Hi all, I would like to get your thoughts on attending UW Madison (hoping to major in pharmacology and toxicology but need to apply for that major in 2 years) or UIUC (chemistry major). I’ve been admitted into both schools and currently plan to pursue pharmacy school after undergrad. I’m an MN resident so it costs me roughly $20,000 more to attend UIUC and I can make that work but I’m wondering if it’s worth it. Any advice or thoughts are welcome!! Thank you!
Zero percent chance that I would spend more to attend UIUC.
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Can you elaborate more? My son is facing the same choices 
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The two are equivalent for everything but engineering, and Madison is a far nicer place to spend four years than Champaign-Urbana, IL.
It may be worth it for engineering.
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They are equal and even close enough for engineering. If not going into CS engineering go less expensive. Madison is a much nicer campus. Put the money in the bank
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Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa State, Purdue, Michigan State are all equivalent schools.
Illinois often gets the nod for engineering because someone in the 50’s invented the transistor there… but the student profile at these midwest schools are interchangeable.
Transistor:
Here’s a map of land grant colleges:
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There’s no good reason to spend extra just to go to UIUC.
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UIUC engineering has done more than that, and it does have somewhat better profile than most of the others.
So UIUC engineering have mid 50% SAT range of 1430 - 1540, mid 50% ACT Score 32 - 35.
Purdue Engineering has 1370 - 1500, 31 - 34
Minnesota Engineering has 1370 - 1490, 30 - 34
Iowa Average SAT 28.4 (no average SAT)
Wisconsin does not evidently have direct admissions, so the ACTs and SATs are not tracked.
So no, it doesn’t really look like “he student profile at these Midwest schools are interchangeable”
On the other hand, U Michigan: median for MSU is 1430 SAT, 34 ACT, much more of a match. Based on their medias, their SAT mid 50% range is lower than UIUC’s, and their ACT mid 50% range is higher. So I think that these students have “interchangeable profiles”.
An no, the graduates and faculty at UIUC didn’t just invent the transistor in the 1950s.
There is ILIAC, touchscreens, and plasma screens. Parallel Cumpouting started there. There is PLATO, graphic browsers, Telnet, and the Apache HTTP Server.
There is NCSA and the Coordinated Science Laboratory. There is the largest Engineering library in the USA.
Illinois graduates were the founders of Netscape, Oracle, PayPal, Siebel Systems, YouTube, Yelp, and Tesla. The founder of Girls who code is a graduate.
So no, Illinois Engineering just another Midwest University’s College of Engineering, but one of the top ones in the world.
Sheesh.
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