Agreed. It wasn't my comment -- just a summary of the article. I almost wrote a parenthetical in my original reply to the effect that I doubted the ubiquitousne

Agreed. It wasn't my comment -- just a summary of the article. I almost wrote a parenthetical in my original reply to the effect that I doubted the ubiquitousness of the first quote. That said, I do think that the prior experience is a real issue. Rather than "winning programming competitions"or "hacking full projects in your garage", I do think it's safe to say that the vast majority of the folks who are competitive applicants to AppAmaGooFaceSoft started programming and were exposed directly or indirectly to CS ideas before they entered college. This may have been as simple as making a website for a school club (although frankly it was probably quite a bit more than that), but even actions as small as making a website open the door to a new world -- it is the beginning of the process of exploring new ideas and new problem spaces.