UMinn Twin Cities vs UW Madison vs UIUC for Chemical Engineering

All three schools are amazing engineering schools and have good chemical engineering departments, so I’m having a difficult time choosing between the three.

In terms of specific rankings, UIUC is ranked 6th for engineering and 11th for ChemE, UW Madison is ranked 14th for engineering and 7th for ChemE, and UMinn is ranked 21st for engineering and 4th for ChemE. Is the department ranking more important or the overall engineering ranking? And I’m not sure if I want to change majors or not, so maybe overall engineering ranking might be more important.

I’m OOS for all three, so cost of attendance will be pretty high for all three except for UMinn Twin Cities because I got a $10,000/year scholarship.

I haven’t been able to visit any schools, so I’d appreciate it if anyone can tell me anything about dorms and the campus as a whole.

Here are my pros and cons for each school so far:

UIUC (Pros)
• LAS Scholar
• Good overall engineering
• Pretty okay campus (from online pics)
• 4 seasons
• Steven S. Zumdahl teaches (the guy who wrote my AP Chem book)
• The engineer guy teaches (from YouTube, makes pretty cool vids and I’d maybe like to meet him)
UIUC (Cons)
• ChemE is in College of Letters and Science so I don’t know if I’ll have the same opportunities as other engineering students in the College of Engineering

UMinn Twin Cities (Pros)
• Very good ChemE ranking
• Good chemE ranking
• 4 seasons
• Competitive
• Good cities
UMinn Twin Cities (Cons)
• Very cold winters (I’m from SoCal)

UW Madison (Pros)
• High overall engineering ranking
• High chemical engineering ranking
• Competitive
UW Madison (Cons)
• Very cold winters
• Extremely liberal students (I hear there’s lots of protests and I’m wondering if this will impact my education)

Any thoughts/opinions that could enlarge my list of pros and cons? Thoughts in general? Thanks!

Since you haven’t been able to visit these three universities, let me describe the biggest difference in terms of campus and location.

UMinn Twin Cities is in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, which has 3.5 million people. You can see the skyline of Minneapolis from most parts of the main campus, which is gorgeous and right on the Mississippi River. The light rail stops right on campus, and you can take that to downtown Minneapolis or downtown Saint Paul,and also to the international airport and Mall of America. There are also buses that can take you everywhere. Minneapolis is also top-rated for bicycles with lots of bike lanes, so some people ride their bikes everywhere. Whatever interests you might want to pursue off-campus, you can find it in Twin Cities. As for the cold winters, UMinn has that covered. There are tunnels across each campus, and you can take those if it feels too cold for you to walk outside. Housing includes apartment options on campus and near campus, even for freshmen. One apartment building is even connected to the student center by tunnel, so you could walk over there and eat without ever putting on a jacket. The tunnel on campus is called the Gopher Way. (That said, my daughter has been at UMinn for two years now, and has yet to feel cold enough to use the Gopher Way, and she grew up in the South.) Downtown Minneapolis and Saint Paul have skyways, which are like the tunnels only above ground, connecting buildings. The light rail stations and bus stops also have heat lamps to stand under to stay warm.

UW Madison is in the heart of a city of half a million people, so you can walk to lots of restaurants and shops. It is the capital of Wisconsin (like Saint Paul is for MN), so it is a vibrant city. Although this is a smaller city than Twin Cities, the campus might feel more urban because it is not a separate green campus like UMinn but rather is right there surrounded by Madison. Lakes are adjacent to campus. As for it being liberal, nothing in the Midwest is more liberal than SoCal where you are from, so I wouldn’t worry about that.

UIUC, by comparison to the above two universities, is in the middle of nowhere. Urbana-Champaign metro area has a quarter of a million people, but it really feels like a small town next to a very large campus on flat terrain, with nothing else in the area except farm land. I’m originally from Florida and have been to UIUC in the winter, and I can tell you – UIUC is cold! It might feel every bit as cold to you as the other two universities, only it won’t have the Gopher Way tunnels of UMinn, or the buildings all around to step inside if you’re cold like UW. Keep in mind that the other two locations are not extremely cold every day in the winter. There are cold fronts that come and go, and also much of the cold weather happens during winter break when you will likely be back in SoCal anyway.

You mentioned that ChemE at UIUC is not in the College of Engineering. I think this is a big deal. Your university experience will be strongly influenced by the college you are in. I can’t vouch for all of the universities, but at UMinn where my daughter attends, the college affects everything, such as: type and frequency of advising for your classes and major; procedures for scheduling advisor meetings and switching majors and declaring a minor and all other procedures; policies for selection for dean’s list; method and frequency of communication for updates on activities and opportunities including internships, research positions with professors, alumni meetings, job fairs and more; special events and speakers; college affiliated clubs and leadership positions; housing communities for specific colleges and majors; etc. In addition to these issues, each college typically has a different set of core courses, and that can vary quite a bit. If you think you might change from ChemE to another engineering major at UIUC, it might be harder for you to switch into the engineering college, or you might have to wait till you have taken a certain number of courses. You should check on all of these things if you are considering UIUC.

All three are great universities, part of the Big 10, and with strong reputations overall and for engineering. You really can’t go wrong with any of them.

If you are going to be flying back and forth to campus from SoCal, you need to think about how that is going to work at each of these places. At UMinn, as I mentioned above, you can fly to the international airport in Twin Cities and take the light rail or a shuttle straight to campus. I’m not sure how you would get to UW Madison and UIUC from an airport, or how many connections you might have getting to the airport. Look into time and cost issues.

I’d say they’re all similar.

I’d go with UMinn since it’s $10K/year cheaper, plus it’s particularly strong in ChemE (due in no small part to 3M). Madison is a great college town, so that would be my second choice. I don’t see any reason to chose UIUC over the other two, esp as will be hard to change to another engineering major at UIUC since you’re not in the CoE.