siucarlos

Hi. I am an international student, majoring in electrical engineering. I have been accepted to UIUC and UCLA, and I am having trouble deciding where to go. UIUC's engineering is ranked 4th, which is quite a bit higher than UCLA (14th), but UCLA's overall reputation is better, especially in Asia. I plan to do an MBA later. I heard from others than if I go to UIUC, my engineering career will be very good, but i will have better chances to be accepted at top business schools if I go to UCLA. Also, UCLA seems to be a more prestigious school that UIUC, as the acceptance rate is much lower. UIUC is known to be a "safety" school at my high school. Can anyone give me some advice? Costs is not a issue. And which university will give me a better college experience and life?

xjis

considering overall prestige and couple others, i'd goto UCLA.

heck, if i had the choice between UIUC and Brown (eng. ranking 52th), i'd still choose Brown.

i just don't care much about eng. rankings at BS level.

easternboarder

Don't confuse selectivity with rigor: allegedly only about 1/4 of undergraduate freshmen entering in ECE at UIUC actually graduate with a BS in ECE.

sang54

In terms of ECE and engineering prestige in general, I would give the edge to UIUC. In terms of overall prestige, I give the edge to UCLA. However, I honestly think the difference in pure academics of either school is negligible.

In terms of selectivity, UIUC engineering SAT average is traditonally around 1400, and the campus SAT average is close to 1300. If you find UIUC engineering not so selective, I doubt you will be impressed with UCLA's either.

webelieve

UCLA has better weather, nice area, nice campus, its very posh, so if thats what you want go for it. UIUC has a very nice campus town, in that, the campus is HUGE and its a college town only. (financially, I live California, so i read about the huge UC System financial cuts; specifically the 100 million dollar one taking effect this next year, hence the tuition has gone up). The one thing that turned me off on the UC system is that the housing is absolutely terrible. Its very likely that you will get stuck in a triple (3 per room), with a really small room, same is the issue with Berkeley. I was accepted into UCLA and UCSD, but im picking UIUC over both, because i wanted to out of state (that doesn't apply to you), the Comp Sci program is more prestigious in the engineering world (i think Bill Gates said they hire most engineers from UIUC), but apart from that, the standard of living at UIUC is much better, naturally, land in the midwest is far cheaper, and therefore campuses are bigger, and housing is better.

btw, its a nice problem to have, picking between two awesome schools is a fortunate problem. congrats on your acceptances! its what you make of your education, so doing well at both schools will keep your future bright.

jiceo1

Hey, I'm an international student choosing between these two colleges too!
I'm still choosing UCLA over UIUC because of overall prestige and much more important, the weather and the surrounding city. About the housing issue (triple), I don't think that will be a problem, at least not for me.
I know how UIUC is awesome in terms of engineering, and they even have their own supercomputer. Unless people can tell me some other aspects about UIUC, I might still change my mind...

tahncol86

"congrats on your acceptances! its what you make of your education, so doing well at both schools will keep your future bright."

Nothing else is needed...

*Brahmin

Personally I would choose UIUC....it's very well placed in the engineering field... you do well get a good job, you're settled because then going into grad school for business will be easy from there.

pearlygate

would u rather pay $300-400/month for rent including utilities to live in the middle of nowhere (UIUC) or would you rather pay $1000++ up to $2000/month just for rent in LA?

In LA you'd end up spending more money for tuition/living cost. you'd probably buy a car because CA public transport sucks. but there're more to entertainments (disneyland, knotts berry farm, etc), place to hangout, bars, tons of awesome good food. The weather is warm all the time. On the other hand, in UIUC there's nowhere to go but walmart and corn field so you can study all the time.

Prestige wise, if you plan to go back to your home country, UCLA name brand is better than UIUC. Also UIUC's ECE curriculum is very hardcore. You might get better grades at UCLA. Btw, UIUC has built a new comp sci building and IMO UIUC's Comp Sci building kicks UCLA CS building A$$ anytime of the day. I don't think UCLA even have separate CS building. They clump some of the engineering majors and math majors in the same building LOL

So LA = good lifestyle, awesome food (they have In-n-out burger 2 blocks from campus and the university ave have tons of good food), your friends probably rich kids, lots of international people, very diverse, superb weather but friggin expensive (like 3-4 times cost of living in UIUC)

UIUC = good for hard core studying, most of your friends will hang out in bars/walmart/watch corn fields (they even have the first agricultural field in the nation!), you'll do some UIUC's unique bar crawling events, you'll get to see tons of snow, got a great sense of american college (sports is big in UIUC), the university avenue (green ave if i'm not mistaken) has lots of cheap restaurant I think there's a place called geovantis that serve 5 huge chicken strips for only $5. So at UIUC your living cost is waaaaayyy cheaper than at UCLA.

Decide yourself.

semfir

At UCLA, a car is completely unnecessary, transportation on and around the campus is relatively good and you can walk nearly everywhere. Most people don't even have a bike. Unless you live off campus in some far away place, you will most definitely not need a car.

aibarr

They're both good, they'll both get you jobs, but they're seriously different atmospheres. I've lived in both Los Angeles and Urbana-Champaign, and they are as different as night and day. Your personal preference of living environment, more than ANYTHING else, will dictate whether you'll have a good college experience.