Counter-example: I went to a state university, graduating with a degree in Computer Engineering in '89. I've had a number of jobs over the years - several startups, but also roles at Sun Microsystems, Yahoo!, and (currently) Google. While I don't feel like my choice of university has ever particularly helped me, it also hasn't (that I'm aware) hurt me - I've never gotten an inkling that I was passed over for a role because I didn't go to a top-tier school.

My impression was that that they spam every CS grad over LinkedIn trying to hoover up as many engineers as they can. I'd be surprised your school even comes into play. Usually it's more like, if you're from a top30 school +5 otherwise they don't even have an opinion.

I suspect I'm kinda in the middle, UC Davis represent! Great school, glad to have attended, but not really seen as a Stanford, Berkeley, UIUC, or CMU tier either.

A professor of mine mentioned a study by Bell/AT&T from mid 20th century which found that the success of their executives was correlated with how well they did at the school they went to, and less with which school they went to. I took that class in 1988, and the study was already old by then.

I don't think this is always the case. I graduated in 2014, from a small state university with a CS degree and a decent GPA. Last year after only have a couple years in the field with a big US based Tech company, and I landed interviews with Amazon and Google while searching for jobs after being laid off. I think it really just depends on location, and probably a million other things.

I think it depends on companies you worked for prior. I can develop complete applications. However, I don't have much experience with large teams and I don't want to work for a tech company because I prefer a laid back environment and less hours.

I doubt google would hire me due to lack of experience working on a large team with many departments,even though my GPA was 3.9 from a average Chicago Uni.

Ditto. I've been in IT since 1998 and attended a smallish college in VA. Done fine all these years. I don't need the feather in my cap from working for large companies like some feel the need to pursue. I worked for Microsoft for a short time and wondered why I even took the job. It was among the worst of my tech jobs. The people were stuck up, they were on the verge of losing out on the mobile race (while still pushing Windows Mobile). Never again. I work for a non-profit and am quite happy to, as you say, have more control, less hours, but far more sanity.

The big difference is 2014 vs. 1995.