Of all of public U’s on OP’s list (most of them are public on OP’s list), I can’t think of a better CS school than UW Seattle (Berkeley is arguably better in a couple of areas but certainly not consistently). Regardless of whether UW Seattle actually yield-protects or not, it likely practices yield-protection, even if it does, far more gently for its in-state applicants than the other public U’s do for their OOS applicants. I’d suggest OP show proper interest (or better yet, more than proper interest) to alleviate any concern that the school may or may not have.
For those four privates (MIT/Caltech/Stanford/CMU SCS) on the list, OP’s chances are much less predictable. Even though their acceptance rates aren’t much lower than those of some of the public U’s CS direct admit programs), their applicant pools tend to be even stronger.
I think that a key differentiator is what CS specialities can be studied in depth. CS is a broad term but I think that specialization is increasingly what many employers are looking for. Unfortunately, many students do not really know what they are interested in. If that’s the case then look for schools that offermany areas of focus. If you have a student that knows what area interests them than you can compare schools more easily.
I’m not familiar with UW admission process, but if I were you, I’d identify some professors in its CS department in some CS subfields that you’re interested in. Then try to arrange an in-depth visit to the department or labs via the admissions office, if possible. Even if it turns out to be not possible to arrange such a visit, the admissions office would have a better appreciation of your interest in the school.
“Level of applicant’s interest” is the criterion that colleges use to try to raise yield, which is distinct from wanting to predict yield as accurately as possible. Colleges know that “overqualified” admits are less likely to matriculate; those that use “level of applicant’s interest” are the ones likely to reject or waitlist those they see as being unlikely to matriculate.
That’s fair. So it seems to follow that we can conclude that any school that indicates level of interest is not considered doesn’t practice yield management.
If that’s the case, we should pin this because it will eliminate a fair amount of debate on that this topic, which comes up frequently during admissions time.
There are many ways to define “yield management.” For example, one could say that ED/REA/SCEA or waitlists contributes to yield management, regardless of whether the school says they consider level of applicant’s interest. Nearly all colleges care about yield and try to predict yield. Without yield prediction, they could run out of available beds to house students. However, caring about yield or yield prediction does not mean the college intentionally rejects kids who have much higher stats than typical admits. This touches on some of the reasons why there is as you say “a fair amount of debate on this topic.”
I agree. Yield protection is beyond “yield management”, which every college does. To me, the practice of yield protection is to intentionally defer/reject/waitlist highly qualified applicants, who have demonstrated interest (but not to the degree of willing to apply ED or switching their applications to ED2), solely on the ground that they may not enroll if admitted.
To add to that, I’ve seen a lot of conjecture about the practice, but haven’t seen anything recently to prove that it’s happening. That doesn’t mean it isn’t, but there are many reasons why students might not be accepted. Jumping to yield protection seems to be en vogue.
I’m not arguing with that. I have seen instances though where yield protection was claimed and then an alternate reason was found, for the whole institution, not just the individual. That’s all I’m saying.
It’s easy to claim yield protection, but in nearly every instance there are students accepted who should have been rejected had the practice been happening.
I am a senior having 1580 SAT and 3.92 UW GPA with some good ECs. Wish to pursue CS as undergrad. I am an asian male from WA state and I know how competitive CS major is. Recently I got rejected from UT Austin, UIUC and GTech which I wasnt really expecting. I have acceptances from Oregon State University with WUE, Arizona State University with presidential scholarship, Washington State University with merit scholarship and UW Bothell which says pre-major ( I am not sure if that means a direct admit to CS). I am waiting for UW Seattle and hoping to get into Purdue ( RD) and UCI and UCD and also UT Dallas. But just to weigh my current options, what should I choose from my current offers. I am more interested in type of a school which has good CS related clubs, internship opportunities and job opportunities immediately after college and also a good CS program overall.