First, there is no Princeton Law. But I'm only being a jerk and I understand your point. I had a classmate in law school that bragged about getting into Princeton Law. Nobody took him seriously after that.
Interesting point re grad school vs. job. You're right (or so I've heard) about grad schools, but it's a metric that is hard to find. You can absolutely get into an elite grad program from a UConn, but the grad schools also have a good understanding about the quality of an undergrad education and the person that may have gone to that school. So, you can be middle of the class at Amherst and get into a grad program that would require you to be towards the top of your UConn class. They aren't using US News.
Re jobs, however, as much as we want to crap on rankings and reputation, I think it DOES matter when looking for a job out of undergrad. We give too much credit to HR people... or just people involved at hiring in general. They don't always know everything about every school. They'll know local schools, schools where they've had success with hirings and schools they've heard of. And they'll look at US News or others for their rankings. So, we can mock the rankings, but I believe they do matter (even if they shouldn't).
