I think for the most part, these days it boils down to branding, filtering, and networking. It's easier to sell consultants (and similar) to clients, if you ca

I think for the most part, these days it boils down to branding, filtering, and networking. It's easier to sell consultants (and similar) to clients, if you can show off their credentials. Prestigious companies that get tens of thousands of applicants can easily filter out most, by simply keeping students from top 20 schools. At that point, you're going be left with a lot of fantastic candidates. Remember, not every HYPS student lands a job at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, most don't make the cut. But it's easier to pick from the pool of those HYPS candidates, than from 500 different colleges and universities. So, in short, companies can offload a lot of preliminary screening and due-diligence work onto the schools. If a candidate is good enough for Harvard, they're probably good enough to take a look at... And then there's the networking aspect. Like it or not, a lot of powerful people in both business and politics have gone to the same few prestigious schools, and being in the same "club" makes networking easier. For some people, it's a big deal - for others, it's a triviality - but it doesn't really hurt. Networks go a long way, both for individuals and companies.