No. Its more like a club.

Join this prestigious institution X, and then you shall enjoy life long benefits of employment, higher than average salary, bonuses, stock, opportunities to travel etc. Even if the person is actually the worst possible employee, or is barely productive. Merely have X on your resume, guarantees you life long privilege.

To know how worst it is you come see how it is in India. There are people who join IIT(Indian institutes of technology), a sort of a chain of colleges which is supposed to be Ivy league. Who says so? They themselves, because saying anything other wise means putting your own career in danger. There are coaching institutes, who train you just to get an entrance. Doesn't matter what you go and do there, in fact from there on you may do nothing in your life at all. The whole purpose of getting into those colleges is to enjoy lifelong privilege of having access to alumni who will ensure you a good career regardless of your performance.

The day you remove the real metrics of merit and put in artificial flags. People will do no real work and try to gather as many flags as they can.