That's a valid opinion, but it doesn't address the question: do other fields lean more heavily on signaling than others?

Does going to a top 10 law school matter more than graduating from a Top 10 CS program?

Law it's really top-14, and it matters a lot. BigLaw recruits almost exclusively out of those schools, and law has a bimodal salary distribution where BigLaw pays $180K out of school while smaller law firms and small-town law practices typically pay just $45-65K.

Many other industries tend to recruit only out of top universities, and getting into them if you didn't go to one is basically impossible. Management consulting, investment banking, hedge funds, philanthropy, many managerial government positions. The way you get into these is through going to a school that places lots of people into those industries, and then work the network.

Sounds like tech to me - if you didn't see the other tech salary thread....

(at least the bimodal bit and ivy->faa[n]g route)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19393688

"Does going to a top 10 law school matter more than graduating from a Top 10 CS program? "

I have both law and software engineering degrees and I can tell you without a doubt that yes, the school you graduate from matters much more in law.

Absolutely yes, without any doubt.

Assuming you are not being sarcastic, could you enumerate the main reasons as to why software engineering is super special?

I'm asuming he was sarcastic, but...

"Software engineering" doesn't have much to do with either software (it's mostly generic project management) or engineering (ask an engineer: vector calculus! statics, dynamics and thermodynamics!)

Yep, it is more like Yep or Nope, 1 or 0. ;)