<p>A friend of mine got into both UMich and UIUC (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), and was looking for some advice into picking which one would be a better place for him to go.</p>
<p>He's an international student (Taiwanese), wants to study electrical engineering, and is planning to get at least a masters degree after college. Both schools rank about equal for him in terms of environment. Any ideas for which college would be best match? which is better in terms of academics, national and international recognition etc.?</p>
<p>Boy, in engineering I think the places are pretty well matched, as your friend has judged. The things you're asking about (academic rep, etc) I think both would be good places. I don't know down at the EE level; perhaps some other people will have useful input.</p>
<p>I'm terribly biased, but I'd prefer Ann Arbor to Urbana-Champaign. Not just a nicer town to live in, but easier for travel. However, that would only be the tipping point if everything else was equal (that is, I wouldn't put more weight on that than the important academic aspects he's concerned about). UIUC is probably less expensive, certainly for living expenses.</p>
<p>In terms of Engineering, they are about equal, but in most other respects, I give the edge to Michigan. Ann Arbor is definitely more pleasant and fun than Urbana-Champaign and as Hoedown aptly points out, travelling in and out of Ann Arbor is much easier. Urbana Champaign is a good 150 minutes drive/train ride from the closest major city/airport. Ann Arbor is just 25 minutes away from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Most flights from Detroit to Taipei (JAL and Northwestern Airlines) have just one stop along the way and cost under $1,000. </p>
<p>In terms of cost of attendance, Illinois costs less, but not as much as you'd think. UIUC costs roughly $31,000/year when you consider books, entertainment costs and other miscelanious costs. Michigan costs about $38,000. </p>
<p>Finally, although UIUC is at least as good as Michigan in Engineering and probably better in the hard sciences (Chemistry, Computer Science and Physics), Michigan is better in most other fields of study. So if your friend decides to change majors somewhere along the way, he is better off at Michigan. </p>
<p>Overall, as far as undergraduate experience goes, I recommend Michigan over UIUC.</p>
<p>The difference in overall cost is less than $3,000. UIUC's tuition for engineering is $24,290. Estimated expenses (for fees, room & board, books & supplies, personal expenses, etc) add another $12,198, bringing the total to around $36,488.</p>
<p>UIUC Electrical Engineering is considered on par with MIT,Stanford, and Berkeley. Ann Arbor may be nicer than Champaign but Chicago is certainly a much more cosmopolitan city than Detroit.</p>
<p>It's not much farther from AA to Chicago than it is UC to Chicago. Believe me you won't be making many trips either way--it costs a lot to do a weekend in Chicago.</p>
<p>I'd say that Stanford, MIT and Cal are slightly above Illinois. I think Illinois is more at the level of CMU, Cornell and Michigan in Electrical. Furthermore, as Barrons said, Ann Arbor is under 4 hours drive from Chicago...Urbana Champaign is slightly over 2 hours drive from Chicago. In other words, neither city is close or far. Finally, although Chicago is more cosmopolitan than Detroit, I'd say that Ann Arbor itself is very cosmopolitian.</p>
<p>Alexandre, What is the Aero program like at Michigan, not rankings, but student opinions? I sometimes wish i had applied to Michigan but since I started out in Electrical, UIUC was ranked #2 at the time. However, I hated it and switched out to Aero which i will admit is not as good here as it is in Michigan. Though I can't complain too much since I will finish in 3 years which is better than i guess most people who take 4.5 years to finish.</p>
<p>I think I would go to Michigan simply because the better overall reputation of the school. I'd say more than 50% of freshmen engineering majors do not stay engineers throughout their career, many switch majors, move into management in their career, or start their own firms eventually. Michigan's better reputation overall will count more in life.</p>
<p>what about business major? in accounting?
I am in the same shoes right now
the thing that makes me worry about Umich is the fact that I have to transfer to get into ross b school. I will do my best to get int but what if i don't?</p>
<p>For accounting I am not sure if you need to get into Ross, but an Econ major in my book from Michigan is better than a business major from UIUC for at least banking and consulting companies. </p>
<p>If you want to be an accountant, need to get into Ross to do accounting, AND are worried you won't get into the program then go to UIUC.</p>
<p>Actually UI is considererd one of the top accting programs in the US. I'm not sure where UM is ranked but you will certainly be fine with a degree from UI in accting. Also I really do not think there so much difference in the overall rep of the schools that it will make any difference later in life. The main tangible benefit of UM is a better football team to watch on TV. Of course if you prefer Bball........</p>
<p>umich's accounting is ranked around 10 if im correct
but wouldn't it be foolish to choose uiuc over umich?
i'm not saying that uiuc is a bad school but in overall, umich is just a better school
i don't want to be the one who goes to babson over cmu b/c babson has #1 Entrepreneurship</p>
<p>The gap between UM and UI is FAR smaller than the overall gap between CMU and Babson. Get real. Um is slightly better overall while UI has areas that are slightly better than UI and vice versa. Both are great state U's with lots of assets. UI has the largest state U library for instance--larger than UM by a good margin.</p>
<p>How can the two rank about equal in terms of environment? I have never been to Ann Arbor but I have driven past Champlain and it seems like a small town to me. The environments are vastly different from what I can see...then again I am also someone not super-sensitive to environment either. Travel would be easier in Ann Arbor - but what are we really talking about here? Maybe an extra hour or two in a car and a short regional jet flight? I would think that UMich would have more of an international rep then UIUC, but I'm not really sure for engi since both are very strong. I'd tell your friend to make sure he does not care about environment though....</p>
<p>Aphelion, Michigan's Aero department is quite good. A few year's ago, a Belgian Aerospace student (Francois-Xavier Bagnoud) died in a hellicopter accident and his father gave the University at $30 million gift to build an Aerospace Engineering facility in his son's name. </p>
<p>So now, the Aerospace Engineering program has its own, state-of-the-art building. In terms of rating, the Aerospace program at Michigan is generally ranked anywhere between #2 and #5, so it is obviously one of the better departments. In fact, I believe Michigan is the first University in the nation to grant a degree in the field of Aerospace (Aeronautical) Engineering. </p>
<p>Sabeg, UIUC is ranked #1 in accounting , Michigan is ranked #3. But given the choice between Michigan and UIUC for Business, I would chose Michigan as the Business school in general is significantly better than Illinois'.</p>