<p>kxc1961, correct. There is a huge amount of research going on in Russia. The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of a large network of purely research institutions. So for example there is:</p>
<p>Steklov Institute of Mathematics
Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics
Institute for System Programming
Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry</p>
<p>And many many others, dedicated just for research. Many of them are located in Moscow area and have ties with MSU. So the research is, believe it or not, a very big part of Russia’s education.</p>
<p>The problem is what kxc1961 has pointed out - the way research is handled in Russia does not make it very accessible. There are some partnerships with the West’s top universities, but on the whole, you won’t see much of Russian research unless you try hard. It’s not as commercialized as it is in USA, and it is something that should be changed.</p>
<p>But it definitely doesn’t mean anything about the actual quality of education, which is still top-notch.</p>
<p>The only thing go against UIUC is the status of the IL state budget situation. It will hurt the school quite a bit. In similar boat: CA state schools…</p>
<p>Actually Ill will do better than most as they just increased taxes substantially. Most states will just do more cuts (incl Wisconsin :-() so Illinois is looking pretty good now.</p>
<p>Anybody who thinks UIUC belongs in the CC Top Universities is silly and kidding themselves. First off, those rankings = DESIRABILITY. The reason why MIT, Ivies, Stanford, Northwestern, Chicago, etc are the top schools is because Wall Street banks recruit from them. Why? Because these schools are the most selective which shows that their students must have busted ass their entire lives to get in and are naturally bright. This means they will probably continue to bust ass and that combined with their natural brightness means they will be likely to succeed on Wall Street.</p>
<p>UIUC is not selective (outside engineering). In fact, if you just separated the schools and made it Champaign Institute of Technology, I’d be willing to bet “CIT” would make that top list. As for LAS (mathematics), UIUC is not that tough to get into.</p>
<p>As for the whole UVA/UNC thing, I never understood why those schools were top schools. I just know they are hard to get into for out of staters and I also don’t know much about their non-engineering disciplines, but I’d imagine they are superb in those.</p>