UIUC = good party school?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
1

<p>I'm a high school junior out of state looking to apply to a good engineering school but more importantly a good party school. I've heard good things about UIUC but first of all I was wondering what the out-of-state acceptance rate was and whether or not i could even get in:
SAT:
M- 800
CR- 630
W- 630</p>

<p>Class Rank: top 20% (very competitive high school)</p>

<p>could people elaborate on the engineering program of, the "partying aspects" of , and whether or not i could get into UIUC</p>

2

<p>Others can speak to partying but as to admission: you will be evaluated on same basis as in state. Out-of-state acceptance rate is about the same as in-state. Engineering middle 50% range is usually about top 10% to top 2% class rank and 1880 to 2140 SAT. Your SAT is well within that range, class rank is low but still a chance.</p>

3

<p>If you want to party, you can party, but I would strongly suggest not letting yourself get carried away. You can’t believe how many people I know who got into that scene too fast and too much and flunked out. Be careful.</p>

4

<p>do you apply to the engineering program directly from high school? I’ve taken every AP math and i thought my 800 on math might help me there too
SAT II:
Math 2- 720
chemistry- 710
physics- 780</p>

5

<p>Yes having an 800 on the math section of the SAT can help. Yes, you do apply directly to engineering out of high school and in fact you must designate a particular engineering major when applying (if admitted you can change major after first year). Nevertheless, note that those SAT II scores won’t help one bit. UIUC does not use SAT II scores for admission.</p>

6

<p>is the engineering school any more competitive to get into than normal undergrad?</p>

7

<p>Less competitive, if anything, but the applicants are self-selective.</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>In other words, it has significantly higher standards, but for the most part, people know when they can’t make it in, and so you see fewer “stretch” candidates applying, and thus the admission rate doesn’t reflect the more strict admission requirements.</p>

9

<p>Social life is easier to find if you go Greek. Generally, most of the party-seeking people join fraternities/sororities and then stick to their own kind after rush. This means if you get stuck on the outside, you might not have much of a social life beyond eyeballing girls at Grainger.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>I couldn’t disagree more. I never joined a frat, yet have things to do every weekend assuming I am not already busy. Saying you have to go Greek to have a social life is like saying you have to be an American to enjoy freedom of speech. Yes, all Americans have freedom of speech just like all people in frats have ample opportunities for a social life. But just because not everyone outside of America has that freedom doesn’t mean that NO ONE does, just like the frats.</p>

11

<p>I agree with boneh3ad. College has been a blast, and I have never joined frat either.</p>

12

<p>Can you still have as much fun if you are in engineering? Do the engineers work just as hard as the business students? What is the hardest part…group projects?..managing your time?</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>Sort of. Engineers definitely can have fun, but not all the time, as the curriculum tend to be very demanding.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I’d actually argue that engineering students on average study a lot more than business students.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Studying for class, participating in projects, doing homework, writing papers, interviewing for jobs, and etc.</p>

14

<p>

You wouldn’t even HAVE to do much arguing there. It all depends on which major in business, of course, but in general, engineers work much harder than most business majors. Of course there are lazy engineers and diligent accountants, so in that case I am sure the business person would work harder, but in general, unless you are doing Finance or Accountancy, no major in the business department even comes anywhere close to how much work and time engineering takes.</p>

<p>

I would say for me it is time management. The nature of engineering here is that you will have one week where you have lots of free time and not a whole lot of work to do (relatively) and then another week you will need 36 hours in a day to get all your stuff done and still have time to get good rest and stay sane. The hardest part is forcing yourself to work on stuff in advance during those slow weeks so that you aren’t quite as overworked on those hard weeks, something I have been particularly bad at. Group projects factor into those weeks, but not really so much until junior and senior year.</p>

15

<p>when you say engineers have fun but not all the time does that mean you don’t go out every weekend? that there is so much work that you have to stay in all weekend or that you don’t go out on a thursday night? would you say you were very social in high school and now you are not as social because of the workload? like can a social kid maintain their “socialabliity” if they are reasonable about time management?</p>

16

<p>You can most certainly maintain your “social ability” as an engineer, you just are forced to be more responsible about it than a lot of other majors are. You could easily go out most weekends, unless you have a big test you need to study for or a project due or something. It will be a lot harder to find time to go out on weekdays, though, and even harder to justify making time to do it. All-in-all, though, you can be as social as you want to be within reason. Your first semester or two in college, you will have more free time, and be tempted to just go hog wild, but it is generally wise to try and exercise a little control in that regard, because if you start the bad habits early, you won’t be able to stop them when you can’t afford to have them anymore.</p>

