<p>What information do you have on this school? I'm very interested in it for several reasons: it has programs in a lot of languages, overall good reputation, is rated one of the top, if not the top, schools for physically disabled students, and fairly close to Chicago. I'm pretty much curious about everything, so any info you have would be great.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Wolfpiper:</p>
<p>My info is very dated as my H and I lived in Urbana in the early 70s. UIUC is a great school. It's very large but the community is very friendly. We really understood what people said about midwestern friendliness after we arrived there.
Coming from New England, we were amazed at how flat the landscape was and by the signs that advertised the football stadium miles and miles before the town was reached. The football players were stars on campus.
In the early 70s, there was very little in the way of nice restaurants. However, a young man who was accepted there told us there are plenty of interesting ethnic restaurants there now. It's about 3 hours from Chicago.
I won't say anything about the academics except that UIUC is an excellent school.</p>
<p>One of my daughters is a freshman there right now and very, very happy with her choice. The U of I was one of the most receptive environments for physically challenged college students even when I was in college back in the '60's. They were known for good access and tremendous sports opportunities. Their excellent reputation in this area is still deserved.</p>
<p>If you're interested in foreign languages, you're right, they offer many that smaller schools cannot include. Their colleges of business and engineering are ranked very high. As a matter of fact, I was at a <em>small</em> engineering career fair there yesterday. They had 200+ companies seeking interns and "06 graduates. Many of the seniors already have offers in hand. The business school is equally successful in placement. </p>
<p>In terms of applications, they will begin accepting apps this week or next. You can apply to only 1 college, but if you do so this month, you should hear an answer very early. Both of my daughters had their acceptances in early October. (That killed the motivation to write essays to more schools. But why bother, Mom? I'm in.) :rolleyes:</p>
<p>You can find a lot by just going to its web site, uiuc.edu. It uses google as a search engine and it is one of the best colleges for putting virtually everything you could possibly want to know on its site.</p>
<p>I have a daughter there as a sophomore (engineering and one of those students at the engineering career fair mentioned above), know a number of professors and others, have been there many times, once argued a case at the law school when the Illinois Supreme Court decided to have a day of hearings in cases there, and one of my partners is the co-chairman of the law school's alumni fundraising organization. In other words, you should consider my view fairly biased.</p>
<p>The campus is huge, about 1400 acres total, with much of the classrooms and labs concentrated in central to northern part of the campus in "quads." A bus system that is paid for as part of your tuition and fees runs throughout. There are many huge, old impressive buildings intermixed with more modern ones. The land, as mentioned above, is flat, which is true of most of the state of Illinois. The cities of Champaign and Urbana (the campus sits in both) have about 100,000 residents combined. Once you get outside these fairly small cities, you basically have rural america -- farmland, forests, and little towns for 50 miles in any direction. Its best season is Sep to Nov when summer goes away and fall sets in and the leaves on the many trees change and fall, winter is brutal, and spring exists for only a short time before classes let out in early May. There are some decent restaurants but mostly fast food places near the campus as well as an area for the bar scene. Dorm food is plentiful, lots of "healthy" options, and acceptable though few cry "outstanding." It has excellent recreational/workout facilities, with one center just recently completed. Freshman can bring cars -- parking is in several huge lots interspaced around the edges of the campus. Dorms are mostly old buildings, with only some air conditioned, community baths, and double rooms are mostly small. Freshman can also choose approved private housing which consists of numerous apartment like complexes with usually larger rooms. Dorms, except for designated grad and family dorms) are mostly occupied by freshman and to some extent sophomores, while upperclassmen tend to opt for apartments.</p>
