It is frustrating for sure! I keep reminding myself how lucky we are to have other Big10 schools welcoming Illinois kids with open arms, and those schools aren’t really much further away for those of us in Chicagoland. I’m thinking of Iowa and Mich St., which after auto merit actually came in cheaper than U of I would be. It’s nice to feel wanted!
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Now that we’ve got this thread sparking up a bit, I wanted to share this university enrollment management report. It’s a year old, but I think it gives a lot of nice background regarding the universities institutional priorities. Hopefully this link works. Would love to get others thoughts.
https://enrollmentmanagement.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/2023-Recruitment-Plan.pdf
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Thank you so much for sharing!
I’m only part way through, but have two thoughts:
(1) This is very consistent with everything I have heard from Andy and/or U of I.
(2) My S28 is going to be applying into a totally different world than our kiddos are dealing with right now.
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Interesting. It seems to blame lower Illinois resident % of admits on higher COA and competition on COA with other OOS flagships. But I still have to think that the academic competitiveness is also a factor.
“Out-of-state flagships and other large research universities offering large merit-based
scholarships have become our biggest competitors. The largest market penetration of
competitors has been among White students with SATs of 1350 to 1450 in the Chicago
suburbs. Resident students cite limited scholarship opportunities as the primary reason
for not enrolling at Illinois.”
I believe they are only analyzing students who were accepted to both UI and the competitor schools and chose to enroll elsewhere. Amongst that group, the kids choosing other schools told them UI was too expensive or they were offered more merits elsewhere.
If a student got into say Purdue but was not accepted into UI I don’t think they covered that in the study since IU didn’t “lose” that student they never offered.
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Applications have also gone up significantly due to move to Common App in Fall 2021.
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I think that’s interesting because of the top competitors listed, I don’t really see them being cheaper than U of I when considering the full cost of attending. DS24 was admitted into Purdue Arts and Sciences but with no merit. When I crunched the numbers for full price OOS it looked like that is still more than U of I (which for sure is pricey for an in-state school). I could see someone who is getting merit at Purdue coming in under U of I’s cost though. And I’ve heard Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan give little to no merit to OOS (and are considerably more expensive) so I can’t see how cost would play into those decisions.
As mentioned above, Iowa with merit came in under U of I’s cost for us but that’s not on their list. And Michigan State was extremely generous but still not less expensive than Illinois considering their high OOS price tag.
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If you haven’t heard it, I found the podcast with their admissions director on The College Admissions Process Podcast with John Durante very interesting. He noted that their middle 50 SAT has skewed up by around 100 points since test optional started (which I think we all knew but was nice to hear someone in admissions actually say it). Are we allowed to post links? I’ll post it if we are. Otherwise, it’s Episode 118.
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That makes sense with Test Optional which will be a vicious circle and keep climbing. But in the really competitive majors, tests are getting submitted / used in admission:
vs
Yes, agreed. For Engineering, Computer Science and maybe Business? it sounds like it’s understood that test scores are pretty much required.
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I do appreciate UIUC transparency by college with this data - seems to be pretty rare
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Yes it is both rare and appreciated. We were able to see these and use them to help my kid to find a couple of interesting majors in ACES rather than Gies which could make a difference in his admission chances.
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When I read “White students with SATs of 1350 to 1450 in the Chicago suburbs.” I thought … hey, that’s DS24! And yet, even though in that demographic, U of I Gies is a huge reach for him.
I didn’t see it in this document, but my memory is that U of I gives no in-state priority to engineering, CS and business. The priority shows up in that if you don’t get your first major, priority is given to in-state students for their second major. But you can’t declare business, engineering or CS as a second major.
Grainger’s middle 50% is SAT 1470-1550. Which means there are no “White students with SATs of 1350 to 1450 in the Chicago suburbs” in the middle 50% of that entering class. 
It would be interesting if they showed yield by major, because then we could see where U of I is losing people. My guess is that it is not Engineering/CS/business.
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Thanks for that info–I’ve been worrying about my DS’s ability to get into his second choice (Math) at UIUC. Do you think Purdue has the same priority for in-state on second choice? It was surprising that he got rejected outright from Purdue for his second choice major Math (first choice was Engineering–that was not as surprising). His stats for non-Engineering Purdue were above the middle 50%.
Someone on Reddit a while ago posted a document from a FOIA act request that showed UIUC’s applications and acceptances numbers categorized by Resident/OOO/International for Engineering, even going down to the type of engineering level. I thought that document showed that acceptance percentages for UIUC Engineering were a little higher for IL residents than for OOS applicants.
I looked at the Purdue data digest, and the in state acceptance rate for the College of Science (where Math is housed) was 80% last year, compared to 48% for OOS. That’s a pretty significant difference.
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UIUC admissions is a class act. Their communication is top notch.
My S22 (a prospective engineer at the time) was choosing between UIUC and a few other schools a couple of years back. We attended Illini Day and found the experience to be informative and enjoyable. Illini Day is great because, unlike many other colleges, you get to meet students and advisors in your major. He ended up not picking UIUC to the dismay of his parents, but is thriving at his chosen school.
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From the admissions website FAQs:
“Due to space limitations, Illinois residents will be given preference for admission into second-choice majors. Historically, non-Illinois residents who have listed the Undeclared program in the Division of General Studies as their second choice haven’t been admitted to that program due to space constraints.”
Also:
“No, not all majors are available due to space constraints. Majors unavailable as a second choice include Aerospace Engineering, Astronomy + Data Science, Business Undeclared, Computer Engineering, Computer Science (including all Computer Science + X majors), Information Sciences, Information Sciences + Data Science, Mechanical Engineering, all Music majors except Music BA (which doesn’t require an audition), and Psychology.“
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Friday is the big day!! Does anyone know what time decisions typically come out? Email? Portal? Both?