<p>What are the different rankings of difficulty for each engineering major? I want to see which is the easiest to get into. </p>
<p>Difficulty is relative. What is easiest to get into varies from year to year, none are “easy” to get into, and IMHO that is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. Apply to what you want to do; what you are passionate about, because without passion in your chosen field, you will neither be happy, nor ultimately successful. If you are denied, they will consider your application for your 2nd choice, and then DGS, where you will have an opportunity to prove your competency and transfer into the engineering program of your choice.</p>
<p>I agree in general with Balthezar although I would qualify that many 17 year olds don’t necessarily have a passion for a specific field of engineering, and there is nothing wrong with that. I will try to begin to answer your question (there is no way to know as no one can predict # of apps per major), but still recommend you follow B’s advice.</p>
<p>If you look at their transfer handbook, they are not accepting external transfer applications for Sophomores in Aero, CS, Industrial, or Mechanical. Bioengineering is not accepting external transfer applicants of any kind. They also state that CE and EE, due to trends in freshman applications, will likely become more competitive in the near future (for transfers).</p>
<p>I don’t think this is the perfect proxy for predicting freshman admission difficulty, but it’s a start. </p>
<p>YZ, there’s always the Undecided Engineering program where you get admitted to the College of Engineering, get the base courses out of the way, and do an intracollege transfer later which is much easier than an external transfer. My point wasn’t that every applicant should know exactly what they’re passionate about when applying, but to base what engineering program that you apply for on which one you’re most likely to have the least problem getting into is a really bad method of approaching the application process.</p>
<p>Agreed B. Just a note on Engineering Undeclared. Students accepted to this major not only have priority over external transfers when selecting a major, but also priority over those transferring between majors within UIUC. It really is a great choice although very selective in and of itself.</p>
<p>Also, and this is just my guess, this is one major in particular where the essays will be read very carefully. They want students looking to explore different fields, not students looking for a back door into the most selective majors.</p>