> I don't know the US education system enough, but there are some schools out there which are much more selective than any SWE interview process. You can be guaranteed that the worst student from these top schools could nail any algorithm interview with minimal preparation.

There’s a whole lot of spread at any college. Assuming a hypothetical ranking from 1-100 with 1 being unable to program or problem solve and 100 being your Jeff Dean/Fabrice Bellard/Linus Torvalds programming god of choice an average state school might give you people from 30-70 and a top school might be 40-80. Lots of smart people go to state schools and lots of idiots come out of top ones.