How important is university ranking to CS PhD graduate opportunities?
cperciva: In other words, would a Stanford (1st) or MIT (1st) grad be selected over a Northeastern (61st) or George Mason (65th) grad based on university affiliation alone?Based on university affiliation alone?  Probably not.But university affiliation opens a lot of doors for PhD students.  When I was doing my doctorate I found that I was much more successful in getting people to reply to my questions about their research when I started emails with "Hi, I'm a doctoral student at Oxford University...".Similarly, if you're at a major institution, you're more likely to make useful contacts, both in terms of local faculty members and visitors.  I doubt I'd have my research cited in TAOCP if I hadn't met Knuth -- and if I had been at the Polytechnic of East Anglia, I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet him.Overall, though, I'd say that you're probably approaching this the wrong way.  Most students are better advised to look for a supervisor first, not to find an institution and then look for a supervisor later.