<p>There about 30,000 undergrads and 10,000 grad students. 85% are from Illinois and the majority of those are from the Chicago area. You can get some very large classes (hundreds) particularly for must take freshman or sophomore courses. However, many of those have small group breakout sessions where you deal with one teacher in a small group for an hour to go over and expand on the lectures. Despite its size and opportunity for remaining anonymous, you will find many professors who are very accessible if you seek them out and who are dedicated professors. You can run into problems of professors who struggle with the English language particularly in science, math, and engineering but you can often avoid that problem by switching sections. It actually has a grievance procedure for that problem. If a student complains to a department head that the professor cannot be understood (and it is other than a foreign language course, many of which are actually taught in the foreign language, and there is a large variety of foreign language majors available), the head must investigate and if he determines the majority of the class cannot understand the professor, he must replace the professor; if he determines only a minority have a problem, he must permit those persons to switch to a different section. Greek is big (probably 35% of the students), large greek houses are plentiful, but you do not have to be greek to have friends, good times, and enjoy life. Though not declared to be necessary because rooms with them are available, you should consider having your own computer highly desirable particularly since class assignments, out of class teacher communications, and many student to student (including clubs etc.) communications are all via the campus network and email system. There are huge numbers of clubs and activities you can join.</p>
<p>It is both difficult and not difficult to get in. The university publishes its middle 50% ranges for class rank/test scores as part of the application process; each different college (LAS, engineering, etc) has its own range and most are fairly high. It tells people that you really need something extra to be admitted if not in the ranges. This is done to discourage huge numbers of low stat students from applying with the net effect that the majority who do apply are within the ranges and if you are within the ranges, you have a very good chance of being admitted -- it admits about 68%, higher for some colleges, lower for others. Its engineering program and business program are highly rated and the admit rate for both of those is actually in that 68% range. Class rank and SAT or ACT test score are the two major criteria for admission, essays and EC's take on importance for borderline applicants. If school does not rank, it can usually determine probable rank based on experience or otherwise will look more closely at courses taken, degree of difficulty and grades. SAT II's are not used in the admission decision and recommendations are not required. In evaluating class rank it will take into consideration the degree of difficulty of the high school itself. Legacy is not a factor -- there are just too many applicants who can claim legacy to give it any value. When you apply you must pick a major which puts you in a particular college -- undecided automatically goes to LAS -- and that college decides your admission. You can easily switch majors within the same college after one year. It has psuedo rolling admissions. You can start sending your application September 15 (tomorrow); on line application is preferred; and should send by no later than November 15, UIUC's "priority date," meaning those who apply by then have an advantage over those who apply afterwards. Its rolls admissons by notifying obvious and easy admits first but then colleges, particularly engineering, tend to hold off on the majority of decisions until later in the game, including after the deadline for applications in January so they can see what the applicant pool is like first. Out-of-state applicants are evaluated the same as in state, i.e., they don't need higher stats than usual to get in.</p>
<p>You can find many parties, and alcohol can be an issue although crack downs and fines have lowered the frequency somewhat in the last several years. The campus police, which are fairly plentiful, will arrest you if you are a minor with alcohol and the fine for initial offense is now something like $200.</p>
<p>As with most public colleges, UIUC has faced severe budget cuts from the state since 2002 with the result that tuition has risen quite a bit and it has eliminated any "extra" employees. It has a lock-in tuition program --the tuition you will pay as a freshman will be the same for four years even though the next class coming in after you will get an increase and lock in the new amount for their four years. That lock-in program does not apply to most fees or room & board.</p>
<p>UIUC is my alma mater...and my four years there remain one of the two major highlights of my life (the other was having and raising my now college freshman son)...I adored my time there. I double majored, winding up w/degrees in journalism (news editorial) and Spanish (w/a French minor). Never used the Spanish or French (but loved stuyding languages). </p>
<p>The journalism program served me very well...got a job at a magazine within 2 weeks of graduating; still write newsletters (and get paid for it)...my UIUC degree & grades (and LSATs, of course) also got me into Georgetown Law School...</p>
