UIUC | University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign | Best College

Quick Stats

601 E. John Street
Champaign, IL 61820-5711: [map]

Phone: (217) 333-1000

2011-2012 Tuition

$13,558: in-state

$27,700: out-of-state

Students

31,540: enrolled

55%: male /

45%: female

Admissions

Jan. 2: application deadline

67.1%: accepted

More Information

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U.S. News Rankings

Ranking score and category

U.S. News rank	Category Name
#45	National Universities

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Summary

University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign is a public institution that was founded in 1867. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 31,540, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 1,468 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign's ranking in the 2012 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 45. Its in-state tuition and fees are $13,558 (2011-12); out-of-state tuition and fees are $27,700 (2011-12).

The University of Illinois is located in the twin cities of Urbana and Champaign in east-central Illinois, only a few hours from Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis. The school’s Fighting Illini participate in more than 20 NCAA Division I varsity sports and are part of the Big Ten Conference. The university boasts the largest Greek system in the world, and almost a quarter of the student body is involved. It’s not hard to find something to do on campus with more than 1,000 student organizations, ranging from the climbing club to the Chinese mahjong club. All freshmen are required to live on campus.

University of Illinois—Urbana-Champaign comprises 17 schools and colleges. Its Graduate School of Library and Information Science, College of Engineering, and Department of Psychology are among the best in the country. The school’s College of Business, College of Education, and College of Law are also highly ranked The school is classified as a university with very high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University of Illinois was the first school to provide disability access to all university services, curricula, and facilities. Notable alumni include Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert, and John Bardeen, a two-time winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

School mission and unique qualities (as provided by the school):

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the state's flagship institution: a classic land grant university, dedicated to its traditional excellence in education, research, and public engagement, and driven to innovate in each of these missions.

More than 2,000 Urbana-Champaign faculty members lead more than 40,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students in a process of discovery and learning in 17 colleges and schools and more than 80 research centers and labs.

Undergraduates make up three-quarters of the student population. Nearly 90 percent of the undergraduate students come from the 102 counties of Illinois, with the rest traveling to Illinois from all 50 states and more than 100 nations. All are highly qualified and choose between 150 undergraduate programs of study. The middle 50 percent of freshmen at Illinois score between 26 and 30 on the ACT, and these same students ranked between the 84th and 96th percentile in their high school graduating classes. Undergraduate students often travel around the globe through one of the top ten study abroad programs among major research institutions in the United States.

Faculty members also are well connected internationally, collaborating with other top scholars from around the world and across disciplines. They are world-renowned scholars who have been recognized with such top awards as Nobel Prizes, Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim Fellowships, Tony Awards, MacArthur "genius" awards, and memberships in the nation's elite academies of arts and sciences. Of twelve Nobel laureates who have served on the faculty, two were honored for work undertaken at this University. Illinois became only the third American public university, and the eleventh institution in the world, ever to have two Nobel Prizes (in different fields) awarded to members of its faculty in the same year.

Urbana campus alumni are similarly recognized. Eleven University alumni have won Nobel Prizes.

Campus resources include the world's largest public university library, with an average 1.1 million items circulated and 225,000 reference questions answered each year. Outstanding centers for performance and training in the arts include one of the nation's best performing arts facilities, the Krannert Center. World-class research facilities in Urbana include the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Beckman Institute, Institute for Genomic Biology and Siebel Center for Computer Science.

Of course, many people across the nation know Urbana-Champaign as the home of nine men's and 10 women's Big Ten sports teams. The campus Division of Intercollegiate Athletics is know for its integrity and its emphasis on scholarship among its athletes. Men's basketball and football are high profile sports, but Illinois also has won recent national and conference champions in such programs as gymnastics, tennis, and wrestling.

General Information

School type	public, coed college
Year founded	1867
Religious affiliation	N/A
Academic calendar	semester
Setting	urban
2010 Endowment	$955,643,011

Applying

When applying to University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign, it's important to note the application deadline is January 2. Scores for either the ACT or SAT test are due December 30. The application fee at University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign is $50. It is more selective, with an acceptance rate of 67.1 percent.

For more information about the tests, essays, interviews, and admissions process, visit the Applying to College knowledge center.

Selectivity	more selective
Fall 2010 acceptance rate	67%
Application deadline	January 2
SAT/ACT scores must be received by	December 30

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Academic Life

The student-faculty ratio at University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign is 16:1, and the school has 34.0 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign include: Engineering; Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services; Social Sciences; Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs; and Biological and Biomedical Sciences. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 93.5 percent.

Class sizes

Student-faculty ratio

16:1

4-year graduation rate

67% - High

Five most popular majors for 2010 graduates

Engineering	14%
Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services	11%
Social Sciences	11%
Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs	8%
Biological and Biomedical Sciences	7%

More About Academic Life

Student Life

University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign has a total undergraduate enrollment of 31,540, with a gender distribution of 54.7 percent male students and 45.3 percent female students. 50.0 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 50.0 percent of students live off campus. University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign is part of the NCAA I athletic conference.

See what students are saying about life at University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign.

