A lot of top engineering schools are part of large state public universities. Texas, UIUC, Purdue, the list goes on. At face value, these schools are easy to get into for the average highly-qualified applicant. Acceptance rates at these places range from 40-60%. Average SAT scores are in the 1300-1450 range, even lower in some cases. But engineering admissions is much more selective at these places as compared to regular admissions, largely because of their high ranking in the field. What I want to know is how much more selective. Like is UIUC engineering just as hard to get into as Carnegie Mellon; is UT Austin just as hard as Berkeley if you’re an engineering applicant; is Purdue engineering just as hard to get into as Michigan? I know nothing’s too good to be true, so I want to honestly know if a 1550 and a 4.0 with tough classes makes you hard to reject at these places, or if you’re just another drop in the bucket in those regards.
I can’t answer your question specifically, however, typically engineering applicants are more competitive than the school’s applicants in general at public universities. A suggestion I can make is to check and see if the university is rolling admission. Engineering rolling admission colleges tend to get filled up with top applicants pretty quickly. It can be more difficult to get accepted applying in January than November. An example would be Purdue. Many an excellent applicant won’t be accepted simply because they have filled their class. They may be denied, wait listed, or offered a different major. It is not a good idea to use it as a back up school. With RD you will at least be compared with all of the applicants at the same time.