Bob Molluro ⋅ Wilmington, DE Benchmark Consulting Services ltd. ⋅ 30 years experience

If your question is does the school matter I would like to provide my views having been in business for over 40 years. A well know Ivy League school is going to carry a certain amount of weight as you saw in the other responses. You also will probably gain a lot more prestigious contacts that may be able to open the doors for you.
Now let's look at the flip side. Your resume gets you an interview. I would suggest you invest your time in becoming a killer interviewee. I was trained by an executive head hunter and I have been offered every job I ever interviewed for and I didn't attend an Ivy League school. I have also trained over 15 people on the techniques and they too landed jobs where the competition was stiff. My grandson was interviewing for a Corporate position where he is employed. There were 16 candidates . He got the position. My granddaughter was applying to the top graduate schools in the country to get her doctorate in PT. Six schools in total, six acceptances. These are not coincidences this is mastering interviewing.
I went to Drexel a very good University however not IVY League. My manager believed he wanted to hire people from the Wharton School at U of P. In our 13 member team that reported to him three were from Wharton and three from Drexel. One day he approached me and said how can I find more high quality Drexel guys. I said I thought you wanted Wharton MBA's. He said I want guys who know how to work and produce. When I look at the Drexel guys who work for me your results are in the Top 3. The Penn guys are number 9,10 and 12. enough said.

James Spencer ⋅ Dowell, IL Spencer and Partners LLC ⋅ 23 years experience

The real question is what role does the name or location of a candidate's Alma mater play in the hiring process. The answer is that it can have a dual effect.

First, the name of every college or university carries with it a reputation. When hiring managers read the name of a school on a resume he/she feels they know something about that candidate based on what they think they know about the quality of education the candidate would have received to attend that school and how difficult it is for a student to be admitted.

Second, the name and location of a school is important to everyone who attended the school or others who had some other connections. Every candidate is one step ahead of the competition when the person screening resumes reads the name of his/her own Alma mater or the name of a school located in a city where the reader lived.

Every candidate can have these facts work in his/her favor if they follow the advice of Chief Watson. Do your homework. Talk to friends and family members and find out who might be reading your resume and cover letter. Then find out all you can bout him or her. Where did they go to school? Do you have a common acquaintance? Do you have a friend who attended the same school who might even carry your resume to him/her?

Information is power. One of the strongest souses of information is the information a person screening resumes has is about the school he/she attended. If you can tie yourself to that pool of knowledge with a common friend, or even common educational experience the chances of getting an interview appointment increase greatly.