The University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign

“Illinois is slowly making the transition from being knownJun 21 2004PreMed and Medical
Illinois is slowly making the transition from being known as a Midwestern institution to a national institution. This is why it is better to be an out of state student when applying. Admissions are objective to say the least. Both a high GPA and ACT test score is almost certain in order to get accepted. Minority students do have an upper leg in the admissions process.
ACT: 26 Male

“I did well in high school and fairly wellMay 27 2004Chemistry
I did well in high school and fairly well on the ACT. Top ten percent and 28 ACT. From my experience with students who were accepted, UIUC appears to be a numbers school in that they feel your high school gpa and ACT are very important to your chance of being accepted. If you're borderline on getting in you should probably try and stack up extra curricular activities as soon as possible to set you apart from other students like you. Show them you can work hard and are prepared to excell here. Other than that, there's not a whole lot more to the admissions process in my opinion.
ACT: 28 Male

“I wasn't anything special in high schoolMay 03 2004Communications
I wasn't anything special in high school. 3.7 GPA. No AP classes. Had the extracirriculars. I didn't think I would get in, but I did.
ACT: 27 SAT: 1250 Female

“The university is very numbers-orientedMar 14 2004Electrical Engineering
The university is very numbers-oriented. They have to be; too many applicants to review everything in great detail. My guess is that above certain GPA/ACT cutoffs you are more or less in, and below certain GPA/ACT cutoffs you are out. There is probably a narrow range in between these two sets of numbers, a 'bubble' category, where things like rec letters, essays, etc count. The best thing you can do - aside from getting good grades and studying your butt off for the ACT - is pick up a statistics sheet showing the top 25%, middle 50%, and bottom 25% ranges for GPA and ACT for the entering class in each college.

One other thing -- if you want to do (for example) Engineering but your numbers are only good enough to get into the LAS college, apply to the LAS college. Once you're here, you can usually transfer between colleges without much problem, so long as you get decent grades (if you want to know what grades you need specifically to transfer, call up those administration offices TODAY, tell them you're an LAS student looking to transfer, and ask what grades you need.) And as you can usually register for most classes in most departments without a problem - and considering that everyone has to take a bunch of gen-ed requirements anyway - you can take a first year of mostly gen-eds, transfer afterward, and still get out in 4 years.
ACT: 33 Male