High School Counselor Cycle Updates
This guide provides all of the information you need to know as you work with fall 2023 first-year applicants. Thank you for all you do for our students!
Application Deadlines
We will offer two application periods, with early action and regular decision dates. Applying early does give students an advantage; for fall 2022, students who applied by our priority deadline were 22% more likely to be admitted.
Early Action Admission Deadline
- Deadline: November 1
- Notification: January 27
Regular Admission Deadline
- Deadline: January 5
- Notification: March 3
If students have questions as they apply, encourage them to watch our How to Apply video or read our Complete Guide to Applying blog.
Increasing Competitiveness
With more applications, our overall admit rate fell from about 60% to 45%. Because we admit by program, some programs have become significantly more competitive. We will now publish our admit rate by college, as well as for our Computer Science-related programs:
- Computer Science: 6.8%
- CS + X programs: 25.5%
We encourage students to apply for programs in which they plan to enroll if admitted. We will only consider students for programs to which they apply. The Division of General Studies is intended for students who are open to exploring more than one major, with preference given to students who are open to exploring programs with capacity on campus. Students who are only interested in intercollegiate transfer once on campus into The Grainger College of Engineering or Gies College of Business should be encouraged to enroll at another university.
Due to increasing competitiveness, students will only be able to enter our Computer Science program as new first-year or transfer students. They will not be able to apply to change majors into Computer Science once on campus, although they will still be able to pursue a Computer Science minor or apply to change majors into our Computer Science + X programs.
Common App Majors
First- and second-choice major selections are now two-part questions. Applicants will select their desired academic community first, and then only majors within that community will appear in the first- or second-choice dropdown.
New Majors
We will add several new majors for first-year students to explore:
- Accountancy + Data Science (only available to current UIUC students)
- Agricultural Communications
- Agronomy
- Astronomy + Data Science
- Astrophysics
- Computer Science + Education, Learning Sciences
- Computer Science + Education, Secondary Education
- Dance & Kinesiology (dual degree program)
- Finance + Data Science (only available to current UIUC students)
- Information Sciences + Data Science
- Neural Engineering
- Neuroscience
- Secondary Education: Mathematics
Majors Unavailable as a Second Choice
Following are the majors not available as a second choice for first-year students:
- Aerospace Engineering
- Astronomy + Data Science
- Bioengineering
- Business programs
- Computer Engineering
- Computer Science
- All Computer Science + X programs
- Information Sciences
- Information Sciences + Data Science
- Mechanical Engineering
- All Music programs except Music BA
- Neural Engineering
- Psychology