It all depends on current major you have admission for and intended major. If those are within same department, e.g. EE and CompE, switch is easier, ofc there are requirements that need to be met. At the same time, Civil vs. BioE, not only you have to take class for Civil but also BioE and prove at the same time you are capable for that, that is where failure happens.
Thank you- I knew admission was into a specific college but didn’t realize before that it was into the major as well. I was learning about Purdue’s first year engineering class which gives an overview of the different engineering disciplines before declaring a major and am now looking at all schools again to find out if there is a little more flexibility before committing.
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It appears that UIUC does not offer a lot of flexibility in switching majors. In the application, you have to write an additional essay for the second choice major. The restriction has to be taken into account when assessing against admissions from other schools.
Different colleges are implementing that different way. UIUC has its advanced version called, Undeclared Engineering that you apply. It gives flexibility to both worlds, rather than after a year you realize you had planned for CS and now you are going for Civil.
@PPofEngrDr @srparent15 The “common data set” of UIUC (for year 2019-2020 available at Student Enrollment) says that for Fall 2019, UIUC received 43,000+ applications of which nearly 26,000 students were admitted (i.e., ~60% of applicants were admitted) of which 7,600+ students enrolled. So, for 7,600+ available seats, UIUC admitted nearly 26,000 students (2019 Fall). That admitted:enrolled ratio is ~3.4:1. I’m sure this ratio would be similar for Fall 2021 also. What would happen if, hypothetically, by May 1st 2021, 15,000+ of admitted students click the enroll button? There are only less than 8,000 seats at UIUC, after all. Has any college gotten into such a scenario in the past? It looks like an airline overbooking!
Virginia Tech received around 1,500 (?IIRC) more frosh than they were expecting a couple of cycles ago, and that caused many problems with housing, course registration, etc. VT did offer $ for students to take gap years, or enroll in a CC, and some other solutions.
I do think the normal predictive algorithms might not work this year as usual, time will tell!
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@Mwfan1921 So, it did happen in the past! Interesting! Would that mean it would make sense to enroll ASAP and pay a non-refundable deposit for few hundred dollars to protect one’s admission offer instead of waiting till May 1st?
well, isn’t that the case for any college, irrespective of admitted:enrolled ratio? Schools have fine tuned their admission processes over the years to avoid such scenario and this year is not a different from that pov.
2nd fact that higher ratio is for entire college and not necessarily true representation for highly sought STEM majors.
Your offer of admission is not at risk (before May 1), no matter how many admitted applicants choose to enroll.
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Thank You
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They’ve done this before which is why they have a waitlist for students and don’t just admit everyone. They also know many students have applied to numerous colleges, and more this year, so ultimately they will know whether or not they have over/under accepted. U-Michigan for the last few years has actually under admitted because they’re so worried about their yield and have taken kids off their wait lists into mid summer even prior to last year when they went deep into the wait list.
@PPofEngrDr I agree that for Engineering and CS, the admitted:enrolled ratio should be lesser. But, how much lesser? According to UIUC stats on enrollment by curriculum (Student Enrollment), Grainger college of ENGINEERING houses about 20% of the 7600+ freshmen entering UIUC. If the acceptance rate for STEM (Engg + CS) is somewhere between 30% and 40% overall, then this ratio would be around closer to 2:1.
Yield will vary by school at UIUC, I agree that yield is likely higher in Grainger than other schools but UIUC doesn’t break this out AFAIK. Overall yield for 2019/20 was about 30% (7,665 enrolled, 25,650 admitted)…the higher ed industry puts yield in % form, rather than ratio form. Yield for some highly selective schools can get as high as 80%.
Professor words straight from site Q.
"Computer Science gets twice as many applications every year as any other major at Illinois—more than a third of the applications to the College of Engineering, and more than 15% of all freshman applications. "
Low tier STEM disciplines are likely skewed towards 2:1 than high tier STEM majors.
BTW, those data sets are wealth of information, one can derive the IS, OOS, International students matriculate data, the topic about a week back or so.
Thank You. I thought Yield should mean “How many of the ADMITTED students actually end up ENROLLING”.
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From the Grainger site - Combining this info with what you have quoted, CS acceptance rate would be closer to 25%. (Admissions FAQ's | The Grainger College of Engineering | UIUC)
On average we get 13,000 engineering applications and admit about 4700 into the engineering department = 37% acceptance rate.
Our high demand majors have a lower acceptance rate than this average. Our other majors have a higher acceptance rate than the average.
-corrected
You’re right, my bad, I put in total apps for admitted…will go edit my post
Agreed - historic yields don’t change much, particularly in the shorter term. If last year’s yield was ~30% (UIUC), then admissions will likely not admit more than 3x the number of seats available. Of course, certain more selective majors (ie Engineering, Business, etc) will adjust accordingly. I really don’t think this year will be much different for the larger state universities. I think the smaller/private schools that have binding ED policies will be fine tuning their admissions a bit more in light of the pandemic factors (test optional, financial profiles)
I already submitted FAFSA. As OOS, what is the house hold income to qualify for financial aid?