Actually in USA it hardly makes any difference in employment even. You can get employed in engineering field if you have a degree from ABET accredated university there (in Engineering field). It is twice as difficult for foreigners to have a job there becasue compnaies dont want to process theirr visas, so they have to be very good to get job.

Now every one of you will be surprised that within US MIT is not ABET accredated becasue they dont fulfill their strict requirements. Their students cannot appear in the licensing exams with in US directly without having their degrees evaluated by the accredation boards like any foreign country degree. Another example you courted regarding IV league universities , yes you are right the faculty there is sympathetic and humane to students and treat them humanly but if you see the other aspects this thing does not produce an excellent lot although the suffering is much lesser.

Another thing that i was in contact with the top brass of the fauclty because every thing is linked up so much linked up there, for example i carried the work forward of another university students and profesor (which included high ranking as well like UIUC,North Western at evansten IL,MIT) that came to my professor who was a student of another very senior professor in other very good institution. After this if you are very good then your work gets published in research journal after many approvals from outside unviersity professors then this thing introduces you to all.

This is the basic mechanism.