Industrial Design Schools: Opinions and Questions

Hi all!

I’m a student from India and would really appreciate some advice.

I did my undergraduation from a design college here about a year ago. Since then I’ve been working on low cost medical products in rural india. I’ve applied to a few schools in the US for a masters and really need some help picking.

I’ve gotten into

  1. University of Cincinnati
  2. Arizona State university
  3. UIUC
  4. Pratt Institute
  5. California College of Design

I’m also on the waitlist at RISD.

I’ve been considering going to a university and not an art school because I love multidisciplinary work. This narrows my options down to UIUC, UIC and ASU.

UIUC has offered me a TA which give me a full tuition fee waiver and a stipend which is a really sweet deal. (To attend anywhere else, I will be in a ton of debt; something I would rather avoid. )

So here’s my dilemma. Everything I can find on the forum about UIUC is a bit dated. The latest comments were from acm who did his undergrad in 2012.

My questions to anybody who have heard about the program to anybody who recently/seen portfolios/interacted with recent students:

  1. are the portfolios competitive?
  2. and consistent pattern in terms of skills the students seem to be lacking; straight out of college?
  3. any reasons for not attending UIUC and joining one of the other colleges?

I’m a bit hesitant about UIUC largely because I haven’t been able to find a lot of portfolios on behance or on the www.
I want to attend college largely for exposure to an international audience, and to polish my skill set; something there is dire need of.

Visiting the universities is not really feasible at this point so I have to make do with what I can find online.

Thanks in advance and apologies for such a long post.