Harvard or MIT cannot make you into a powerful machine. The most important thing to achieve a big scientific career is to be born with the genetics and the willpower to work. It seems that going to Harvard or Stanford takes care of the latter part since you are betting your life on a few years of your life and you are taking extraordinary debt to do so. If you're getting it all for free, you probably won't work as hard right? But after a few years, if you go to the master degree or the doctorate, what difference does it make? None.