<p>@theanaconda:</p>
<p>Your strategy is likely to get you in to a good school somewhere.</p>
<p>Mind you, my list of “good schools” extends well beyond HYPSM.</p>
<p>In my experience, the intra-school variations in alumni quality in schools ranging from Stanford & MIT to Chicago & Northwestern & CMU & JHU to the engineering/CS departments of publics known for engineering/CS like Cal & UIUC are far greater than the inter-school differences.</p>