@jpc763 last year there were 33 ACT/4.0 uw/top 4% of class CSE admits who didn’t get into honors. Very tough. Not really sure how they make the decisions there. TBH, it’s probably esp. hard for the guys given that they have historically been the overwhelming gender in the freshman class.
CSE is a great college and I’m not sure you need to be in honors classes there. Honors designation would obviously help for the non-CSE courses, of course, and honors advising is supposed to be really good. But if my D got into CSE and didn’t make honors I wouldn’t actually be too concerned - it’s such a selective college at this point, and the quality of instruction is so strong, that it’s like getting into an elite private school 