University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Top Questions

Talking with other students at the U of I, it seems like everyone had a preconceived notion that there would be "a ton" of kids from hometowns similar to theirs. If a student was from the suburbs of Chicago, they thought the campus had only suburbanites. If a student was from a very small town, they thought they'd finally meet kids from other small towns. And the non-Illinois residents did their research and knew that although the majority of campus hails from Illinois, that we had around 30{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} out of state/international students. I feel like sometimes in-state kids don't look into the numbers as much as out of state kids, almost like they rely on hearsay and the comments from their peers over the Princeton Review or university website. But now that I am on campus, it seems like we all got here, looked around, and realized that there is just a lot of every type of background here. There are plenty of students from the suburbs of Chicago, St. Louis, and plenty of small town students, and plenty of out of state students, and plenty of international students. The thing about this campus is that there is room, and company for everyone. So in a way, we all were right, and wrong. There isn't one type of student here, unless I say we're all Illini :)

I think people consider the U of I to be a big party school because we have such a large (the largest) Greek system and campus wide holidays like Unofficial. While it's true, students here like to have a good time, the academic demand on many of our students makes the majority unable to go overboard with partying. It's the perfect balance of work and fun here! Also, even though the greek system is so huge, I'm not in it and I never notice that it's there really and I wouldn't say that the majority of our students are characterized by it. Majority of our students are from the Chicago suburbs though, there's no doubt about that.

While it is true that the University of Illinois does have the largest greek system of any Campus, what isn't true is the entire school belongs to one of these 90 chapters. About 1 in 4 students decides to join a fraternity or soriority, in which case may not always have a social association. Many chapters offered are professional and can be seen in areas such as medical and business, which gives a very different feel than a social sorority or fraternity. There is also a misconception of how seperate greek vs. non-greek students are on campus.You will rarely find a dividing line between friends and for many you will find it simply a choice to making a smaller community in their college experience.

The stereotype of students at my school is the typical Greek partiers. We have the largest Greek system of public schools in the country so people usually assume you are in a fraternity or sorority and therefore you go out a lot. This stereotype is not accurate. While there are a lot of Greeks, there are also a lot of other diverse students to balance the school out.

I think the stereotypes of our students here at Illinois is that we are all engineer and business majors, so basically that we are a bit nerdy. Yes, we have a very strong engineering and business school, so the nerdy bit is fairly accurate, but it's nice to have students that challenge themselves academically. Being a Big Ten school, we have the reputation of a "party school" and while there is definitely a social life, the students here will do their school work first, and then go out later, not the reverse like it is at other schools.

I honestly cannot think of one stereotype for students at Illinois. The students at Illinois make up such a diverse population that there may be multiple stereotypes, but even then you will find students who don't perfectly fit into the stereotype you would imagine them to. Either way, this means you get a chance to meet someone new and different every day. I've met someone who created their own website and another person who was on the Olympic shooting team. And no matter what stereotype you have, we all get along for the most part (there are always those people who just don't get along with anyone). In my opinion there really isn't a great divide between frat kids and geeks or athletes and hipsters. People may stick to their own groups for the most part, but if you're put together for a group project, there won't be blood shed.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign doesn't have one predominant stereotype about its students, but there are a few false assumptions about some groups of people here. First of all, we are not all farm kids, but we are also not all from the suburbs of Chicago! There are students here from all the counties in Illinois- urban, rural, and suburban alike. Although there is a dominant suburban presence, there are also people here from all over the country and all over the world, and each student brings his or her own unique perspective to campus, which makes the U of I truly an exciting place to be. Another common misconception is that there are a lot of engineering nerds here who do nothing but study in the library all day. True, the engineering program is top-notch and pretty competitive here, but it is possible to do a lot of other activities and have a social life while still getting good grades. Many of my friends are proof-positive of this.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign doesn't have one predominant stereotype about its students, but there are a few false assumptions about some groups of people here. First of all, we are not all farm kids, but we are also not all from the suburbs of Chicago! There students here from all the counties in Illinois, urban, rural, and suburban alike. Although there is a dominant suburban presence, there are also people here from all over the country and all over the world, and each student brings his or her own unique perspective to campus, which makes the U of I truly an exciting place to be. Another common misconception is that there are a lot of engineering nerds here who do nothing but study in the library all day. True, the engineering program is top-notch and pretty competitive here, but it is possible to do a lot of other activities and have a social life while still getting good grades. Many of my friends are proof-positive of this.

I always heard people talking about how big greek life is at U of I so there's a little bit of a stereotype of how fratty UofI can be. However, a more pervasive stereotype I have heard is that people who go to UofI are nerdy. Both of these stereotypes are true and false. As with any college you go to there are always fratty kids and always nerdy kids. That doesn't mean that everyone on campus fits into one of these two groups. While I see myself fitting into both of these categories at times, I have never had a problem fitting in or finding someone I share common interests with. UofI is such a big school that there is a lot of diversity on campus, one or two stereotypes cannot be used to generalize the entire student population.

Most people would probably stereotype our students as a mix of geeky engineers and jerk frat boys/sorority girls. There is some truth to this because we have a nationally ranked engineering school and the biggest greek system in the country. Overall though there is obviously much more diversity than this, engineers only account for a around a small slice of majors and about the same percentage of people that live in the greek system. Since we are such a large school you can literally do about whatever you want in terms of clubs, housing, majors, etc. But if you choose to be a hard working chemical engineer or beer chugging brother; you can be sure your in good company.