How can I differentiate between schools that are between Safety and Fit for computer science

Besides the cost, UCSD has a similar (but to an even greater extent) issue as Washington, since the CS major is far more popular than its capacity allows. It is so competitive that getting into the CS major after enrolling at UCSD outside the CS major required a 4.0 or 3.9 GPA in recent quarters: http://cse.ucsd.edu/CappedMajor . It is likely that some of the CS rejects go for the math major, which is also now competitive admission: http://ucsdguardian.org/2016/04/25/ucsd-to-cap-all-math-department-majors-next-year/ .