They aren't giving them negative weight, they are just looking forward. I know plenty of guys who went into uni with a bit of java experience (AP CS in highsch

They aren't giving them negative weight, they are just looking forward. I know plenty of guys who went into uni with a bit of java experience (AP CS in highschool or something similar). So yeah, they know your basic control flow and OOP. But when it comes to how they will perform in N years, it means nothing. Any intelligent student without experience could (and did!) surpass the "more experienced" programmers by graduation time. If someone is the next programming wiz of that year, I'm sure they will be viewed as having plenty of potential and get in. If someone has a year or two of bad Java, they aren't viewing that as any better than someone with a good quantitative background. That's not affirmative action, it's foresight. Anecdotes, not data, but I know plenty of people who learned Java, C#, or JS in highschool, some even did internships, yet someone who hadn't coded before 2nd year uni soared past their skill level within a year because he was a generally smart guy with good math and logic skills. So should the people with a bit of experience be assumed to have more potential? No. Should somehow who's been coding their whole life and it's their number 1 hobby be assumed to have more potential? Yes. Not because of their experience, but because of their passion.