If the costs are acceptable at both, it’s hard to make a bad choice here on paper. Really, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take those visits and perhaps one campus or the other will have a much greater appeal and make the decision much easier. If she was admitted to Mechanical Engineering at UIUC that is something to consider also, since it is not only a direct admit as @ucbalumnus said, but also one of the most selective majors at UIUC. Moving out of ME into another engineering major may not be an issue with good grades, with the exception of the other two selective programs, Computer Science and Bioengineering.
I’ll also agree with @IL2023 that the state financial crisis hasn’t affected campus appearance or capital improvements at all. My son is a freshman in that beautiful new dorm that is now in its 4th semester of operation. It’s next to two other relatively new dorms that are in a plan to slowly replace aging ones. The dorm closest to the engineering campus is getting a modern cafeteria. The engineering campus is full of newer buildings and renovations. The main road through the north campus (Green Street) is nearly finished with its own reconstruction and many new private apartment complexes and business are flourishing.
For a state school, UIUC has a reasonably large endowment that allowed them to weather the storm from the incompetency in the legislature, at least so far. In addition, they also offset loss of state funding with significant increases in enrollment. I understand those are tapering off now, but class sizes have increased in the last decade. I don’t know how they compare to Purdue, but if smaller classes have a great appeal, that may be something to consider. You won’t find them in engineering at UIUC, at least not until you get to the specialized upper level courses and even those won’t be as small as they used to be.
Also as a side note, the airport in Champaign has connecting flights through O’Hare on United and American. If you happen to live in Dallas, there’s a non-stop there, too. For driving, Midway is closer, but I bet practical drive times aren’t all that much different, especially with traffic patterns.
FatherofScholars - my son is in a very similar position to your daughter. He’s trying to decide between a BFA (industrial design) and mechanical engineering. As such, he has applied to schools which are strong in both, including both Purdue and UofI. He’s been accepted to Purdue, and is deferred at UofI (not sure if this is because of his resume or because of a snafu with his transcript).
At any rate, we visited both campuses last summer. As others have said, it is 6 of one, half dozen of the other when it comes to reputation and ratings. But, here are some differences in my mind:
I liked the Purdue campus better
Purdue's communications throughout the application process has been stellar
Purdue is slightly less expensive
I think either one would be great, but if I had to choose between those two, I’d take Purdue.
@FatherofScholars Both of my children are Illini. They are business majors so their experience will be different from your daughter. However I thought I would put forth a few suggestions prior to your campus visits. Research opportunities for skill building and personal growth outside the classroom. Personally, my children have benefitted immensely from their participation in RSOs at UIUC.
I would also look at AP credits and how much flexibility it will give her with scheduling…perhaps she’s interested in studying abroad for a semester. (Sorry, but I have no personal knowledge concerning engineering study abroad programs.)
Lastly, if I were you I would see if there is someplace online where you can see job placement stats and a list of companies that recruit at each campus. It may help with your decision. Good luck!
Have visited the campuses? I do like the UIUC engineering campus more than Purdue. UIUC also fixes the tuition for 4 years. So it may become cheaper than Purdue when your daughter is in upperclassmen. The financial crisis at IL is a big issue and that may affect the school. At least, the financial aid is worse than Purdue for us. On the other hand, Purdue engineering is known for weeding in freshmen year and the return rate is lower.
To be fair Purdue has not had a price increase for either tuition and fees or room and board since 2012. The administration seems to be committed to keeping costs down. Adjusted for inflation Purdue’s cost is going down each year. Given the differences in cost for tuition, room and board I very much doubt that all else being equal Purdue will ever be as much as UIUC for the foreseeable future.
Purdue does not direct admit to majors and requires students complete a FYE set of course which typically include courses all engineers should have along with a general FYE course. The courses normally include Physics, Calculus 1 and 2 (though students who have received a 5 on their APs can move on to Calc 3), a science such as Chemistry and their FYE course. FYE is a survey of the various types of engineering and what they involve as well as a basic understanding of the computer languages of engineering and the processes of engineering. From a sample of 1 I have deduced that most people who drop out of engineering at Purdue are either not proficient in Calc or Physics or are not prepared for the time involved in the projects required by their FYE courses. The courses, I’ve been told, aren’t hard per say they are however time consuming and require team work. They served my D well in future courses where single problems could take several hours.
Both Illinois and Purdue are excellent engineering schools and both have programs that work. I do seem to know more Purdue engineers than U of I engineers. The Purdue engineers I know are very proud to be Boilermakers and are more than happy to tell you of their education at Purdue. My Ds experience has been tremendous. I would recommend the school to anyone interested in engineering but understand that different students will have different impressions about the schools and the atmosphere. My D didn’t like UIUC when she visited and loved Purdue. In the case of these two schools the only right one is the one that feels right to you.
You can’t go wrong in either place. These two schools are my son’s top choices as well. UIUC appears to be just a tad more competitive to get into vs Purdue. My son got into FYE at Purdue, but was deferred from UIUC computer engineering (we find out Friday). My sense from reading this site and others obsessively is that Purdue has slightly easier admission standards across engineering, but still hard to get into, and a high caliber student body. We personally like UIUC’s engineering quad better, but campus vs campus is a wash. Purdue is really easy to walk to anywhere quickly…albeit UIUC isn’t bad (go see Michigan if you want to see bad). UIUC is rankly slightly higher in usnews, but much higher in Forbes (overall school). https://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/4/#tab:rank . My son is leaning towards UIUC, assuming he gets in, as he heard you can get into the bars at age 19. Is that even true?
