> First, UW is already mostly an elite university

UW had a ~58% admit rate in 2011, MIT's was 9.6%, Harvard's was 6.2%, and Stanford was 7.1%. To say "it's very hard to get in these days without the means to also getting into other elite universities" is patently false.

Admit rates for private schools are lower since they generally take from a national pool, and the schools are quite popular (lots of noise applications with no chance of getting in). In comparison, UCB has a 21% admit rate from a large state of California and lots of other research schools in competition (UCSD, UCLA, UCD...). UW is only one of two research state schools in Washington, the other being WSU way across the state. Admission is incredibly convoluted: you chance of getting in from the Seattle area is much lower than Eastern Washington, and out of state students have a higher chance than in state (they pay more tuition). This means there are cases (personally known of) where a student is rejected from UW and is accepted into UCB and Stanford (though they have to pay a lot more tuition accordingly).

I am very aware of how the process works and how one's chances are based on holistic factors. Regardless, I spent the last year at UW and to say it's an elite school one would need to ignore large swaths of those who attend. I have had the fortune to speak with tens of former and current Stanford attendees while at Google this summer - overwhelmingly their ability to carry on an interesting conversation, make nuanced insights into diverse topics, and otherwise convey the impression that they are learned individuals far exceeds that of your typical UW student. That is not to say that they don't exist - I could say the same for a handful of UW students - merely that their number is far smaller, and that that greatly impacts the culture.

If you want empirical data, a student in the 25th percentile at MIT has a higher SAT score than someone in the 75th at UW. The SAT has been shown to be a fairly reliable indicator of earning potential.

[1] Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College, Dale & Krueger

UW is still a local state school; you shouldn't expect that students come in with the level of prep as say MIT or Stanford. Its elitness is local and comes mainly from the challenge of getting in, which, for those that bother to try (because they are in the Seattle area), is painful enough! UW also tended to weed students out rather early while I was there; 50% of my friends from the incoming class were gone by the time I hit my sophmore year.

Of course, UW is not as exclusive as UW CSE, but to suggest UW itself is just a so so University is insulting to me.

> UW is not as exclusive as UW CSE, but to suggest UW itself is just a so so University is insulting to me.

I'm sorry you feel that way, I am merely sharing my experiences and impressions of the school, and "so so" is certainly how I would describe it. I had the fortune of attending a fairly elite international school abroad and a highly ranked public high school in Massachusetts. In both places the caliber of student was high, and I was rather disappointed to find university less so. I have my biases, as you yours, but I do believe my argument has some merit.

That said, to call a school "elite" because it is difficult for locals to get in is both disingenuous and inconsistent with your prior statement that it is nearly as competitive as its more widely known and more prestigious competitors. UW continues to care increasingly less about its undergraduate population and view them as a funding source for research as much as valuable contributors to the campus community. Tuition hikes are putting it closer and closer to the cost of attending a private university at the same time class sizes are larger than ever and making it so most fresher could go an entire year without so much as meeting a professor one-on-one.

What most boggles me however, is that Seattleites remain fiercely devoted to the school. In Massachusetts (and New England in general) it's rare to find ten people in a room having gone to the same university, whereas in Seattle it seems the rare occasion for that not to be the case. Is it the lack of viable alternatives for the highly capable wanting to stay close to home?

For undergraduate, UW is primarily a school for work class locals; we were not rich enough to go to nice prep schools and then afford the tuition of a nice Ivy league school. But then Seattle is also a fairly sophisticated upper-middle class city, so why not make the school in your backyard very good? That tuition is rising sucks; I paid $800 a quarter when I started in '93, and could get by mostly paying my own way; that is obviously no longer possible. But it is still relatively affordable if you live at home as well as a first-class research institution, Seattlites still want to send their kids there while UW is getting increased attention from China/India/the rest of asia (UW always did actually, 90% of the international students hail from somewhere in Asia). As a working class school, UW is definitely elite, but compared to other much elite schools for the elite then ya, UW is not Stanford.

I rarely interact with other people from UW CSE, this is the case even in Seattle as its just not a very big program. However, I do know a couple of UW CSE graduates where I work today (Beijing China).

"In both places the caliber of student was high, and I was rather disappointed to find university less so."

I have to say that my experience in a similar situation (many years ago) was similar and I agree.

But in your other comment where you said this:

"tens of former and current Stanford attendees while at Google"

You are taking a group of "Stanford attendees" who ended up with jobs at google. So I'm wondering to what extent that group is representative of Stanford attendees and not google's hiring practices. Was there a difference that you could tell with those working at google who didn't go to Stanford?

> But in your other comment where you said this: > "tens of former and current Stanford attendees while at Google"

I stated that rather poorly. I am interning at Google in Mountain View for the Summer, but not all of the Stanford attendees I have met and spoken with at length are working there, though most at Google are certainly bright.

Regardless of whether they are working at Google, Facebook, hacking away in a SOMA loft, or hunkered down in their parents' garage all of them have been highly intelligent and fun to be around. Whether that's more representative of who I choose to befriend with than the university's admission practices is another question altogether ;)

This is a slightly complicated topic. It comes down to a substantial difference between elite state institutions and elite privates, undergraduate and graduate programs, and engineering/cs vs general majors.

Elite private universities (stanford, harvard) tend to have very small undergraduate populations and draw from a national or international pool of applicants. This of course makes them highly selective, as spots are scarce and the applicant pool is large. Public universities (Berkeley, UW) have very large undergraduate student bodies (often 5 times the size of a small private) and require a much larger portion of in-state students. More slots, smaller applicant pool means a much higher admission rate and generally lower numbers (SATs and so forth). Like another poster mentioned, 25%ile at MIT > 75% at UW, but the top 25% of the class at UW is larger than the entire undergrad population at MIT. The difference in nature of undergraduate admissions makes the averaging kind of meaningless.

At the graduate level, elite private and public universities tend to admit roughly similar numbers of students. And not surprisingly, admission rates are much more comparable. Elite publics, for some reason, seem to do particularly well at the grad level in engineering and computer science (aside from Cornell, the ivies don't really show up much on the top 10 lists, while Berkeley, Illinois, Michigan, Texas, and so forth are highly ranked - by the same magazine (US News) that doesn't put a single public into the top 20 at the undergrad level).

Lastly, there is the question of the degree itself. At top publics, engineering often requires a second admissions process - you get into Berkeley or UW, and then you have to keep your grades high enough to gain admission to the engineering or CS major. You can gain admission directly to the major from high school, but that's tougher. And the process of getting the degree itself is daunting - I don't know much about UW, but the coursework in CS at Berkeley is extremely rigorous (and I have no reason to think it wouldn't be at UW as well). As with UW, Berkeley does have a much larger undergraduate population. It's less selective because of that (and the in-state quota), but on the way out, we're talking about students in the top quarter of the class, from a major that is extremely difficult to enter and complete.

All in all, I'm not surprised that people would feel that the undergrads who make it out of CS from UW are among the top grads that year. The grad level programs are already known to be top 10, so I don't think that even comes up.