<p>@cptofthehouse:</p>
<p>Actually, in CS, it’s not even the case that CMU grads do better than Cal or UIUC grads (and if they do better than UCLA/UT-Austin/UMich/GTech grads, it’s to a marginal, almost insignificant extent; you could throw UDub, UW-Madison, UCSD, CalPoly SLO, and Purdue in there as well as several other publics). In engineering and CS, many of the powerhouse programs are publics.</p>