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I would say this is the case with Microsoft & the UW. The geographical distance (< 10 miles) means it's easier to network, and students who are already familiar with the area are probably more likely to apply.

And FWIW, both Bill Gates and Paul Allen have strong family relationships with the University, and have donated a lot of money to the UW for various causes (and I can think of at least 4 buildings on campus named for a Gates or an Allen--and their family relationships go back to the 60s and 70s). So I wouldn't be surprised if there has historically been a tendency to look toward the UW for new recruits. There's a whole network of personal and community relationships at play.

On an aside, I would be interested in knowing how Amazon, which is also a major Seattle IT employer, compares.

It's not, actually.

(Harder to get into, I mean)

Stanford's acceptances were lower this year than (gulp) MIT's.

Mudd runs about 15-20% acceptance, which is easily double what Stanford and MIT accept.

I think Mudd accepted 13% this year (D2 just finished a fantastic freshman year there). Stanford accepted 5.02% this year. Howlerkarma is correct. I have to say, she wouldn't trade for Stanford or any other school in the country, it is perfect for her.

Doesn't Harvey Mudd have slightly higher SAT and ACT scores for accepted students than Stanford?

Maybe prospective Stanford applicants should exercise better self-selection.

And Forbes had an article that had a computer science major from Carnegie-Mellon having the best average starting income of anywhere in any field (btw, they use Java for their intro class, or Java plus Alice for the non majors; it was Pascal when I went.) And for the full range, worth mentioning that MIT uses Python.

Oddly enough my son was asking about the best math undergrad schools at dinner today, I guessed Harvard and Cambridge. Time to search around and see if I'll need pedaoralectomy for my guess.

Did you mean MIT for Cambridge? Both Harvard and MIT are in Cambridge and so are a number of other universities.

Off the top of my head for math Princeton, UC Berkley, Stanford, Columbia. Again I'm not sure I'd put Harvard at the top of the list. Another good school for Computer Science is U. of Illinois Champagne/Urbana. What I think of Harvard as being the best for is subjects like Politics.

Edited to add.. Just looked up a list for math. OK Harvard & MIT are both near the top. And I forgot Carnegie Mellon, Yale, UCLA and Cal Tech.

Cambridge, as in University of Cambridge across the pond.

Funny the lists haven't much changed in thirty years. U of I for CS was my second pick.

I was surprised when I went looking at top math schools, actually-- Princeton and UCB, of course, I expected. Cambridge, naturally...

I didn't expect schools like UW and UBC to crack the top 25 internationally, though.

Where a company recruits may indicate what schools it values most. When I look up where Microsoft has recruiting events in Massachusetts http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/recruiting-events.aspx I see Harvard, Olin, and MIT, all highly selective. Nothing at UMass Amherst, the state flagship. In California it has events at many schools, including some less prestigious ones. Maybe a "name" school helps you get noticed by companies that are far away. I understand that the lack of on-campus recruiting is a surmountable hurdle and am sure that there are UMass Amherst graduates at Microsoft.