@PurpleTitan and now with PREP it is same, engineering departments at UIUC have reserved slots for them, but somehow UE students get preference over PREP. Students in both programs have to take appropriate eng major choice classes in first year, however for PREP they have stringent first year GPA requirement while for UE seems doesn’t exist. We found that not just strange based on our first year experience but seems not good for students. A UE student with <3.75 GPA in freshman year can get into CS but a PREP student with above >3.75 GPA in freshman year may be left out because PREP also requires departmental review.