brutal truth, both school suck in terms of education and placement, okay thats too much, but you get the idea, they are not princeton or standford fmath. so lesser of two evil, UM does have an edge in tuition department. UIUC is never known for financial programs, at least thats my opinion, it is relatively new. on the other hand, look at the student body, UIUC admitted quite a few students with sub3.2 gpa and no prior experience. Remember, your fellow students are always your foundation of professional network, and they are usually solely based on friendship. your circle of friends define who you are conscientiously and sub-conscientiously. having a competitive student body usually gives you motivation, a standard, something to look up to. those intangibles tend to be overlooked. don't simply judge a program based on review from some guy on the internet crunching numbers. its what 4 years of undergrad are for, analyze the situation with a quantitative AND a qualitative approach.
So my suggestion is, look up student body. Degree only gives you a chance for interviews, it is what you do DURING the interview that matters (technical or otherwise). guess why we aint in the mba programs =o, anyways, stat is merely a reference as any director/Md will tell you, and we quants tend to over emphasize on them. no doubt there is a correlation between placement rates and quality of the programs; however, you are not them, they might have relatives in industry that you don't and it gives them a better chance at landing the job. I hate to be cynical, but I gotta tell ya, I KNOW that a lot of the students cannot find jobs in the states, and have to go back to india and china for easy way out simply because they have relatives there. take CITIC, blackrock beijing, and new delhi for example.
I am not implying anything, but UIUC is known for its asian persuasion not only in grad but also in undergrad, helluva job in Public relation. and this brings question marks on its employment rate, something to ponder. and among those who were employed in the states, how many are working in the so-called financial industry. actuarial science is sort of gray area since you don't need a degree in mfe to pass SoA exams, and it would seem a waste to get a degree in mfe and end up getting a actsc job. I am not sure about UM numbers, but my feelings are if you smell something fishy in those numbers, the chances are, they are fishy indeed.
so anyways it ultimately comes down to curriculum, what approach are you seeking? are you a mathematics background student hoping to improve programming skills, or the other way around. Or are you pursuing PhD after graduation depending on the job economy. are their curriculums computational based or theoretically based.
Given the majority student body of indian, asian, and russian(esque), nepotism is still a predominant factor. I'm not sure about NY, but I saw/heard in Toronto, Chicago, a lot of the quant desks tend to hire specific ethnic group. i suppose it is quite hard to break the cultural barrier if they did not grow up in north america. but it is still a factor to consider, depending on where you want to work after graduation.
I hope it helps !
