Your earlier comment means to me that the colleges who rejected me find me unworthy to be not the right college for me.
A rejection doesn’t define your worthiness, value.
Y’all are technically rejected until accepted.
A wise person posted on this site, love the college that loves you.
Two points: First, colleges reject candidates for a variety of reasons. Sometimes there is something called “yield protection” going on. Look it up. Second, sometimes colleges reject candidates because they had tons of perfect candidates, and as perfect as you may be, they only have room for so many.
Another point: Even the most successful people in the world have had to deal with rejection. Take a look at what Taylor Swift, one of the most successful recording artists has to say about rejection: Taylor Swift Quotes About Rejection | A-Z Quotes. So the point is, even someone as famous and successful as Taylor Swift has had to deal with rejection, and they didn’t let a few rejections keep them down. Dealing with rejections are a part of life. For everyone.
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Does anybody know of people having success with appealing a denied decision from Uiuc.
My D got accepted to CS- Grainger College of Engineering! She also got into Purdue, UW-Madison and UMD. We are blessed to have some options come May 1st.
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All this looks good in theory. AO’s have personal preferences when selecting/rejecting candidates. That’s why the process is subjective not objective.
Easier said than done.
agreed, that is what life is all about.
That sounds like you are claiming admission system is rigged. If that is what you meant, I am sorry to say your assessment is wrong.
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I did not read the comment about personal preferences as a suggestion that the system is rigged. Just that each AO is weighing factors differently. Obviously, the quality of an essay is subjective and each AO would value it differently.
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Within same school? if that is the case it is little bit luck of draw who is reviewing the file under what circumstances (had a bad day that particular day)
I would expect this is definitely true. There is no amount of training that could remove this luck of the draw from the equation. I expect the better schools limit this by allowing sufficient training up front and then time for each application review. But it can’t be completely removed. These kids pour their heart and soul into their application essays, to think the same essay would be evaluated identically between two different people is not realistic.
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There is definitely an element of randomness based on the AO who is reading the app. The book The Gatekeepers directly addresses this a number of times, and while that book is dated (2001), this randomness element is still relevant, and accurate.
From other posts it’s clear your oldest did not need college to be successful. I think after a graduating class of 24, my son needs the college experience. I am curious where your son thinks he ‘would have’ gotten the best experience in college. With his background it’s not an obvious choice. Has he put any thought into this since skipping UIUC but discussing options with his siblings?
Undeclared Engineering —> CompE @ UIUC. Parent of current junior CompE who took this route! In general, Undeclared in Engineering is an advantageous place to be. Slots are reserved in each discipline and it’s a seamless transfer for students admitted into Undeclared Engineering.
*CS is now the only exception for seamless transfer (my guess is too many using Undeclared Engineering as a back door to CS)
Side-note: If interested in CompE, wise to start pre-req. course 1st semester. While more ‘time’ to decide - planning is key; especially for CompE course sequence.
CompE’s have more hardware/EE/Physics requirements; the “overlap” between computer hardware & CS makes CompE curriculum versatile but demanding. It’s beneficial if you come in w/ some credit earned via IB/dual/AP. Ours had Calc1, Chem, & Humanities credits. CompE can definitely overlap w/CS. MANY take more of a CS route (jobs/earning potential). Kid landed a full time internship this past summer after sophomore year.
I saw reference to UMD. We are IL residents, but coincidentally, our neighbor just graduated f/UMD Spring '20. A Psych/Russian double major: spent a semester in Russia and traveled to Japan w/UMD. Now working full time for DOJ (interned during undergrad). For internships/job interest in D.C. metro: UMD is an optimal location & well-regarded - students are in a great position for internships & jobs. Neighbor kid really likes the unique energy of D.C.- govt. work will either become a career or great catapulting experience for future.
Anecdotal cases, the point is I’m certain your student would be poised for success with either choice.
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I never said that. Anyway I wouldnt like to further discuss anything. Already my mom is upset for discussing my disorders on this forum. Last thing I want is her “rejection”.
I wish my son had gone to college. There is so much to do there and so much fun to have. But he didn’t care about all that wild social stuff but also didn’t realize it’s not all about that. One company that he turned down a job offer from, his reason was because he hear they had a “bro” mentality. I laughed that was his reason. But I supposed it made sense that he ultimately went with the smallest start up and really have great mentors who understood him and worked with him, etc.
He was actually supposed to go to UIUC for CS. After initially denying his request for a Gap year, they did approve it, but then he never went. He had applied to CMU ED but didn’t get in, so at the time for him it was really about the best program. He had considered using his ED for Cornell but knew he wouldn’t get in RD to CMU or Cornell so picked one and then didn’t apply to Cornell at all. UIUC has a great CS program. He has some friends from hs who went through it and a couple graduated early, so it’s definitely easy to do that if you have AP credits. I can say that one graduated a year early, for similar reasons as to why my son didn’t go. He just felt like he wasn’t learning anything he didn’t already know. At least in this kid’s case he went and got the degree. 3 years is nothing. My son did go back and stay with friends at UIUC for 2 weeks and go to classes with them. I asked if he regretted not going to college after that and he said absolutely not. He didn’t like that when they didn’t have class they lived at the bars or drank a lot and he liked listening to the lectures but found the work they had to do afterwards beyond tedious. Yep, that’s my son. LOL
My daughter is in CS and loves her school and program, however, the classes are huge. They are all taught by professors, which I guess I assumed they all were, so if they aren’t all at UIUC that’s something to consider if there are other options.
My youngest has schools that are higher on his list than UIUC but he has not yet heard from them, so it’s likely he will wind up at a lower choice school than he wants because he is not interested in doing the Prep program, even though he could probably transfer in earlier than Junior year due to the courses he’s already taken. However, we all agree it’s not worth the risk since you need to maintain essentially all A’s and you never know what might happen and no one can guarantee an A even if you were an A student in high school. So, he will consider his other options and if it doesn’t work out, he can always choose to transfer somewhere else along the way! The frustrating thing about this is that this was supposed to be the easy year. Child 4, no covid, etc. Instead covid turned our world and the lives of all of our kids upside down! 
Oh and I’m also hearing now that more kids are starting to think about requesting gap years for next year because things still won’t be normal and they want to have a fully normal college experience. I guess that could be good for our kids but also just extends the whole process here.
My 2 cents for Prep, my elder son, CS senior and will start 5th year MS with Thesis, went through prep and he was transferred into CS at end of first year. He had few choices like Purdue, Iowa (oh boy that was an acceptance in <10 hours from applying, like an algorithm just grant him an admission). Because of his personal circumstances we didn’t want him to be outside of midwest region at that age. So we knew he is CS capable and his heart is at UIUC, he took his chances and splash it. His plan-B was CompE.
Based on your family background, I don’t see why your youngest one wouldn’t surmount prep, unless he is risk averse.
If CMU was an option, would he have preferred/chosen that? From what he knows about Turing, is that a program he would have chosen? The similarities to my son are striking. No interest in the partying, loves the learning about computers and has a striking amount of work already under his belt.
UIUC party school image is mainly due to sheer population from UG to Graduate programs, ~50K students, with diverse academic background, wealth background, it provides an environment for everyone. Eventually it is up to kid which route they want to choose and who they hang out with. Most academic sincere aren’t party people.