As someone who attended two different universities for my undergrad, the first was way harder than the second. Basically, I failed out of my first, and cruised through my second. I intentionally selected a much lower ranked university for my second attempt. I felt like I was buying a university degree at my second place. And, yes, both were ACM accredited. It means little.

What I am noticing on all threads about HN hiring: Hiring knowledge workers is fundamentally a difficult, fuzzy process. Few want to admit it. And, there are some people are naturally much better at it because they can control themselves very well during an interview. People who are very strong at solving puzzles will nearly always outperform during interviews for hands-on roles. More than anything, interviewing feels like dating. Everyone hates it until you find what you are looking for... then it becomes: "Oh, it worked fine for me."