Do not contact admissions directly. Since you are in state, admissions is surely familiar with your high school and will be much more likely to take a call from your guidance counselor. Ask your GC to make a polite inquiry on the basis of determining whether an appeal request would be worth the effort. Of course there is not much effort in filing an appeal, but this will give admissions an opening to share an explanation for the rejection if they are inclined to do so. I would not expect much but this is your best chance.
IL residents receive well under half of offers in CS in ENG. The average ACT score for an accepted applicant was over 34.5 last year, and that includes underrepresented demographics. This year applications went up 25%+.
Applications are up 60%+ in just the past two years. Last year most (two thirds) of perfect ACT scorers received no merit scholarship from the College of Engineering. Just a couple of data points. You are surely qualified, but not over qualified.
Illinois does not practice yield management/protection. In fact they don’t seem to care much about their selectivity at all (not even on common app and they bend over backwards to offer 2nd choice and DGS which kills their selectivity measurables). They accepted hundreds of 34/35/36s this year.
The enrollment of OOS and international students is nearly 20% at UIUC I believe. They pay an enormous amount to attend, well above the OP who is instate. Illinois is a poorly run, budget crippled state and it should surprise no one that the school might choose full pay OOS over instate all day long. Visit. See the campus infrastructure. The engineering quad is beautiful. The rest of the campus not so much.
"But there are other changes that are more qualitative – namely, the implications of an increasingly international undergraduate population for the academic experience and the impact on student life. With the increase of international undergraduate students across the nation, leaders of U.S. universities invariably say they welcome the worldly perspectives these students bring to the classroom and the dorm room even as their pursuit of ever-larger numbers of them has been criticized as a form of profiteering (international students themselves tend to be cognizant of their financial importance for the university and the higher tuition rates they pay).
Total non-residents make up almost 27% (undergrad), and the school has made it clear they don’t want it any higher, at least for now. This is about 60/40 international/domestic.The CS dept has fewer IL residents %age-wise than any other dept, but this is a function of the applicant pool.
I’m actually surprised they don’t do more of this.
Incoming non-residents avg higher stats than residents in the CS dept as well as the school as a whole. If it were strictly stats based, the dept would have even fewer IL residents, as would the school.
- This is subjective, but the campus is beautiful IMO…
U of I does not care about in state students. You see they get your tax money whether you attend or not. They come out ahead financially when they accept out of state students and international students. The state is a mess and the budget for last year still has not happened therefore the payments from the state are back logged. I know that last year there was a huge article stating that they were going to try to focus on more in state students this year but that was before the budget crisis. Engineering and CSE provide the highest out of state and international student applicants so of course those are the programs that will accept way FEWER in state students. Basically, the reason you did not get in is because you live in Illinois!!!
I’m sure he’s well qualified and with unlimited space they would have loved to have him on campus, but given that limited space, it is very unlikely his outcome would have been different as a non-resident. Non-residents have higher avg stats than residents in the admitted class.
There are many reasons why he might have just missed the cut. Was he an AIME qualifier or nat’l semifinalist in any of the Olympiads? Any CS related out of school activity? A 35 ACT doesn’t trump a 34 with other such qualifications, and we have no idea what his 5.xx wGPA means in the context of his high school. The average accepted students has a >34 ACT score (which includes the scores of those with demographic hooks).
Don’t get me wrong, they love that non-resident tuition, but it looks like they are serious about halting the recent increases in their enrollment, and maybe reversing it a little. This resulted in lower avg ACT scores last year.
I live in Illinois and work for a state university and have family members in state politics. I acknowledged that the state has expressed interest in focusing on in state students, BUT not in Computer Science or Engineering. The state is a mess. 8 months without a budget. Universities aren’t getting paid. Most of the state universities are laying off employees and cutting programs. U of I is no exception. If you think the fact that they get more money from out of state and international students doesn’t play a roll, you obviously don’t live in Illinois.
Unless your uncle is Dean C, this ‘appeal’ is not relevant. Everything in your post about state finances is common knowledge; Of course the budget crisis is real and U of I needs all the money it can get from non-resident tuition, this is self evident. It is also very sensitive to the feelings and expectations of the resident community. It works a balance between the two, constantly.
