My experience has been the same as OP. It's not a parallel reality, its the US. It definitely does not matter where you go. If you work hard and and keep pushing yourself into more challenging positions, you'll be a highly competitive candidate for employment no matter what school you went to. Some may argue that those who get into good schools have a greater propensity to push themselves and achieve regardless of their situation - we hope that's true. But I have never in my experience seen such blindness toward graduates of lesser schools.