<p>First, the number of APs is, at most, only minimally involved in the admissions process. They look at the rigor of the courses offered at the high school and whether the GPA you have is based on your taking (as opposed to avoiding) the most rigorous courses offered. If the most rigorous courses offered happen to be AP courses, then whether you’ve taken them and what grade you got in them would be considered, but taking AP tests on your own will not have much affect on the admissions process other than to show personal initiative, and then only if you were able to take them, do well, and still maintain your GPA in school. 10 APs by the way, if all offered at the high school, and all taken by the applicant, would be an unusually high amount of AP level courses to take.</p>
<p>There is no optimal strategy for applying to UIUC. Apply for what you think you want to major in. The most sought after programs are more competitive to get into, but if your grades are high enough, and your standardized test scores good enough, you’ll be offered admission to either the program of your choice, another program, or DGS.</p>
<p>Honestly, Roderick, you shouldn’t try to overthink it. The bottom line is they look at how the applicant did in the courses taken in relation to the most rigorous course load offered. And they look at the standardized test scores. The applicant essays are important, and are more important, to those applicants who are borderline qualified. You can’t blow them off if you’ve got an ACT of 36 and a 4.0 unweighted GPA derived from the most difficult courseload offered at your HS, but they’re more important to someone who has an ACT at the lower end of the applicants accepted into a particular program, and a GPA near the lower end of the GPA range of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Drusba can confirm, or clarify, but that’s, at least, how I think it works. They get a huge amount of applications, so its got to be a numbers game for the most part with more attention only given to the borderline apps.</p>