Is University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign easier to get into than Northeastern University?

Yes. In broad terms, UIUC is typically easier to get into overall than Northeastern, though the answer changes a lot by major. Northeastern is widely viewed as the more selective university at the overall admissions level, while UIUC can become extremely competitive for certain programs, especially in engineering, computer science, and some business pathways.

For a student applying to a less capacity-constrained major and looking at the university as a whole, UIUC is usually the less selective of the two. UIUC is a large public flagship with a much bigger undergraduate enrollment, and that scale tends to create more variation across colleges and majors. A student applying to something like liberal arts or exploratory fields may find UIUC noticeably more accessible than Northeastern.

For a student aiming at highly sought-after STEM programs, the gap can narrow or even flip depending on the exact department. UIUC’s top engineering and CS options are especially difficult because admission is often direct to a specific program, not just to the university. In those areas, getting into UIUC can be as hard as, or harder than, getting into Northeastern overall.

For list-building purposes, it makes sense to treat Northeastern as the more selective school in a general sense, and to treat UIUC as major-dependent rather than uniformly easier. If your intended major is competitive, especially CS or engineering, UIUC should not be assumed to be a safer option just because it is the public university in this comparison.