<p>Excellent thread. I’m clearly in the camp that the U of IA is vastly underrated on CC. One only has to look at the number of threads/posts for the U of IA as compared to the other B10 schools.</p>
<p>As most know, the RAI is used by all three Iowa Regents universities - U of IA, ISU and UNI. I speculate that the RAI admissions component may actually make the U of IA more attractive - particularly for IL students - as compared to the B10 schools of U of MN, U of IN, Purdue, MSU etc. The student can get on the IA Regents website and, in a matter of minutes, have a very good idea as to the likelihood of their admission here. Very little fretting or worrying involved.</p>
<p>Further, while ISU and UNI have to work pretty hard to keep their enrollment numbers up (I’m an ISU alum), the U of IA seems to have the opposite problem, namely because of the large application/admissions pipeline of good students from IL. Based upon recent application and admissions growth trends (and state budget issues), I suspect that, at some point in the future, the U of IA will look to manage/limit its enrollment throught either: 1) increasing the minimum RAI score, or 2) will discard the RAI all together and move to a “holistic” application process.</p>
<p>Beast, LMK2 and Chicago - I agree very much with your RAI comments. Personally, I kind of like the RAI. It limits some of the “arbitrariness” that seems to be occuring in the admissions process at B10 schools like UMich, UW Madison and the U of IL. Our D had an RAI of 280 -she took a full college prep H.S. class load (w/ 4 AP’s), had a solid grade point average and class rank but only an average ACT score. That is what’s nice about the RAI. If a student has a weakness in one area, it can be offset by strengths in another. If the student is strong across the board - no problemo!</p>
<p>Anyway, what’s the opinion of the rest of you posters/readers/lurkers here? I’d welcome your thoughts.</p>
<p>Thanks and HAPPY ST. PADDY’S DAY :)</p>
<p>B10P</p>