^^I don’t know about UIUC concerning bars but Indiana has an interesting law concerning restaurants in or with bars. Unless the restaurant bar area is completely separate from the restaurant they will not allow people under 21 into the restaurant. This reared it’s ugly head a few times when we were unable to visit certain restaurants in Lafayette with our underage D in tow.
Thank you very much, literallymarx, rienrah, georgiaflorida, illinoisx3, mrfeh, 88jm19, billcsho, lvvcsf, for your invaluable information, feedback, comments, and insights on this subject! We will definitely check them out by visiting the campuses as the minimum of $150,000-$200,000 direct and indirect cost for a 4-year college education is not a small change for any middle class families.
Other than mechanical engineering, UIUC ranks higher than Purdue as one of the top engineering schools, even shockingly better than most of the Ivy League schools including Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, or Cornell, all of which my D did not even bother to apply. One would normally consider those are very good colleges with more prestige, but obviously not in this case.
Johns Hopkins is in the Centennial Conference (NCAA Division III), not the Ivy League (NCAA Division I (FCS)).
Most of the Ivy League schools have not traditionally emphasized engineering as much as some of the state universities. Most are preferred schools for consulting and finance employers, rather than engineering employers.
Thank you for your correction, ucbalumnus! Yes, you are right! I should include the omitted word “private”: shockingly better than most of the Ivy League and other private schools… For that matter, the list also includes most of the well-known public schools: UCLA, UVa, …
State universities have historically emphasized engineering more than most private schools, because the states built and subsidized them to upgrade the economic capabilities of the population, and engineering has been and still is a valued skill in the labor force.
Well, it is more shockingly disappointing to see most of the Ivy Leagues and many of the expensive private schools are not ranked higher in engineering by US News and World Report and other ranking institutions.
To be really the best of the top tier universities in the world, why not try to have the best engineering programs too, whether or not it is a public or private school?
If I have to pay for almost the same amount tuition and fees for a good engineering degree from a public university (as an OOS student) compared for a similar BS degree from an Ivy League or private school, I may not get the same return back for my investment in my child’s college education when the kid gets out of the school and starts working in the real world…
The financial ROI from an Ivy League or other top-end-prestige private school is in employment in elitist industries like consulting and Wall Street. Such employment is not as dependent on major as employment in engineering is.
Well, a good engineer can be a very good, if not better, consultant too, especially in the real world. Consulting does not have to be only related to the financial sector or the Wall Street.
Without a solid engineering or technical background and education, the advice provided by a consultant is questionable at best whenever the technical nature of the matter is involved.
There are also lots of other issues involved here and they may not be within the scope of original subject for this discussion: Why doesn’t the society pay more attention to the values of the STEM programs including the engineering program? Why are there more students from the foreign countries enrolled in the math and engineering programs at universities in this country than those from the USA? Why aren’t there more girls who are encouraged to study in STEM than boys? If we are talking about real gender equality, obviously more has to be done here too…
Hello, my son and I just toured both schools in feb. We are from California and he has been accepted for ME at both schools. While they are both nice campuses the welcome and collaboration among the students we witnessed at Purdue was superior. The hands on learning for undergrads in engineering at Purdue was amazing. IUIC seemed cold and more like a research institution, plus the dorm they showed us looked like a prison. They choose a bottom floor room that was all cinderblock. Not sure why they did not show us the newer dorms. Overall UIUC did not give me as a parent sending my kid OOS the feeling that they were vested in his success. Purdue on the otherhand did and they have an intro week that also helps the students make connections right away. The one plus with UIUC is the diverse international students and the food. Purdue was much less diverse. As for airports, we flew into Indianapolis which was nice and easy to rent a car from. Drove to Purdue then onto UIUC. From UIUC, Chicago and Indianapolis airports were both 2 hrs away,but there was no traffic concerns heading to Indianapolis. I hope thats helpful. I highly recommend that you visit.
Purdue used to boast they have one of the best cafeteria in the country. They have decided last year to lower the good quality in order to keep the CoA lower.
As a double alum of UIUC I would choose UIUC. But here are some questions to ask and look into:
tutoring support services and how to access them
the list of corporations and government entities that interview on campus for the specific engineering she is going into
retention rate of freshman and women in that program
ease of transfer into other engineering programs (this is hard at UIUC, but I can't compare to Purdue)
number of women in the program
number of female professors
engineering organizations and student organizations that support female students
UIUC is a beautiful campus and the two college towns of U and C are great. It is easy to access both Indianapolis and Chicago from UIUC. There is a train, buses and flights that go to Chicago. I prefer the atmosphere and environment in Illinois over Indiana (having lived in both states). Definitely visit both, venture off campus and determine where you are most comfortable.
Purdue starts engineering students in a first year pre-engineering program; students must earn high GPAs and compete to enter their desired majors.
Neither school publishes recent thresholds or admission data for entering majors (Purdue) or changing majors (UIUC), so it is not necessarily obvious which will be less stressful for a student who may change majors. However, if a student is directly admitted to the desired engineering major at UIUC and does not change it, it is less stressful to be in that situation than at Purdue where s/he will face another admission process to get into the desired engineering major.