My understanding is that Waterloo has been a Microsoft and RIM software talent poaching ground for over a decade. The Waterloo Engineering and CS programs are known for their extremely high quality and rigour.
The recent string of higher profile alumni successes reinforces this reputation and serves as a beacon for Canadian high-school graduate intake. Now if only they would do something about the concrete jungle they call their campus :)
Waterloo was a MSFT poaching ground when I was an undergrad in 1992... well before RIM was even on the scene. Macleans magazine has consistently ranked it the best engineering school in Canada. They've been winning ACM programming contests since the math building had the dinosaur pit (http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/cs/redroom/).
As for campus being ugly... hey, you can't have everything.
While Waterloo has been a talent poaching ground for Microsoft and RIM for a while, and more recently for Google, Facebook and the likes. The thing i think that really gets overlooked is the startup community in the area.
I agree that it's mostly a concrete jungle, but there are some new buildings going up. The new Quantum Nano Centre just opened a few months ago, and it looks pretty spiffy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAZXcVLMMG0
The recent string of higher profile alumni successes reinforces this reputation and serves as a beacon for Canadian high-school graduate intake. Now if only they would do something about the concrete jungle they call their campus :)