Illinois has a perception and marketing problem even in their own state. My son went to NCP the #1 school 4 years ago
3.9 with 34 Act and his senior class had a 31 Act avg. At their school junior year parent /student college night to learn about colleges his counselor stated to not worry about UIUC since everyone gets accepted there. He was sorta joking but over 80 % do get accepted. So it was perceived as a backup school. Not a top tier school. Hmmm. Why? So I asked his counselor why? Background of this selective enrollment high school. Need a 99.6%, or higher to get in. Being white is a minority. Kids from private schools on the Northside to not so great schools elsewhere. One kid we know traveled by train and 3 busses 2 hours each way to go there (full ride at UIC). Absolutely great kids and families. BTW - very smart kids…
His school, Northside College Prep was going out of their way to try to match kids to schools with merit. 25 kids to Northwestern, 25 to University of Chicago. 14 to Michigan, 2 MIT. Of course other great colleges also. Many on merit. He told us and other families to not just apply to top tier schools but also 20 - 50 since that is where the money is.
When we called UIUC on why my 3.9, 34 Act with 35 math/science got nothing we got a big dose of reality… They said their were 500 kids with 35 /36 and some of those are just getting $500 merit. For one of the most expensive instate engineering schools.
So families with kids that do get accepted directly into UIUC engineering are running to that new engineering academic power house… Alabama and the like. So many families I speak with tell me for free to almost free tuition for same high Stat kids to be in honors with like-minded students is a no brainer. These kids are from the Western Suburbs like Naperville. The kids love that school. Alabama is rolling out the red-carpet for these kids. That’s the way they feel and describe it. Kids are graduating with jobs at Amazon, Google etc. The school has made some serious connections. All with football money it seems… Plus warm weather.
We choose Michigan since they did give some grants to make it a no brainer for us.
Outside of engineering they lost many top professors due to uncertainty… Articles in Chicago Tribune a few years ago…
UIUC is a great school, no question about that. They just need to get inline to keep their instate students.