Quote Originally Posted by sancho View Post
That is absolutely correct about PhD programs and law schools. I have also seen it with MBAs. I am less certain about med schools, since my doctor friends who went to fancy med schools and my doctor friends who studied in the caribbean all ended up with similar jobs.

But grad school is not really the issue here. The question is - does it matter where you go as an undergrad? There's no simple answer, and it depends on your goals.
If it's just undergrad, I agree that it's not terribly important for most areas. There may be some exceptions, but my take on careers that require post-grad studies is that you just need to get into an undergrad that is good enough that it will not foreclose grad school opportunities. In other words, an undergrad that is good enough to get you into any grad program if you do great in undergrad and do all of the other things necessary for a strong application. When I was deciding where to go to undergrad, an attorney who was a Rhodes scholar who did his undergrad at Oxford and Stanford gave me this exact advice and told me in the long run it wouldn't make a difference.