the university? There are over 100 aerospace companies in Illinois itself. Try looking at the companies here: [Illinois</a> (IL) Companies & Businesses](<a href=“http://www.manta.com/mb_41_ALL_14/illinois]Illinois”>http://www.manta.com/mb_41_ALL_14/illinois)</p>
<p>What does someone else think of this? :o</p>
<p>It is a misconption to relate admission rate to reputation particularly for engineering. In fact for engineering rankings USNews does not even use admission rates as a factor. You are seeing admission rates for each of the UCs for the university as a whole. Their engineering admission rates are usually well over more than double those but the vast majority of those who apply for engineering have high stats. At UIUC engineering actually has one of the highest admission rates of all the colleges at UIUC, very often in the low 70 percent range or even somewhat higher. What happens is that 70% to 80% of those who actually apply to engineering are in the top 10% of their class and have ACTs of 30 or higher.</p>
<p>^ Thank you for that explanation. :)</p>
<p>Actually, I’m surprised you were admitted to engineering with those stats. The middle 50% of admitted freshman last year to Engineering had an ACT of 30-33 and were in the top 2 to 8% of their class. Your SAT of 1910 put you just slightly below an ACT of 30, and I’d be surprised if that GPA put you in the top 8% of your HS class. So, while I’m glad you got accepted, you were on the bubble because it was even more competitive this year.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate is an arbitrary stat IMHO, because it’s totally dependent on who and how many apply. If UIUC got 20,000 additional apps with an ACT of 20, their acceptance rate would drop by a lot, but their admit statistics would remain the same. Hope that helps. By the way, did you apply to UCLA, UCD, and/or UCSB? If so, did you get accepted?</p>
<p>You’re correct in that UIUC has one of the highest ranked engineering colleges in the country. Consider yourself lucky to have been admitted.</p>
<p>Stats are here:</p>
<p>[U</a> of I Admissions: Freshman Admission Requirements](<a href=“http://admissions.illinois.edu/apply/requirements_freshman.html]U”>Page Not Found, Illinois Undergraduate Admissions)</p>
<p>^ With the link he posted, the stats are at the bottom with the name “ENG”.</p>
<p>This puzzles me also. I’m also from California, and with a 4.0 UW gpa/4.6W/2230SAT, I only have a decent chance at UCLA and Berkeley engineering, no better than that. The UCLA and UC Berkeley engineering programs are so competitive that many students from my school get into highly ranked privates (such as Cornell and Carnegie Mellon) far more easily than LA and Berkeley. But when students from my school apply to some of the midwest schools like Wisconsin and UIUC, which are ranked EXTREMELY highly in almost all of the engineering/math/science fields, they almost always get in. About 6 of my friends who have virtually no chance at the top UCs or privates decided on a whim to apply to Illinois on January 1st and every one of them was accepted last night. I’m not trying to criticize the university or anything - I believe what everyone here says about the quality of UIUC - but I just want to know how the acceptance rates can be so high? UCLA doesn’t compare to UIUC or Wisconsin in most of the engineering fields according to the rankings, so I don’t understand how it could be so much harder to get in.</p>
<p>It is a factor of geography, population, and size of school program. 80% and higher of those who apply to a public university are residents of the state and that is true of engineering. California happens to have 36 million residents, Illinois 12 million. There are a lot of UCs but the vast majority of top students in California who want to do engineering will apply to Berkeley and UCLA (usually both since California makes it easy with its single app process). Add to the problem that UIUC usually enrolls about 1200 freshman in engineering and UCLA and Berkeley about 700 or somewhat less each. Berkeley and UCLA each get about 55,000 applications total a year and Illinois about 20,000 (the population difference come to fruition). UIUC usually gets about 3400 applicants to engineering to fill those 1200 seats, Berkeley and UCLA usually get close to 8,000 each (with a huge overlap of applicants between the two) to fill their 700 each. UIUC admits about 2500 of its 3400 applicants to get a class of 1200. UCLA and Berkeley each admit about 2400 of their 8,000 to get the 700 each (they have to admit 3 to 4 times more than those who enroll because they know they are playing the overlap game with each other and thus each knows many that it admits will end up at the other; UIUC does not have that competition from another state university since it is the only flagship public university in Illinois).</p>
<p>Ah, that makes sense. Thanks very much for the explanation.</p>