Odds of Getting In
We'll be honest—it's a tough road. While employment is expected to stay fairly steady in the upcoming years, many potential jobs are now going overseas, and you don't want to have to learn Japanese. Too many monophthongs.
You can improve your odds by getting on the right track from the very beginning. Get killer grades, earn your way into a top school that offers an exemplary engineering program, work your butt off so you can finish at or near the top of your class, and then be a total charmer when you go in for interviews. If you can get your teeth to sparkle and your eye to twinkle when you smile, that tends to help, too.