University of Illinois students react to school's admissions scandal
Dan Simmons, Chicago Tribune
Issue date: 8/26/09 Section: News
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The mood among students was back-to-school euphoric and most - but not all - said they're willing to forgive and forget about the summer scandal.
"I love this school so much and didn't want the controversy to affect me," said Nicolette Theotikos, an 18-year-old freshman. "I wasn't involved and I don't approve of what happened, but I still think this is a great school."
Others weren't as charitable.
"I feel there hasn't been enough heat put on the president and the chancellor," said Julien Ball, 33, a graduate student in library science from Chicago.
Ball is part of "No to Clout Admissions," a student group that handed out fliers on campus Sunday and hopes to organize a larger movement to pressure the administration more aggressively for the scandal. The group faults administration policies that, it said, have made the state's most prestigious university too expensive and out-of-reach for poor and minority students.
"It's not just about clout in admissions," Ball said. "While clout was going on, access for the rest of us was being limited, as well."
The campus buzzed with the usual back-to-school energy on Friday.
Friends tossed frisbees on the campus Quad. Mothers gave tear-stained goodbye hugs to sons and daughters. Newly minted freshmen walked out of the bookstore dressed in Illini orange.
Many students said it was especially good to be on campus this year after having to answer questions from skeptical friends and family this summer.
"I'd say, 'I'm going to U of I' and people would be like, 'Oh, who do you know? How'd you get in?'" said freshman Rachel Zwilling, 18.
The questions came in response to a state investigation of a shadow admissions system that gave preferential treatment to students with ties to trustees, politicians and deep-pocketed donors.
About 800 undergraduate applicants had their names placed on clout lists, known internally as Category I, at the Urbana-Champaign campus during the last five years, a Tribune investigation found. Dozens more received special consideration from the law school and other graduate programs.
Zwilling apparently wasn't on the list. She graduated atop her class of 75 in the small town near the Indiana border and said the massive U of I campus and thousands of strangers left her feeling overwhelmed at times. She's the only one in her class enrolled there, following in the steps of her father and uncles.
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