What are the "intangibles" that distinguish one university's CS program from another? Both Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Yale are top schools. (I attended both; one as an undergraduate, one as a graduate student, neither as a CS major). Their curricula aren't all that different. Yet CMU's CS program is far more highly regarded than Yale's. (And I'm beginning to think that this view is not about the "program" but something else.)

One thing that I did notice, or feel, is that CMU's CS department seemed more "authentic." That is, their CS students really seemed to "bond" with the program. The attitude of Yale's typical CS student seemed to be more like that of "doing a job." Assuming, as I do, that the students are roughly the same caliber, what could be the differences in teaching that give one group of students more enthusiasm or passion than the other?

Between two highly regarded schools with not too different CS programs, what are the "intangible" factors of one over the other that would produce two crops of students that are very differently regarded by Silicon Valley?
Fair warning, I am not intimately familiar with the programs, and my answers are based in some stereotypes of the institutions and the CS programs.  However, given that my answer is based on student selection, institutional reputation may not be a bad way to think about it.

While Yale is, by any measure, a top-tier institution, CMU is (at least by reputation) possibly the top computer science program in the world, and at an institution that is otherwise ranked lower than Yale.  I would expect, then, that self-selection among students would play a huge part in this. The sort of student who would aim for CMU for CS would be doing it because the opportunities for CS at CMU particularly appeal to them.  

By contrast, the sort of student who would aim for a CS degree at Yale would be the sort of student who is aiming at Yale first, and also wants to major in CS.