Which is more selective for admissions: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign or UCLA?

The biggest practical difference is that UCLA is more competitive overall across the university, while UIUC’s selectivity varies much more by program. In a general admissions comparison, UCLA is harder to get into than UIUC. That said, UIUC has some majors, especially in engineering and computer science, that can be exceptionally difficult and may rival or exceed UCLA in selectivity for those specific programs.

For a broad university-wide comparison, UCLA draws a very large applicant pool and is widely viewed as one of the most selective public universities in the country. UIUC is also highly respected and selective, but its overall admissions landscape is less uniformly intense across all colleges and majors.

Where people get confused is major-based admission. At UIUC, applying to Grainger Engineering or CS can be much tougher than applying to many other UIUC programs. UCLA is also selective by major in some areas, but if you are asking for the general school-level answer rather than the hardest individual program, UCLA comes out as the more selective institution.

So if your question is simply which school is harder to get into overall, UCLA is the clearer answer. If you are comparing a specific high-demand UIUC major, especially CS or engineering, then the gap can narrow a lot and in some cases flip depending on the exact program.