<p>Hey everyone. I am new to this site. I am in my first semester second year at a community college in Illinois. I am looking to transfer into junior year Mech Eng at UIUC(First Preference) for Fall 2012. I have a GPA of 3.89/4.00. My technical GPA will be around 3.7/4.0 (Just have one B in my Calc 2 class everything else A's ). I have and am taking classes that are listed on UIUC transfer guide. I can prove foreign language proficiency since I speak a foreign language at home (but I have not taken any foreign language in high school or at the community college). I can get good rec letters and I work part-time for 32 hours and I was an immigrant and yadda-yadda(you know the stuff you can write about in an admission essay).
But I'd like to ask you guys about what you think my chances of getting in will be given my current GPA and the fact that I still have some time at the community college that can mess the GPA (maybe +/- 0.2). Also what kind of $ can I expect to get from UIUC. I heard that they are very competitive about who they give grants to.
One last thing although UIUC is my first preference which other schools do you guys think I should apply to keeping the academic and financial criteria in mind.
Thanks for you time.</p>