fact.

Fair or not, it's fact. If I go to a job interview and I say I got a degree from Oklahoma state, Oregon state, or Washington state... it's just ho-hum.. who cares. Anybody can get into Oklahoma State. But only about 5% of applicants are admitted to Stanford. So just being accepted to Stanford carries weight.

Side note: Stanford doesn't allow for admission exceptions for it's athletes. If you play a sport at Stanford you were accepted into the school based on academic merit. It's amazing that they are as competitive as they are with their sports teams.

Other schools like University of Washington for example, will have a certain number of admission exclusion athletes they can have on the team. Maybe 10 scholarships for football (not sure the exact number). This means they can admit kids into the school to play on the football team that otherwise wouldn't have been academically qualified.