UIUC - EA applicants Class of 2025

The Chicago Tribune article was behind a paywall,this article was a copycat one. Well the current governor at least knows that UIUC has engineering when the last one didn’t… Lol… Plus he’s into tech big time with starting https://1871.com/. And other tech ventures…

It all comes down to money… I work in the western suburbs. So many families going to Iowa, Iowa State, University of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alabama, Arizona State, etc. Following the money… That got into UIUC… Like over 80% of my sons high school back 4 years ago got accepted to UIUC… Much, much lower numbers went… It’s a great school. Nationally known. No question but hopefully they can compete. Once you lose a kid to OOS the studies show they don’t come back. That is what is meant by losing talent…

Yes, 4 years back there weren’t the program like Illinois Promise and Illinois commit something like that.
Excessive supply of high schoolers than universities capacity certainly will leave state that is nature of education.
If you just compare university capacity, the so called lost talent is replaced with incoming OOS students. So from UIUC pov, its 0 effect.
However what you saying is certainly true from State perspective. There are multiple factors behind it. In order to bring back talent State needs industries to attract that talent.
If one compared college cost with surrounding states, IL may look little costly but significantly cheaper than equal quality private colleges in area.
At the end of the day, everyone makes their decision based on their financial situations and what is best for them, I don’t think one can blame University for that.

We can all whine about state issues another day.

Edit: few more things, also the students who goes to surrounding states are displaces those states talent too. I am not hearing that cry from those states. That should be proud for IL that its talent is more valued by surrounding states than those states own talent.

My observation and opinion is that UIUC is perceived to be “stingy” with merit scholarships and is actually expensive for in-state students, relative to other state flagships’ in-state tuition. So, in that sense, UIUC gets a bad rap, politics aside. High stats kids likely have and will get other offers that are super-attractive. Schools like Alabama (and others) really throw out the merit money to these kids and it borders on the offer that can’t be refused. In the end, though, as you all have stated, it boils down to what works best for your family situation, major of study and budget. I’ll also be curious to hear how UIUC’s application volume shakes out this year with the pandemic. My guess is that it’ll be way up with more in-state kids applying, where UIUC maybe wouldn’t be a primary consideration in a non-pandemic year. We shall soon find out (in about 50-ish days…)

Like many of you, our family is frustrated with the mid-February decision date. These seniors have had a rough year and it feels like another blow to have to wait that long. My son applied to Geis and while his ACT was on the low side of the range, he was a direct admit to Kelly at IU which would be his second choice. Just wondering if we should put the deposit down at IU and start securing housing, etc. knowing if he get into Gies, we would lose the deposit.
What are others doing? This is our first born so we’re clueless

@melrose1975 I don’t think you have to accept your IU spot (deposit $100) in order to fill out the housing app ($200 deposit), but double check that info. IU housing preference is given based on date of application, so you might want to do that now, but you would lose the $200 deposit if you end up not enrolling at IU. If his school uses Naviance or Scoir, how do his chances for UIUC/Gies look?

I don’t know about IU but I do know at other schools people are putting down housing deposits to secure housing. At the end of the day the money you put down for housing is small in the grand scheme of things. If it’s your first kid, it may hit that you don’t want to waste that $200 or whatever, but at the end of the day when you’re spending $40k/year for college anyway, it is nothing and if he stays in state at Illinois, it is likely cheaper to go there anyway than IU.

@sdc9160 I think you’re right. UIUC gives very few merit scholarships and those who get them are certainly in the minority. But unless someone gets a ton of merit at another school, it is still going to be less expensive to go to UIUC. Yes, someone can go to Alabama as someone else mentioned, but if you’re looking at something like Engineering, you can’t compare some of the Engineering programs at UIUC to 'Bama. If it’s money people need to chase then UIUC isn’t the place for them. My son just got a full ride at Miami (Oh) and would still go to UIUC over it even if we were full pay because the program is that much better. I agree there will be way more in state applying and competition is going to be fierce. The late date actually helps in some degree because those who applied ED will not withdraw whereas in the past couple years, UIUC decisions came out around the same time as ED so those students were in that mix. Now they will not be, so there will definitely be more spots to give hopefully now instead of kids being waitlisted.

For others - more lower income families can now afford UIUC because of the free tuition promise they put in a few years ago in the state that if you make below a certain income threshold you apply for free tuition. Obviously assets matter as well, but regardless this will help a lot of people.

We just all have to sit patiently and wait to see how it shakes out. Not much we can do until then other than keep complaining and hope our kids have some good choices if things don’t work out for them at Illinois.

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Thanks for the info. 5.0 weighted GPA, 29 ACT with 30 superscore (not that UIUC superscores). Essay was unique in that I don’t think anyone else could have written the same one. If he doesn’t get into Geis, he should be in Undecided as his second choice. Then he would have to make the tough call whether to stay in state and try the difficult transfer into Geis or go for the sure thing at Kelly. They’ve only given him $8,000 a year but that’s before he fills out the scholarship application. Would have been really nice to know before Christmas! Good luck to all!

From what I heard on a UIUC Admission’s virtual presentation was that all decisions–EA and RD–come out mid-February. So I think there is zero chance to hear in December unfortunately.

