basically at home yea
I haven’t visited any place yet
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Party school doesn’t = bad job application. That’s funny - if it did, people that went to the top schools - like UIUC and U Mich - would be unemployed forever.
If you believe niche.com, NIU isn’t the party school UIUC and U Mich are - and it makes sense. It’s probably a less wealthy clientele.
In the end, you have a few things going:
- Lower GPA
- Lower test
- Limited geography
I bring up Purdue Northwest, which is 25 miles from Chicago but in Indiana, and then you say I can’t be outside of Illinois but you’d look at W Illinois 4 hours away? Or Bradley three hours away.
So if you want to be home, maybe it works - but so do IIT and UIC.
You want a degree from an ABET accredited school, first and foremost.
If you want a big state school, sports, greek life, party atmosphere and more, that’s UIUC.
I imagine IIT is likely has little party scene if that’s not your thing. Would you live home there or for UIC? Will your parents let you experience on campus life.
You have to be honest with yourself - given your stats and limitations geographically, as to where you can go.
For jobs - you will have UIUC kids that bomb and UIC kids that do great and vice versa. Yes, UIUC kids will do better on average - but they were better (academically) to begin with.
But going to a school doesn’t ensure success nor ensure failure.
You have to look at your limitations and go from there.
Do you want to live at home for college? What kind of college experience would you like to have?
If you haven’t visited any colleges, I would recommend doing so. Attending a commuter college is different than attending a residential college (and attending a residential college as a commuter is a different experience still).
Additionally, you may find that attending a tech-focused school is a dream…or makes you miss all the people who are interested in other subjects. Additionally, if you change your mind about math/physics/engineering, do the different colleges have options that you would be interested in, or would you feel compelled to finish a degree you’re unsatisfied with or transfer to a different school?
Moreover, many find the experience at a school with 2500-3500 undergrads a very different one than at schools with 8-11k undergrads, which is even more different than at schools with 20k+ students. Depending on the school it could impact the community feel or the number of extracurriculars offered, or it may impact class size, or whether it is professors or grad students who are leading all instructional work, or the quality of the facilities, or the accessibility of the facilities (i.e. how much competition is there for access).
All of those things may end up impacting the quality of your college experience, and four years of one’s life as an 18-22 year old will represent 22-18% of your entire life up to that point. You don’t want that time to be miserable; in fact it would be best for those to be truly enjoyable years.
This is concerning to me. First off, have you talked to your parents about this? Additionally, if you’re feeling overworked, you may want to take a slower progression of classes, potentially planning to take a fifth year so as to spread the workload and stress out. Or perhaps look at the schedule of classes at various Illinois schools, as some types of schedules might work better for you than others (as in quarters vs. semesters vs. 6-8 week terms, etc) as taking fewer classes more intensely might help you.
Before ruling any college out (or in), I would research more about each one and try to do some visits. If you live in Chicagoland, then perhaps visit Illinois Tech (tech school), North Central (small school of 2500), Northern Illinois (11k), and UIC (about 22k). They’re all within about an hour of Chicago so they would be easy visits, but they can give you a better sense of how the size of the school might impact your preferences.
Below is some information about some Illinois colleges you may want to consider:
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Bradley (IL): About 3600 undergrads and ABET-accredited for civil, electrical, industrial, manufacturing, and mechanical engineering as well as manufacturing engineering technology. 2h35m from Chicago.
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Illinois Tech: About 3100 undergrads at this tech school that is ABET-accredited for aerospace, architectural, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, materials, and mechanical engineering as well as CS and informational technology. 10m from “Chicago.”
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North Central (IL): About 2500 undergrads and ABET-accredited for computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering. 38m from Chicago.
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Northern Illinois: About 11k undergrads and ABET-accredited for biomedical, electrical, industrial and systems, mechanical, and mechatronics engineering as well as energy and environmental engineering technology and manufacturing engineering technology. 1h5m from Chicago.
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Southern Illinois - Carbondale: About 8600 undergrads and ABET-accredited for biomedical, civil, computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering as well as CS and electrical engineering technology. 5h9m from Chicago.
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Southern Illinois - Edwardsville: About 8900 undergrads and ABET-accredited in civil, computer, electrical, industrial, mechanical, and mechatronics & robotics engineering as well as CS. 4h16m from Chicago.
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U. of Illinois - Chicago: About 22k undergrads and ABET-accredited for biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, industrial, and mechanical enginering as well as CS and engineering physics. 6m from Chicago
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U. of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign: About 37k undergrads and ABET-accredited for aerospace, agricultural and biological, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, industrical, materials, mechanical, nuclear, and systems engineering as well as bioengineering, CS, and engineering mechanics. 2h11m from Chicago.
And if a school is ABET-accredited for a subject, employers know that the school provides a solid training.
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Given that your desired major list includes physics and engineering majors, it would be a good idea to take some kind of physics in high school, with preference to more advanced (e.g. AP) level courses if available to you.
Since math is in your desired major list, be aware that upper level math for math majors is heavily proof and theory focused, rather than focused on solving computational problems. High school geometry may have given you a beginner level taste of mathematical logic and proofs.
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