> It's a bit of a disingenuous argument however, because the huge increase of schools down the long long LONG pecking order of school "eliteness"

Ehn, it really doesn't.

Harvard admits significantly less undergrads than Penn or Columbia, and in personal experience, the "Ivy" cachet doesn't really help that much in most industries outside of High Finance (which itself tends to targets Penn+Columbia instead of Harvard). Harvard was historically overrepresented in MBB+Management Consulting, but that industry is dying now that Accountancies and Implementation firms are bundling MC, and companies increasingly do strategy in-house.

Prestige is a finicky thing. 30 years ago UChicago was not viewed as "prestigious" compared to Harvard (it was Claremont McKenna with snow back then), but ask high schoolers today and UChicago has a strong brand value.

Also, ime, I just don't bump into Harvard grads anymore at high level positions (Director and above). Harvard historically overindexed on MBB and Boutique Consulting recruiting while Penn+Columbia targeted Wall Street and Stanford+Cal targeted Sand Hill and YC. Consulting slowly started withering away, so recruiting is tough.

That said, Harvard does very well in China (largely thanks to John Fairbanks and Roderick MacFarquhar in the 1970s-90s), but they aren't as driven as UPenn has been in trying to diversify their international presence.

> high level positions

Typo: Meant high level positions in the Tech industry.

HBS tends to do pretty well in PE/HF but the overlap isn't significant with Harvard College.