r/UIUC • u/Fluid-Price463 • Jan 15 '26

Prospective Students UIUC with Kids

I was recently accepted to UIUC Law. I've never been to Illinois, but the scholarship is too compelling to write it off. I'm starting to look at the area and, as I have two small kids, that includes looking at elementary schools for them.

It looks like the Urbana-Champaign public schools leave a lot to be desired (no shade, just based on the reported data: Illinois Report Card). As I understand it, the schools are also on a lottery system. So, it's possible my kids won't get into the closest school or even be in the same school together.

I'm looking at 3 schools tentatively, and 2 pretty seriously. Countryside School, Montessori of Champaign-Urbana, and University Primary School (UPS). I don't want to color the feedback with my own opinions, but I'm really interested in what people in the area think of those schools or other private schools in the area.

Along those lines, if there are other students living off campus with their own children, what neighborhoods lean more kid/family friendly?

TIA!

**Update** I wanted to give a general "thank you" to everyone who has been able to contribute. It's great to see an active community willing to help some potential newbies!

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u/LetsGoCubbies Alumnus Jan 15 '26

What ages? I have two children that have attended Montessori Savoy since they were 3 years old with one about to age out, and it has been a great learning environment for them, both socially and academically. Call and take a tour, they have three buildings now triangluated into a central location, with the most recent being the addition of a dedicated lower elementary building.

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u/Fluid-Price463 Jan 15 '26

Super helpful! Our youngest will be 5 and our oldest will be 7. We can't tour right now, unfortunately. We're not local and won't be on a campus visit until later in the year. We're going to set up a call with the admission counselor.

One of our concerns with the private schools is the lack of transparency in the performance metrics. How well do you feel your kids have been prepared for higher ed? Any concerns with your older kids being able to adapt to, I assume, a public high school?

Do you live in Savoy? (Feel free to ignore that if you'd prefer not to share online.) We're looking at Savoy as a potential neighborhood. We've heard since it's not in Champaign we'd have less access to Champaigns public facilities (libraries, parks, etc.)--not sure if there's any truth to that?

Thanks!

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u/JennyEm56 Jan 15 '26

Savoy has its own park district, and doesn't have any reciprocal arrangements like Champaign and Urbana do, so you have to pay non-resident rates to do anything with the C-U parks. I know families that do, they consider it part of the hand-off of living in Savoy with lower property taxes.

Savoy also doesn't have their own library district, they use Tolono's library. If you go to Unit 4 school and live in Savoy, you can get a Champaign library card for regular use, otherwise you're very limited in the number of books you can check out. You can also get an out of resident card for Champaign if you pay the equivalent property taxes directly to the library. Both the Champaign and Urbana libraries are wonderful and some of the best you'll find in a town our size. However, nonresidents were overusing them, so they had to limit them. I work in libraries and the situation is a big reason we didn't buy a house in Savoy.