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No, GPA is not generally a priority in graduate school admissions. You need a reasonable GPA, but a 4.0 is totally unnecessary. GRE scores and other factors like letters of recommendation and research projects with faculty members during undergraduate are usually more important.

During undergrad. It's not like the Engineering college at a given university is that hard to find.

And while GPA is nice, any group selective enough to care is also going to check the transcript. Getting a "C" in Diff Eq. is far different from getting a "C" in "Intro to College Math", for example.

GPA is unimportant to graduate work if you have good research recommendations and skills that the grad department you are applying to needs.