Sure, there is a lot of signal in having passed certain exams (like Stanford admission exams). This is why I think that examination per se, done by likes of Stanford, but also by now-being-establishing institutions, will be increasingly useful.

In a narrow IT industry sense, having an MSCE, or JCP, or Cisco certification used to be somehow valuable. But tech moves fast, so topic-bound certifications don't keep their value for very long.