Thinking of transferring to Illinois?? Please help

[mnm5]

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For any of you that go to Illinois, I would like to know what you view as pros and cons to attending U of I. I'm thinking of transferring my second year to be more hands on with wildlife. Anything helps, please be as honest as possible. Thank you!

 

[that redhead]

I cant speak to Illinois specifically, however, I did attempt to transfer as a vet student and your reasoning is unlikely to be compelling enough on its own. People who transfer are often due to family (children or ill relatives), to become in-state, or maybe even to work with a specific faculty member (such as for research).

Have you tried other avenues to get more hands-on experience where you are currently?

 

[mnm5]

I cant speak to Illinois specifically, however, I did attempt to transfer as a vet student and your reasoning is unlikely to be compelling enough on its own. People who transfer are often due to family (children or ill relatives), to become in-state, or maybe even to work with a specific faculty member (such as for research).

Have you tried other avenues to get more hands-on experience where you are currently?

I forgot to mention that I am currently at SGU so it would be moving in state for me as well. 👍

 

[SkiOtter]

As far as I know we haven’t accepted transfers the last couple years. We haven’t lost people from the classes so there haven’t been open seats. I know 2020, 2021, and 2022 did not have any open seats and they didn’t accept transfers any of those years. Not sure about 2023 but I think they started over enrolled at the beginning. They generally don’t announce anything until May iirc about seats opening.

 

[battie]

In my nearly 5 years at Illinois, I know of only two transfers out of somewhere around 800 students between 2019 and 2024. Both were island students. One joined the class of 2020, but had to repeat the entirety of her first year. The other joined the class of 2023 this year as a second year. Not going to lie, it is unlikely there's another transfer in our midst that the few of us on here from Illinois don't know about.

I would not bank on a transfer into Illinois. Our curriculum is hard to line up with other schools, though obviously at least 1 has made it work recently. This becomes especially true the further into the curriculum you get. If you don't come in between 1st and 2nd year, definitely do not have high hopes of coming in between 2nd and 3rd year. We have a pretty stable class composition with very few people dropping from class to class or leaving outright. Tack on that the school strives to maintain a 130 class number very stringently (within reason of course; my class is 133). So if a class doesn't lose anyone, the chances of a transfer for any reason goes down, regardless of if it is "compelling". Then you really need to have a compelling reason to transfer in. Wanting increased exposure to wildlife species will not be a compelling reason. A large proportion of each class expresses a desire to go into zoo med/exotics/wildlife, and if it was a compelling reason for transfer, there'd be literal dozens of applications per year I would imagine. The fact that you're in state is a much better reason, but you would have to convince the admissions committee why you deserve a transfer when an Illinois resident going to, say CSU, doesn't, ya know?

If you would like pros/cons lists, there's definitely a ton of information in the "x vs y" schools threads that include information from several of us regulars as well as others who don't regularly post here any more. There's definitely several posts that outline grievances that people have in those threads, which I think are important for people to look at. Us regular posters have had an overall more positive experience than those posters, so have a more biased view towards Illinois. You're welcome to PM too.

 

[mnm5]

In my nearly 5 years at Illinois, I know of only two transfers out of somewhere around 800 students between 2019 and 2024. Both were island students. One joined the class of 2020, but had to repeat the entirety of her first year. The other joined the class of 2023 this year as a second year. Not going to lie, it is unlikely there's another transfer in our midst that the few of us on here from Illinois don't know about.

I would not bank on a transfer into Illinois. Our curriculum is hard to line up with other schools, though obviously at least 1 has made it work recently. This becomes especially true the further into the curriculum you get. If you don't come in between 1st and 2nd year, definitely do not have high hopes of coming in between 2nd and 3rd year. We have a pretty stable class composition with very few people dropping from class to class or leaving outright. Tack on that the school strives to maintain a 130 class number very stringently (within reason of course; my class is 133). So if a class doesn't lose anyone, the chances of a transfer for any reason goes down, regardless of if it is "compelling". Then you really need to have a compelling reason to transfer in. Wanting increased exposure to wildlife species will not be a compelling reason. A large proportion of each class expresses a desire to go into zoo med/exotics/wildlife, and if it was a compelling reason for transfer, there'd be literal dozens of applications per year I would imagine. The fact that you're in state is a much better reason, but you would have to convince the admissions committee why you deserve a transfer when an Illinois resident going to, say CSU, doesn't, ya know?

If you would like pros/cons lists, there's definitely a ton of information in the "x vs y" schools threads that include information from several of us regulars as well as others who don't regularly post here any more. There's definitely several posts that outline grievances that people have in those threads, which I think are important for people to look at. Us regular posters have had an overall more positive experience than those posters, so have a more biased view towards Illinois. You're welcome to PM too.

I know it is very hard to transfer and really depends on the year but there are a few things that I am not including in this thread for personal reasons that are playing a factor in transferring. Illinois is just at the top of my list because of the curriculum. Thank you so much for this response. I will take a look at the other thread.

 

[SkiOtter]

If you don't come in between 1st and 2nd year, definitely do not have high hopes of coming in between 2nd and 3rd year.

(The straight up only allow transfers into second year so def no hopes of transferring into third year)

 

[battie]

there are a few things that I am not including in this thread for personal reasons that are playing a factor in transferring

Good to know. As a friendly FYI in general for SDN, a lot of new posters have very rose-colored glasses and are very optimistic. So we generally have to gently give people some more realistic/objective perspective for various things, including transferring. You by far do not owe us an explanation; but for future posts, I recommend including a non-specific qualifier that there are several personal situations that are leading you to wanting to transfer (or whatever the thing you want to do is). Your original post lead us to believe you simply wanted to transfer for our amazing zoo med program. Hence you didnt really get answers to the actual question you asked.

And like I said, I'm open to PMs 😀 I have a lot of feelings for/against Illinois. It's just *a lot*. Lol.