Sorry–just realized you said “would have been nice to know before Christmas!” So apparently you already knew. It is a bummer, I agree!

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Yes, this is a bit off topic f/the original post - but I am seeing diverging references toward UIUC/Illinois in this thread.

I think UIUC as a competitive state flagship has a different balancing act to perform than peers in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa etc: significantly greater state population with broader socio-economic, cultural and racial diversity. The land of Lincoln still houses the 3rd largest city & is the 6th largest state population in the United States. Neighboring states have always benefited from their proximity to thousands of college-aged students who live here.

I would also argue it’s not just the state of Illinois struggling with state funding in higher education. The ease of simply attending the BIG 10 ‘next door’ is also deterring - Even Minnesota recently raised their OOS tuition to closely align to all BIG10 rates of inflation. Families are looking further south & west to Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Iowa State, Nebraska for friendly OOS tuition and incentives they once were able to rely on at neighboring BIG10 schools like University of Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue(IN), & Wisconsin.

A question in relation to articles citing increased numbers of fleeing students; is cost the sole factor? Could one reason be the shift in recent years toward STEM - particularly CS and Engineering. I’ve seen data sets that indicate the rise in #'s of those majors, nationally. I’ve seen several posts on this cite for families looking for alternate options, knowing the competition for these majors nationwide.

Thus, could one reason for the increase of students leaving Illinois be a result of non- admittance to competitive programs in Illinois? Specifically for UIUC as a flagship, it is serving a much larger state population than other BIG10’s. For competitive majors, in-state UIUC is still a great deal. 4 yrs. locked-in tuition for nationally recognized programs.

I’m still asking questions, because I think there is more input to the equation than is ever investigated any further. And I don’t think issues of higher education funding are limited to Illinois. It’s a nationwide issue, and many families are looking more broadly for the best opportunity on their investment.

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Yes we were aware this summer but as the other admissions starting rolling in, it’s just gotten more frustrating to wait!

These are some of tactics deployed by universities to lure more OOS students. Tbh, housing is another myth that if you don’t apply early, you won’t get good housing.

I can understand, but think other way what if order is flipped and you are waiting for other schools decisions, may be other schools come up with better scholarships than UIUC. So point is you really can’t make final decision unless you have all of them on table, irrespective of the order they were received. One thing I tell my kids, don’t worry about issues that you don’t have control of (e.g. Covid) rather focus on what you have control (Mask and social distancing) and act accordingly.

Happy holidays to everyone! and go ILLINI !!!

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The trend is like all schools apps are up this year especially t30 schools and in selective majors like engineering.

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Based on our track record so far, that’s not surprising. My D21 sent out more apps after a couple of sort of unexpected deferrals. And, we’re counting down days (with fingers crossed) for the 2/15 decision date from UIUC.

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I just saw this in another group:

In the words of Andy Borst, the Director of Admissions at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Reading applications is taking longer this year. It takes time to implement new admissions processes and to consider the additional context of the COVID-19 pandemic in students’ educational environments.

This year we implemented a process for students to be considered for admission, scholarships, and honors without test scores. Many students have P/F grades in their 2nd semester of the junior year and activities & part-time jobs have been disrupted.

We moved our Early Action deadline from Nov 1 to Nov 15. We also suspended our EA notification period to give us more time to see the whole pool. Over half of our applications came in during the last two days before the deadline.

Students on A2C Reddit are checking their myIllini portal in the hopes that we will post decisions today. Despite our 100+ readers working really hard, we are nowhere near ready to post. Everyone will find out in mid-February.

To get decisions out today, our options would have been to 1) auto deny more students based on “lower” grades (w/o considering context), or 2) defer more students to without reading their files. You worked hard, we need more time to give your efforts due consideration.

I know many students want to receive an admissions decision as soon as possible, but most UIUC students accept their offer of admission in March and April.

Students who applied by the EA deadline will receive priority (though not exclusive) consideration for admission to our most selective programs. During a global pandemic, we could all use a little grace. We will have decisions ready for you soon.

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that is in nut shell…I am sure no applicants want that to be happen and discarded blindly.

This is what some people think some of the ED schools have done, but that’s just rumor and gossip and I doubt it. I am sure there were a big portion of applicants that applied that were garbage applications and just for fun like every year but many more this year. But they know they have their work cut out for them.

I see that partly because everyone is so stressed out and looking for something to blame for. But experienced parents all know that college admission is crap shot, it is always like you don’t get admission where you expected and the so called reach school you get admitted. It happens every year and Covid this year is an extra dimension that colleges are dealing with without any such prior experience to deal with uncertainty of this magnitude.

I sympathize with all applicants, families who get caught in Covid cross hairs for one or other reasons, I can tell that as parent as my younger one is in cross hairs in premed track and derailed his progress in last 10 months. But I am hopeful, eventually he will find his grove and destiny.

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Just curious where was this posted? I haven’t seen any comments like this from the admissions office.

@melrose1975 Andy Borst from UIUC posted this on his twitter account, maybe on the UIUC page too (or in an email to applicants) although I didn’t see it on a fast search I just did now.

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