<p>I am an international student accepted into the above schools to major in electrical engineering. Apart from a James Scholar for UIUC, I am not in any honors program for the other schools and have not received any scholarships.</p>
<p>Just want to know more opinions on how is UIUC as compared to the other schools?</p>
<p>The top two on this list are UIUC and UCLA. I am also an international student and i got accepted to both schools. UCLA has a greater reputation but it is really expensive. If you combine tuition and living expenses in LA it will probably cost u around 60.000-70.000 dollars a year (overall). UIUC is also expensive but not that expensive. Generally UIUC is one of the best engineering schools in the US. (It is ranked number 1 in civil engineering: major im interested in). + campus life and facilities are awesome!! UIUC even has a indoor swimming pool in one of the private-certified residance halls. UCLA also has awesome campus life (look at girls 
) but if u want a high-caliber engineering school UIUC is the way to go.</p>
<p>ok, hi then. So which school are you choosing, UIUC?</p>
<p>And, yup, comparing UIUC and UCLA is like choosing between reputation and cost.</p>
<p>Same dilemma [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-los-angeles/1120965-ucla-vs-uiuc-cs-recruitment-academics.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-los-angeles/1120965-ucla-vs-uiuc-cs-recruitment-academics.html</a>] here <a href=“and%20%5Burl=http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1120964-ucla-vs-uiuc-cs-recruitment-acdemics.html]%20here[/url]”>/url</a> guys !</p>
<p>@motormiker - UCLA would definitely not cost more than 60K.
UCLA cost (inclusive of tuition, room, transport, books AND personal expenses of upto $1300 ) = $53200
UIUC cost (inclusive of tuition, room, books AND personal expenses of upto $2500 ) = $49500</p>
<p>personal expense include: transport, clothing, recreation and other miscellaneous expenses (heavily dependent on indivdual’s lifestyle)</p>
<p>@usernamedelted
Why does UIUC have higher personal expenses?</p>
<p>^ It doesn’t !
The university ‘assumes’ that total personal expenses would stack up to $2,500. I don’t know why it came up with that figure.</p>
<p>In fact, it should be the other way round, with UCLA personal expenses being around 1.5~2K. Naturally, living in LA is costlier > living in Chambana</p>
<p>for any type of engineering, I’d pick UIUC. It’s cheaper than UCLA, although the lifestyles are drastically different. Living near the beach in LA is a fantastic experience, almost so good it would qualify as a vacation. This is the exact opposite of Urbana-Champaign, which is in the middle of a cornfield and is cold/snowy for a majority of the school year, yet still a great college setting. Really, it comes down to do if want to live in pricey, yet potentially very fun Los Angeles, or do you want to live in a traditional college-town atmosphere where the education is just as good, if not slightly better and the expenses are cheaper.</p>