Illini applicant? You'll find our Friday

SPRINGFIELD -- The joy of launching into winter break is tempered by a bad case of nerves for many college-bound seniors as University of Illinois gets set to announce Friday who it will accept into next fall's freshman class.

The news goes online at 5 p.m. Friday, ending the college search for some students admitted to the state's flagship university and conferring bragging rights on teens who don't expect to enroll.

Others, of course, will be rejected, and some will get put on a waiting list, forced to wait until February to finally find out if they're admitted.

Of about 28,000 applicants last year, about 7,000 enrolled.

“It's a very tough time for students,” said Sue Biemeret, a counselor at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire.

Applications from Illinois students are down, though the number of freshman enrollees from the suburbs has risen slightly, said University of Illinois spokeswoman Robin Kaler.

Suburban students have lots of options nowadays. The Chicago area has become a recruiting hot spot for universities from across the country, so state schools that want to keep students in Illinois have serious challenges, Kaler said.

“What we're finding is we're getting fewer and fewer applications from students in Illinois,” Kaler said.

U of I's Friday announcement which contrasts with many universities' so-called rolling admission with decisions spread across the school year sets up a waiting game for U of I, as well.

“They have time to choose you,” Kaler said. Some students who get accepted Friday will turn the university down and go elsewhere, perhaps out of state.

Students have until May 1 to pick a college, Biemeret said.

The number of suburban students going to U of I hasn't changed much in recent years, according to university data. Several hundred more students from the collar counties went in the fall of 2010 than did in the fall of 2005. Total Illinois enrollment is down, though.

Over that time, the campus' undergraduate attendance stayed pretty steady, rising from about 30,450 in 2005 to about 31,250 this year.

One pitch Illinois might make to prospective students is that in-state students pay lower tuition in Urbana than they might at out-of-state schools or private universities. This year, freshman tuition, books and room and board is $27,082 to $31,810 for Illinois residents at the Urbana campus.

But tuition has more than doubled at U of I and other state schools in the last 10 years. And competitors could offer scholarships to try to draw Illinoisans.

Competition for suburban students isn't just coming from local private schools or public universities right across the Illinois border.

“Big Ten, Harvard, Yale, everybody,” Kaler said.

At Stevenson High School alone, about 180 colleges visited this year to talk to seniors, Biemeret said.

“There are a lot of students in the Chicago area,” Biemeret said. “And a lot of students are from great high schools.”