Back in 1988 when I was applying to graduate schools, one of my undergrad advisers suggested I check out the University of Washington. He called their Computer Science and Engineering up and coming. Took his advice and sent in an application.
I got into 2 of the 3 places I applied, UDub and UC Berkeley, and visited both. I came away pretty impressed, especially because of some discussion time I had with Tom Anderson, who was “just” a doctoral student at the time. He gave me some great advice on my decision and career, some of which I managed to follow.
Cal was my eventual choice, primarily on rep and the fact that I had a number of friends on campus and in the area, and I’ll never regret that decision. From afar though, I’ve admired the UW CSE program as it’s closed on the MIT/Berkeley/CMU/Stanford summit.
I haven’t kept up with graduate rankings since I exited my former life, but Jeff Heer and Daniela Rosner joining the UW faculty, not to mention attracting Carlos Guestrin, indicates their further push to reach the top. A key has been building productive relationships with Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and other locally based tech juggernauts.
Occasionally (but not often) makes me wonder “what if?”