You are drawing a distinction that doesn’t exist. There are no separate policies, there are simply separate applicant pools.The CS dept has the make-up it does as a direct result of the applications it receives. If Sociology received two thousand applications next year from non-residents with extremely high ACT scores and GPAs, you would see a big change in the make-up of that major too (residency-wise).
uh, never said or implied money played “no role”. I simply confronted your highly speculative claim that this specific person was rejected because he lives in IL. I think you are very likely wrong about this and explained why. Non-residents have higher stats so how on earth would he have been admitted as a non-resident?
U of I takes the best students it can get, up to a point. It stops taking the best students only when it feels it has to cater to IL residents. IL residents are advantaged in this respect, as is clearly shown by the article I linked above. If IL only admitted the best students w/o consideration of residency, there would be more non-residents, especially in engineering and CS. Happy to consider any counterfactuals that you can provide. I’m not dogmatic about this, just telling it how it is.
…and who cares where I live? They don’t give out secret admissions policy pamphlets to IL residents. You don’t need to be a resident to know how hard it is to get in to Engineering here.
I guess you missed the part where I work for a state university. I believe I have WAY more knowledge of Illinois politics, and the inner workings of state universities than you do. And the article you linked means very little in my eyes. Eastern Illinois University is getting ready to layoff over 200 people because of the state budget crisis. You may know that Illinois is a mess but I don’t think you have any idea what going 8 months without a budget means and the impact it is having on the state. Without a budget the comptroller can not release funds. The Universities are working right now on their reserves. U of I is in better shape with their reserves then the smaller Universities but they are not out of the woods.
The idea that you think the University is “sensitive to the feelings and expectations of the resident community” is laughable. Anything done in Illinois is political and about the money. The stats of applicants are very important but politics and money play a much larger roll than you will ever know.
Let’s not forget the UIUC admissions scandal in 2009. As bhs1978 says, in IL it’s always about politics and cold hard cash. Hope your position is not on the chopping block, bhs1978. I’m just hoping to get my youngest through high school and shipped out of state for college before the local school district implodes. Not looking likely at the moment.
I don’t doubt that you are very knowledgeable about a great many things, but this is an anonymous forum and evidence, links to actual University sources, and logic will always be the most persuasive way to make a point.
I’m just trying to help the kid understand what is going on and you are making assertions about how U of I doesn’t care about Illinois students and how he would have been accepted if he didn’t live in Illinois. You provide no direct train of thought of how you reach such a conclusion, you just assume it is true because state finances are in disarray. This is nothing but non sequitur.
It simply isn’t true and I stand by my support of that assertion in previous posts. I am very open to examining alternative evidence but you haven’t provided any. I am very skeptical that you have any kind of inside knowledge on this matter, as anyone who thinks IL residents are being rejected in place of less qualified non-residents is not an insider in admissions at UIUC.
I have provided factual evidence that they targeted lower stat in-state applicants and increased financial aid to them with the expressed intent to increase resident enrollment in last years admissions cycle. Surely they would rather have higher stats and more money from non-residents. Why engage in this activity if they are not sensitive to criticism from residents? Why avoid the Common App, which outside consultants have repeatedly recommended? Why commit so little in marketing dollars outside the state of Illinois?
You keep making comments like this about what you know and what I don’t know. I’m pretty sure you have no idea who I am. I have never disagreed that Illinois is a financial mess and that high non-resident tuition is very welcome. But they have enough applications to fill the entire school with non-residents if they wanted to (they could double those apps with the CA but choose not to). They don’t want to. IL residents make up over 70% of undergrads. If admission policy to UIUC is so tightly linked to finances, why not dramatically increase non-resident enrollment? Why work to lower it as they have actively done to the detriment of their average ACT score in the last year? Why freeze tuition the past two years only for resident students? Money is tight, but they still cater to in state applicants. Perhaps this will change in the years to come. In fact, I expect it to change (U Mich is 50% non-resident and they don’t even need the money). But as of right now, non-residents get admitted only when they are eminently qualified. The OP was not rejected because he lives in Illinois.
