Subject tests, SAT composite, and engineering: UC Berk and UCLA

Hi, a few months ago, I asked a question regarding the “easiness” of admission into UCB’s nuclear engineering programme. Today, I ask a similar question that is simultaneously both more generalised and specific. So essentially, with more research into my general long-term aspirations, I’ve decided that MSE (materials science) is just as good of an option as NE (nuclear engineering), if not even better. I understand that both UCB and UCLA have good MSE programmes, but only UCB has NE and MSE (plus that cool joint major). So my actual question comes in here: despite both of these majors being in the college of engineering, in reality, are they easier to be admitted to than other engineering majors like EECS, ME, CHEM E, CE or Envo E? Secondly, in reality, what SAT I and II scores will “make” the application for an out of state kid (as for the financials, I’ll deal with that later; I’m solely focused on admission right now)? Now obviously I know that ECs and essays are very important (essays especially in this case), but I’ve read in many places that without a high test score and GPA, you can forget UCB or UCLA. So, I know from stats that UCB’s average admission rate for out of state is around 15%, and a 1484 SAT average and 3.9 unweighted GPA. This is just average all across the university though, and because my interests primarily lie in the engineering college, how would I find stats on that, and what might you guys estimate? Additionally, I’d ike to know the average SAT II (subject exams; math 2, physics, chemistry, biology e/m) scores for admits to the CoE, but I cannot find such stats. As for my actual stats, I have a 4.0 unweighted GPA (I think like 4.5 or 4.6 weighted?), 1400 SAT, and I’m planning on retaking math 2, and taking physics for a first time in June. I’m retaking the SAT in May and shooting for a 1490-1500. In total I have around 10 ECs. And finally, I’m listing linguistics as a secondary major (I’m very interested in linguistics as well), which I assume is a lower popularity major. So in summary, assuming I get a 1490-1540 SAT, 760-800 Math 2, 780-800 Physics, maintain my GPA, and ECs, plus essays (I think they’re decent, could be improved in some ways most likely), how good of a shot do I have at getting into specifically MSE or NE, but also even into linguistics at UC Berkeley or UCLA?

Ps - I’m a junior as you probably can tell.

Thanks for any responses. Don’t want to come off as pretentious, just trying to be as descriptive as possible so that someone can give an abstract estimate of my chances.

I’ll have to dig up the stats, but my educated guess is that median SAT for Berkeley EECS is in the 1550 range and the other Engineering majors wlll be well above 1500 as well. Stats for CoE willl be significant than overall university averages.

UCB CoE does admit by major, but there does not appear to be publicly available information on how different the selectivity is by major within UCB CoE. The Hout Report (table 8 on page 28) shows the threshold admissions reading scores varying by major, but that was back in 2005, so applicant popularity relative to capacity of various majors could be different now.

From what I understand, UCB and UCLA do not consider second choice major, but you may want to check on this yourself. At UCB, linguistics is in L&S, which does not admit by major, but is the largest division, so its admission stats should be similar to the overall.

Thanks, I was totally unaware the CoE admitted by major.