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UIUC MCS

Program Overview​

UIUC has two CS programs in total: MSCS and MCS. The difference is that the former is tuition-free and primarily research-oriented, with extremely competitive admissions. The latter is course-based -- students generally take classes + hunt for jobs, tuition is not waived, and admissions are relatively less competitive than MSCS (Note: this only means less competitive for US undergrads). UIUC is in the middle of cornfields, so rent is relatively cheap. MCS course quality is very good, with both easy courses and hardcore coding courses. CS ranking is #5. The program is 3 semesters long, has co-op options, and allows full-time internships during the semester. If you get a return offer from your summer internship, you can convert to full-time directly without doing a co-op (co-op extends graduation by one semester). The program is very flexible. In 2024, a Chicago campus opened with lower admission difficulty, so applicants can choose to apply to the main campus or the Chicago campus.

Starting Fall 2023, the school granted students a third-semester full-time internship, essentially a co-op. This extended the previous mandatory 3-semester graduation to an optional 4-semester graduation.

Admission Preferences:​

Prefers US undergrads; not favorable toward undergrads from mainland China. US undergrads with a GPA above 3.6, without needing much in terms of soft background, can generally get in. TOEFL 103+ for full admission; 79-102 requires taking English courses to graduate. 24 Fall saw a huge number of applicants from mainland China, with very few winners. Known data points:

  1. 211 undergrad, IELTS 7, female student with GPA rank 1

  2. A senior engineer (P8 level) who worked at Tencent for nearly ten years

  3. A 211 student, TOEFL 110+, Baidu intern

  4. 985 undergrad, 3.9+, TOEFL 109, internships at Baidu, ByteDance, HP, and Microsoft

  5. UIUC CS undergrad, GPA 3.98, no soft background whatsoever

  6. National Chiao Tung University, GPA 4.11/4.3, seven-month NVIDIA intern

  7. National Tsing Hua University CS undergrad, GPA 3.96/4

  8. ZJU ECE undergrad, GPA 3.96

  9. Tongji University Software Engineering undergrad, GPA 92

  10. National Taiwan Ocean University CS undergrad, GPA 3.8

  11. UW-Madison CS undergrad, GPA 3.79

  12. ASU CS undergrad, GPA 3.92, two years of US full-time work experience

  13. UIUC CS undergrad, GPA 3.72

  14. SJTU-UMich joint program, SJTU GPA 3.6, UMich GPA 3.9

  15. National Tsing Hua University CS undergrad, GPA 3.96

To reiterate, the data points above are only representative of admissions for mainland China undergrads and do not represent admission difficulty for US undergrads. According to statistics from the 24 Fall admitted students group, US undergrads with 3.6+ GPA are in pretty good shape. There are even data points of current students being admitted with a 3.2 GPA. US undergrad applicants can go for it with confidence!

Job Outcomes & Data Points​

A UIUC undergrad got an OpenAI internship (previously had big tech internship experience at Databricks).

2021 Fall: Out of 20 Taiwanese students, 19 found internships. Although half were laid off due to a hiring freeze at graduation, all eventually found jobs. About half of the 2022 Fall cohort found internships.

  1. National Tsing Hua University CS undergrad, multiple Taiwanese tech internships, landed Meta new grad
  2. Southwest Jiaotong University Environmental Design major, career change to CS, no internship, landed Amazon
  3. Tongji University Software Engineering undergrad, had Airwallex internship, landed eBay, new grad landed TikTok
  4. UIUC CS undergrad, landed Optum intern and converted to full-time
  5. UIUC CS undergrad, had JP Morgan internship, landed Meta SWE intern and successfully converted to full-time
  6. UIUC CS undergrad, had two long-term small company internships, landed Meta SWE new grad
  7. SJTU-UMich undergrad, had three-month Intel internship in China, landed Meta SWE intern and successfully returned
  8. Indian undergrad, two years of full-time at Oracle India, landed NVIDIA Systems Software Engineer
  9. National Chiao Tung University, nine months full-time C++ work in Taiwan, landed NVIDIA SWE intern and converted to full-time
  10. UIUC CS undergrad, had IBM internship, landed NVIDIA SWE intern and converted to full-time
  11. UIUC CS undergrad, graduated in three years, had small company internship, landed Microsoft internship and converted to full-time