Believe it or not, I too appreciate your thoughtful posts. We can agree to disagree. Unless you live in Illinois you can not fully appreciate what is happening here. It is unprecedented. You are basing your “facts” on a few articles and I am basing my beliefs on insider information, daily experiences and connections in and around Springfield. Agreed there are no links, however, that doesn’t mean it is untrue. We have both taken more extreme positions…you with an idealistic view and me with my cynical view. In reality the truth, as in most debates, lies somewhere in the middle. Decisions for admission ARE decided on great stats, but decisions for admission ARE also decided based on money and politics. U of I officials have admitted such and thus the new drive for focusing on in state students.
U of I has the highest percentage of Chinese students of any US university. These students do in fact have very high stats especially in math and science, thus most of these students choose STEM fields. That in and of itself lowers the admission rate for Illinois students in STEM majors.
U of I is a fantastic school, and I hope the OP can get in on appeal. If not there are other great schools that should give him significant merit money based on his stats that should bring the out of state costs to in state levels or lower. U of I has to survive and to survive they need money. Until a budget is passed they are not getting paid their full allotment by the state. That is a fact.
You are correct in that I am not an insider to U of I admissions but then again I assume none of us on this thread are. Therefore every answer to the OP is a best guess by anonymous internet posters, you an me included
Good Luck to you OP and best wishes to all of my anonymous friends.
Isn’t UIUC also $60M in the hole from the MAP grants IL students were promised but that haven’t been funded? The whole thing is a debacle so who knows what the admissions committee is thinking. I don’t think one year of higher in state enrollment is a trend, but we’ll see come fall.
The OP was not rejected from UIUC. They were just rejected from their major of choice. Its because the major is highly competitive and luck was not on their side.
Its not a conspiracy. The school has set slots for different student profiles and other IL students with similar profiles simply got there first. Go to the ivy forums and read who gets rejected there. It’s no different. Smart and talented is no guarantee in the most competitive programs. It’s part crap shoot.
I’ve worked for the University of Illinois in IT for the past 30+ years, and at one point was responsible for the Admissions code that evaluated the the “stats” portion of the admission process. I also have a son who just graduated with a Masters in Aerospace Engineering from UIUC. I’m now retired, thank God, but still consult in Higher Education IT. Although I’d love to hear from Drusba, who I believe is a UIUC Admissions insider, to clear up some of the dubious claims being propagated here, I believe that especially after the admissions debacle of 2009, that the U of I Admissions process is above board on the way admissions decisions are made, and is highly scrutinized and reviewed internally. bhs1978 is correct that the current governor is a disaster for higher education. He vetoed a budget sent to him that would have appropriated funding for higher education and Map grants, and many Illinois state universities are in financial distress because of a total lack of state funds this year, and have been funding the state MAP program for their students out of their own reserves. UIUC has a huge endowment, and some other universities are in much less current distress than others. UIUC, for example, is only dependent on the state for 17% of it’s budget, and can weather the storm much better than other universities. It is the state’s flagship university, and is in no danger of closing its doors anytime soon. Having said that, they’re hurting, and the current state of affairs cannot go on forever. The state has been reducing state appropriations to Illinois Higher Ed for decades, as have other states, which is a major cause of higher tuitions, fees and housing charges. I know. I had 3 children in college until my son graduated last year.
Being a state university, they have a mandate to admit state residents and the legislature holds them to that. Having said that, they obviously are financially better off on an individual basis admitting OOS and International students. How much that enters into the process, I don’t know, but I’d be surprised if an applicant was passed over simply because he/she wasn’t as financially lucrative to the university as an International student would be. First and foremost, the university is trying to build the best entering class that they can and the admissions process isn’t just GPA and Standardized test scores. They look closely at the essays and personal statements as well as personal characteristics of the applicant such as First Generation College student, community involvement, etc. Computer Engineering is currently, as Drusba says, impacted, meaning it is a highly over-applied to program. There are a limited number of seats and a large pool of applicants from which to choose. Why one applicant got in, or didn’t get in with good stats doesn’t mean there’s anything insidious about the admissions process. None of us were in the room when the applicant pool was reviewed by the admissions committee and representatives from the college/program. It never hurts to appeal, but I believe there are only certain things that will trigger a review. “I think I should have been admitted, but wasn’t” isn’t, in itself, likely to make admissions reconsider their previous decision.
OP, your stats are excellent. I’m sure you’ll succeed wherever you end up matriculating. I wish you well.
- This is subjective, but the campus is beautiful IMO…