Also, I think as a student you're quite shielded from it. Ask your professor (not the postdocs or the assocs, the real ones) some day, I'm sure they have an opinion on it.
Yes for sure, in academia the perceived ranking is quite important. But, at least in my field, ranking is decoupled from the ranking of a university and is more on a department basis. I.e., the physics department of a specific university might be well regarded internationally, even though the university itself not so much. This is of course helped by the fact that Dutch universities are all quite highly ranked.