And yet from the US tech side of things there is basically a complete lack of awareness on the part of American (or European) staff of which schools are conside

And yet from the US tech side of things there is basically a complete lack of awareness on the part of American (or European) staff of which schools are considered good (or the equivalent of Ivy League) in India. I would bet if you asked any engineer or manager who conducts interviews for a FAANG to name the equivalent of MIT in India they would be stumped. (Unfortunately I count myself in this group.) Then there's also a general lack of trust in credentials - does anyone actually check that you went to the school that you said you did? I suspect this is one reason for the notorious whiteboard interviews - it doesn't really matter where you went to school, you just have to be able to reverse a binary tree.