Total enrollment	43,862
Student gender distribution

Undergraduate men who are members of a fraternity

Undergraduate women who are members of a sorority

Collegiate athletic association	NCAA I

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Campus Info & Services

University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign offers a number of student services including nonremedial tutoring, women's center, placement service, day care, health service, and health insurance. University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign also offers campus safety and security services like 24-hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night transport/escort service, 24-hour emergency telephones, lighted pathways/sidewalks, student patrols, and controlled dormitory access (key, security card, etc). Of the students at University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign, 75 percent have cars on campus. Alcohol is permitted for students of legal age at University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign.

Students who have cars on campus	75% - Medium
Health insurance offered	Yes
Students required to own/lease a computer	No

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Paying for School

At University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign, 45.8 percent of full-time undergraduates receive some kind of need-based financial aid and the average need-based scholarship or grant award is $11,420.

Paying for college doesn't have to be difficult or devastating. Go to the Paying for College knowledge center to get advice on raising cash and reducing costs.

In-state tuition and fees	$13,558 (2011-12)
Out-of-state tuition and fees	$27,700 (2011-12)
Room and board	$10,080 (2011-12) - Medium
Financial aid statistics

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Student Reviews Ratings data provided by Unigo

Overall I'd say that Illinois is your quintessential college movie experience, the college town that you imagine when you are planning on leaving home, the place that feels like home even though its nothing like where you're from. The school itself is split between Urbana and Champaign but I spent the majority of my time in Champaign so I'm biased of course. I played hockey at U of I for the club team which on campus is treated like a D1 sport here in lieu of an actual D1 team. Champaign has it all, by which I mean that is where Assembly Hall, Memorial Stadium, the new fitness center, the mall, Green St., most Frats, and all the bars are located. Illinois is a big enough school that if you're not all party all the time and you come without friends you will eventually find your niche. What they don't put on your acceptance letter (and they probably should) is that at heart Illinois is Sports, Greek, Academics (not in that order). If you don't like sports or the color orange Illinois might not be for you. If you don't like the greek system (a lot) I can tell you now you will eventually run into it on campus and Illinois might not be for you. Lastly if you don't know how to balance your time well, the combination of freedom, cheap alcohol, and a ridiculous work load from your classes will put you on your***and out of school fast. In general if you want school spirit, a good job when you graduate, and to have the time of your life then come to Illinois. If you're anti social, undisciplined, or have a vendetta against alcohol, Illinois might not be for you.

Kevin Senior

The best thing about Illinois is there are so many academic opportunities. There's a class for everything, and if you can't find a class, you can always do an independent study of what you like. There are many research opportunities, if you're interested in that. I would change how many professors lead their courses - the courses tend to be huge lectures and there is little time for students to ask questions during lecture or to go up to talk to the professor after the lecture. The professor generally assigns office hours where you can go ask questions, but often, you will have a course during these office hours, and many professors are not happy to do office hours by appointment. This all really depends on the professor, but this is really typical in the science majors (in LAS, I can't really offer an honest opinion about engineering). The university is way too big - it does not have the resources to accomodate everyone. There is little unity except at sports events - most of the time, students compete with one another (it's cut-throat competition). White students hang out with white students, Hispanic students also hang out with just themselves... There's plenty of diversity, just no unity. When I tell people that I go here, the intelligent ones act very impressed. The athletic ones have their own opinions about the different teams here. And people who don't fall into either category sometimes aren't familiar with the university until I tell them we have one of the best engineering programs in the world. It's sad that people only know this university because of the engineering program, but the university is not interested in using any money or resources to make the school just as great in all the other departments. They just keep building up the engineering school. Illinois's administration has no idea what's going on, ever. An E-mail from them is a big joke. Nobody ever takes them seriously. The biggest recent controversy on campus was getting rid of our symbol, the Chief. It was not Native Americans who were offended by him, only African American and very liberal white students. The fact is there are very few Native Americans here, and the school claims that getting rid of the Chief will attract more Native Americans - but actually, the percentage of Native American students here is about the same as any other university in this region. We all know the university just caved because they felt they could receive more money from anti-Chief alumni. They actually never received more money. Many students are angry about this, but many students continue to wear Chief apparel every day. The controversy has FAR from gotten rid of the Chief!

Elizabeth Junior

The best thing about Illinois is that fact that it's isolated from the 'real world', that three hour drive takes you into a world that is unlike reality. It's fun you feel free, you can grow as a person and develop intellectually all the while being independent. I think my school is just right in terms of size. When I tell people that I go to Illinois they are impressed and proud of me. I spend most of my time on the quad. It's a college town hands down. I am not too familiar with the administrative aspect of Illinois, sorry. The biggest recent controversy was over an exchange between a greek sorority Delta Delta Delta and fraternity ZBT entitled "Tacos and Tequila", the reasoning behind the controversy was because they had members of their sorority dressed in urban clothing and pregnant clothing while the guys dressed up as landscape workers with fake tattoo tear-drops. This event was huge but our school tried hard to keep it under wraps, which I believe they did a good job, only the local newspaper published an article on the event. There is so much school pride, Illinois students are the proudest of their school. I don't think there's anything unusual, well actually there is a dormitory that's the farthest from campus which happens to be the dorm that minorities are assigned to...segregation perhaps? The experience that I will never forget would have to be my freshman year, the first week had events catered to the entering freshman. I loved it! The most frequent complaints would have to be politics with the 'Chief'

Serenity Senior

More student reviews

* Overview details based on 2010 data

University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign

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Summary

General Information

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