Just finished an admitted students visit weekend at UIUC. its bioE program is SUPER new so their ranking is not high (yet), but they are working on it. they just named a new dean of engineering, who is supposedly responsible for strengthening their other engineering programs there (idk if that's true lol). as you know their other engineering programs are great in rankings: 1 in civil, 3 in electrical, 4 in computer, 7 mechanical, etc so that's awesome and useful to keep in mind. The main theme that i got over the visit was that the school is STACKED with money. every prof and grad student i spoke with were talking about how equipment is shared within the school, so there are no ridiculous fees to reserve a flow cytometry machine, for example, and no politics between professors. the professor i spoke with primarily (the inventor of infrared spectroscopic imaging) buys $50,000 equipment for his students as long as they ask and have a legit use for it. basically, they painted the picture that equipment, resources, funding, etc will NOT be a roadblock during your time there (which was super impressive to me).
all in all? i think it's a great school, great resources. i'm hesitant to settle in a remote college town and i'm not sure if i gelled with all the current students, but that's personal. Hope I helped!