17

<p>
[QUOTE=Traffy]
Social life is easier to find if you go Greek. Generally, most of the party-seeking people join fraternities/sororities and then stick to their own kind after rush. This means if you get stuck on the outside, you might not have much of a social life beyond eyeballing girls at Grainger.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>It’s clearly not the case that independents are limited to hanging out in the library. For one thing, there are over 900 Registered Student Organizations at UIUC. See: [Illini</a> Union - Registered Organization Directory](<a href=“http://www.union.illinois.edu/involvement/rso/a-z_list.aspx]Illini”>http://www.union.illinois.edu/involvement/rso/a-z_list.aspx) Only a fraction of these are Greek letter organizations.</p>

<p>However, I attended UIUC for a year and did find that choosing not to go Greek significantly limited my social life. Much of the social life at UIUC happens at Greek events. Greek social life (e.g., parties) tends to supplant social life which would be open to anyone at many other universities. Obviously, Greeks have far more access to Greek social life than independents do.</p>

<p>The situation is far worse for independent men than independent women. In reality, independent women are much more likely to be welcome at parties and otherwise included in Greek social life than independent men are. Independent men usually need to know someone in the fraternity throwing a party to attend that party.</p>

<p>By contrast, I later attended McGill. There, only about 1% of students go Greek. At McGill, I had much more access to the social life the university offered than I did at UIUC.</p>

<p>Being independent and in Engineering or Computer Science is a double whammy. In these majors, one has far less time to get involved on campus compared to students in non-technical majors. So the alternatives to the Greek system for meeting people are far less accessible in this case.</p>

<p>In summary, not going Greek at UIUC does indeed limit one’s social life to a significant degree.</p>

<p>I ultimately transferred out of UIUC. This wasn’t for academic reasons, as I had a 3.5 GPA. The unacceptable social life for students who choose not to go Greek was one of the major reasons why I transferred out.</p>

18

<p>Again, I must completely disagree with the previous poster. I have been at UIUC for 4 year, and have had no problems the whole time, both as an independent and as an engineer. When I was younger, I went to Greek parties for all the rush stuff and just never joined because it wasn’t my thing, yet I still had an active social life. All you need is a couple friends and you have yourself a group to have a party with, go out with, stay in with, or whatever you might want. I did not experience any limitation on what I could do based on my non-Greek status, and I am sorry that the previous poster did. Take3 must have just got unlucky in that regard.</p>

<p>That said, it WOULD be a lot harder to find things to do as an independent if all of your friends from the first couple weeks decide to go Greek while you don’t, but that doesn’t always happen, and it didn’t happen to me.</p>

19

<p>I wasn’t particularly interested in Greek life or parties either. Unfortunately, this is where a large part of the social life happens at UIUC.</p>

<p>Both Greeks and independents have access to non-Greek social life, such as friends from classes and dorms and Registered Student Organizations. But Greeks additionally have access to the pervasive Greek social life. If one walks through Champaign on any weekend night, it’s evident how much of the socializing at UIUC happens at fraternity parties and events. Independents, at least if they’re men, have limited access to this world.</p>

<p>I never said, and in fact do not believe, that independents at UIUC have no options socially. It’s just that they have significantly fewer options than Greeks do.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=boneh3ad]
Take3 must have just got unlucky in that regard.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>I wasn’t the only person I knew at UIUC who found not being Greek at UIUC to be at least somewhat limiting socially. Additionally, two of the four people who have weighed their opinion on this matter on this thread found not being Greek at UIUC to be socially problematic. Admittedly, four people is not statistically significant and therefore anecdotal.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=boneh3ad]
That said, it WOULD be a lot harder to find things to do as an independent if all of your friends from the first couple weeks decide to go Greek while you don’t, but that doesn’t always happen, and it didn’t happen to me.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>This seems to imply that it’s difficult for an independent to make friends after the first couple weeks. Otherwise, the scenario you describe wouldn’t be a problem because one could just make new friends who didn’t go Greek.</p>

<p>If it’s difficult for an independent to make friends after the first couple weeks, then that to me is a very limited social life.</p>

<p>Deehan26, you should weigh all of this input against two things:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>UIUC is well respected in all branches of Engineering. This is likely to open doors in the future.</p></li>
<li><p>You’re not going to have very much time to party in any good Engineering program regardless. Being an Engineering student is hard work. It’s similar to medical school or law school in that you put in a lot of effort to earn your way into a prestigious, rewarding field.</p></li>
</ul>

20

<p>I appreciate this debate about the Greek system’s influence on the social scene very much. My son is finishing his junior year in HS and UI is a candidate for him, which is why I read this forum. I had a disappointing first year at Purdue many years ago, which at that time had a very strong Greek presence. I found that while social opportunities did exist for non-Greeks, a sort of divide did exist between the two worlds and as a shy person who didn’t find Greek life appealing I found this somewhat alienating. Definately if I had worked harder to join some organizations with people of my similar interests that would’ve helped, and I do blame myself for not doing so. I transferred to UW Madison as a sophomore and had a much better time. Now it’s not clear where my son might fall with respect to Greek life, but I think it’s useful to hear perspectives on its role in the social life of students.</p>