Hi:
I am practicing civil engineering,did my undergrad and masters both here in the US. When the economy collapsed last year, civil engineering was one of the areas that was hard hit. I know my friends who were not able to find a job and they had really decent thesis and had good internship. But I am sure once the economy picks up then there will be shortage of civil engineers which will be around the time you graduate.
Anyway, regarding your question about application. I would say if you have really good GPA then apply to schools like Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Purdue(basically top 10 schools) but if you think you are mediocre student then apply to state universities where professors are always looking for students. One thing I noticed about the application is that you have to email directly to the professor you are interested in working with.
My other suggestion is get a good grip of programming language such as C/C++ and also mathematical software MATLAB, MathCAD or Mathematica.
Hope it helped.