So it's taken seriously by universities? Like CalTech really put its best foot forward and got smoked by UCF? And American Universities really are doing this poorly in CS competitions relative to the rest of the world?
UCF is a great example and one that I'm familiar with. UCF has a faculty member that's very involved in their programming contest program. That brings a lot more consistency, probably a little money, makes it easier to recruit students, etc. They have a great library of problems to practice on. They also run a high school programming contest which helps identify talent and recruit, but also helps get more UCF students involved.
When I was at nearby USF, our programming contest teams were student-run. It's not a priority for the department and there is a lot of inconsistency as students come and go. There's also a smaller pool of participants to draw from. We did reasonably well for a little while when I was there and put a bunch of time into it, recruiting, teaching, running practices with and without other unis. But it takes a lot of effort.
When I was at nearby USF, our programming contest teams were student-run. It's not a priority for the department and there is a lot of inconsistency as students come and go. There's also a smaller pool of participants to draw from. We did reasonably well for a little while when I was there and put a bunch of time into it, recruiting, teaching, running practices with and without other unis. But it takes a lot of effort.