As someone who grew up in a no-name mid-western town, I can't stop counting my lucky stars for becoming one of the first students ever in my high school's history to become accepted to a Top 10 university. Every job opportunity and connection I've made since graduating is directly attributable to my school's name. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that going there changed my life. I know for a fact that there would have been a lot more societal barriers had I gone to the nearby state school instead (my startup would not have been able to raise venture capital and my would-be resume would not have made it past the resume screening stage at FAANG companies because of all of the subtle social signaling involved; people from my school would not have even given me the time-of-day). Things wouldn't have just been a lot harder; they might have even been impossible.

I didn't study in the US, but having studied in college faculties staffed by professors who are at the cutting edge of their fields in my country, I can confidently say that the experience was unparalleled vs. my friends who didn't. In my undergrad one of my profs was a "may have been" Nobel prize winner. In my B-school, some of the profs essentially created the government's public policy in some fields. Their perspectives and insights during classes was quite enriching.

So I find your comments quite curious. Nowadays I tell my younger cousins and nephews/neices to research the faculties in colleges they are applying to and look at the quality and impact of their publications.

I don’t think any of the schools I mentioned have 10s of thousands of students or faculty ratios of more than 10to1. I think you’re comparing small schools (which most ‘mafia schools’ are) to big state schools which are usually much cheaper. Why liberal arts would be a good choice for a tech degree I don’t know, but I agree it’s not so important undergrad.

The big thing you get besides ‘the name’ is your relations and links to your cohort. That really helps get good jobs!

When I was in high school, my state had a program where if you were eligible for high school but got accepted to any in-state college, the state would pay tuition. So, by the time I went to MIT, I had about 2.5 years' worth of credits from the University of Minnesota, including honors-level mathematics up through differential equations.

I was an arrogant superstar before I went to MIT. It wasn't that I thought that I was worth more than other students, but I felt my classes were a bit below me. I got all As, except for a B or B+ in my Intro to World Politics class at the UofM. As I remember, the way honors GPAs were calculated, I my GPA was above 4.0 at the UofM. In my high school "Enriched Chemistry" class (one level above honors, no extra GPA boost beyond, but all the kids there really wanted to learn), after I caught a couple of mistakes in exams, the teacher started marking my Scan-Tron answer sheets as the exam answer key, and in class, the whole class would together grade my exams the day after the exam to make sure the answer key was correct. There was one exam where the second-highest score was 90/100, so the teacher just added 10 points to everyone's score. At some point, I made one mistake the whole semester, so I ended the semester 9 points above 100%. At the UofM in my honors mathematics course, I was being graded on attendance and felt it was a bit of a waste of my time. I would read a newspaper in class. One day, the TA asked a couple times if anyone knew the answer to a problem, and I made a bit of a show of folding up my newspaper and proceeding to answer the question nobody else could answer. The honors math professor took me out into the hallway and proceeded to tell me "I don't care who you are. I don't care what kind of grades you get. If you bring a newspaper to class one more time, I'll have you thrown out of the program."

MIT was another level of challenges and expectations. Most of the kids there were used to being at the top of their class and getting cut a bit of slack from the teachers/administration because they were head-and-shoulders above their peers in high school. For most of us, it was a big ego hit and a big adjustment having to work very hard just to get a median grade.

The instruction at MIT was top-notch, but the real value was increased expectations, and excellent peers for both competition and support.

On the flip side, the ego hit is soul-crushing for some students.

The honors programs of state schools definitely have students every bit as smart and capable as people at MIT. The extra level of competition and expectations at MIT really does help some people shine, though. Also, the name is helpful as there's a pretty high minimum bar for getting an MIT degree. You might not be getting the best by hiring the MIT grad, but you're hiring someone who's pretty good.

That being said, I hope the age of GitHub, HackerRank, etc. diminishes the effects of brand-name schooling. I had a friend back in my honors math classes who also got into MIT, but couldn't justify the expense due to his dad being a welder and his mom a homemaker. MIT offered him a lot of loans and grants, but he got a full scholarship at the UofM honors program and could live at home while going to school.