<p>My "passion" at UIUC was the student-run radio station, WPGU...it was really truly student-run. I never saw anyone but a student there, and I practically lived there for four years...we did absolutely everything...I was on the news staff...but we had engineers, DJs, production folks, receptionists, ad sales, radio news...everything...it was the dominant radio station in the area, too...UIUC also has a very strong student-run newspaper (the Daily Illini) and a student-operated TV program, too...</p>
<p>Of course, my experience and memories are years old...but I still get all the alumni pubs and it appears the school is just as vibrant as it was during my day...and its j-school was talked about in the same breath as Northwestern (in our minds, Medill was/is the creme de la creme of j-schools) and U of MO, another j-school stand-out...</p>
<p>I tried hard to have my S at least look at it (largely so I could go back on the campus visit!), but failed. His heart was torn between Stanford and Cornell from the get-go (he's at Cornell now)...</p>
<p>GOod luck...if you go and enjoy it even a fraction as much as I did, you'll have a marvelous four years...</p>
<p>Great report drusba! Thank you for taking the time to post that.</p>
<p>Thanks for info. That kind of personal, nitty gritty stuff was what I was looking for. I'm currently working on app and hoping to submit it ben October. It sounds like a great school, but I'm a bit worried about the cost, being OOS.</p>
<p>Great posts everyone!</p>
<p>I am a proud father of a second year student. DD is a chemical engineering major and loves it. As a parent there have some trying times due to the large size. It seems like lots of docuuments to admissions and financial aid are lost. It is somewhat difficult to get a first semester schedule due to classes not being available. I even know of some students who decided not to attend based on their bad experiences at summer orientation. </p>
<p>The most impressive fact that I can pass on is the amazing accessibility of faculty and the tremendous research opportunities.</p>
<p>Be prepared to deal with the size and bureaucracy but is a great value.</p>
<p>I am a graduate of UIC <em>University of Illinois at Chicago</em> (it is evident on the CC board that people think UIC is such an inferior school compared to UIUC) My family could not afford to send me away, and instead of my parents wanting me to incur debt, they wanted me to attend UIC. I was a commuter. Now being a commuter has it advantages and disadvantages but this is not the forum for that. It seems like any school in the city of Chicago is not good enough for this CC board--schools like DePaul (which I attended grad school), Loyola which I know are fine schools are getting negative responses. Again, we are not here for that.. </p>
<p>I am familiar with the University of Illinois bureacracy---I know it all too well after attending UIC. </p>
<p>I had a friend in my high school that attended UIUC and I would visit her on the weekends. I partied with her we had some fun. UIUC has a beautiful campus. I want my dd to experience college life -- not like I did being a commuter student. </p>
<p>My dd is a freshman in high school. She wants to major in animal science. After doing research on this career (as part of her 8th grade project) we found that UIUC has this program. The only problem is my dd is learning disabled. I understand that UIUC only takes a selected pool of applicants. She has a B average but I am not sure how she will do on the ACT. I am going to prepare her starting her sophomore year. How does UIUC evaluate applications from Learning disabled students? Do they take into account that some children with LD do not test well? Or do they only go by these tests. I am proud of her---she is a dedicated student and her teachers only have positive things to say about her. I hope she is UIUC material. </p>
<p>If anyone is familiar with UIUC and their LD program please let me know. </p>
<p>Thank You
Jennifer</p>
<p>jennifer-
i think her best bet woudl be to include a strong personal statement that highlights her disability and what strengths and weakness have resulted from it- and how she was able to overcome them/how she desires to overcome them more at the u of i, etc. good luck!</p>
<p>As to a person applying with a learning disability, you might start by looking at the following two pages (the first gives links to a lot of other pages providing information on disability services; the second is some FAQ's for applying for admission. Apparently, you should lay out the issue in the personal statement and why actual scores might not reflect true ability and meanwhile contact the Division of Disability Resources and Educational Services to which you provide any medical records and it can verify and inform Admissions that you have a disability that should be taken into consideration.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.disability.uiuc.edu/page.php?id=1%5B/url%5D">http://www.disability.uiuc.edu/page.php?id=1</a>
<a href="http://www.disability.uiuc.edu/page.php?id=18%5B/url%5D">http://www.disability.uiuc.edu/page.php?id=18</a></p>