[lugg]

Does having a piece of paper from stanford stand out more than a piece of paper from somewhere else?

I'm from australia, we don't really care where you got the piece of paper, just that you did your time and even then you could probably argue your way into an interview without it.

We value education sure but we don't really have the whole ivy league elitism thing going on. I don't think there is even much of a deal to do with alumni.

Economies of scale I guess.

[maxerickson]

Most of the extra signaling value comes from the competitive admissions.

(Which I think as much as anything means they have a great pool of applicants to choose from, meaning they would have to do something pretty radical to screw it up)