Most of the ATS (applicant tracking systems) now in general use (past the testing stage, validated for use across countries, divisions, roles, levels, functions, etc.) are not actually using much of what is technically AI. They are using good old fashioned key word searches, and they are not “robots” who decide who is in and who is out. They screen based on human inputs and can be changed around at will. So a company hiring attorneys can screen on JD and bar admission; the same company can make sure that candidates who make it into the interview pipeline have a series 7 or a CPA or a CFA if that’s required; if there’s a division that does business with the federal government where security clearance is required the ATS will screen out (or take a first cut at screening) candidates who wouldn’t be eligible or at least would take a long time (years in some cases) to get clearance at the appropriate level.
That’s it. Screens. Doesn’t assess, doesn’t make value judgements (Stamps at Ole Miss beats Chancellor’s award at BU which beats National Merit at Tulsa). It doesn’t replace the humans who actually read resumes and doesn’t replace human judgement. But it speeds up the process of taking 100K+ resumes and cutting them down to a reasonable size for further assessment.
As I said upthread- Stamps is prestigious; departmental honors is prestigious; Summa or Magna is prestigious; writing a senior thesis is prestigious, etc. I pushed back on the idea that a candidate could describe winning a lucrative merit award in HS as “working my way through college” which in general, has a specific connotation. But that doesn’t detract from how great it is for a HS kid to win such an award!
I do not know if Stamps alums maintain their own “pipeline”. The most active and influential pipeline (in my experience) is military vets, particularly officers in certain branches, who have developed separate recruiting streams in some organizations. But the reason for that has nothing to do with “prestige” per se. It’s because the timeline for an exiting military officer is different from someone graduating (undergrad, grad school) or switching from one civilian role to another. And it’s because interviewing from a base in Bahrain is more complicated than interviewing from a college campus, and because very few civilian employers know how to read a military resume. I do not believe that “Stamps alums” have those complications such that they require a separate pipeline. Perhaps in some companies they do- I’m not aware of such. But there are designations in the military which are truly “one tenth of the top one percent of officers in this cohort” and it’s helpful to have other veterans explain how truly distinctive they are, even if the general public neither knows nor cares. We all know Navy Seals- but there are even more elite units, especially in intelligence, cyber, etc.
But none of this matters for the OP who will get a fine education at either university and may or may not end up getting a doctorate in physics or landing a role in a financial institution. There will be ample opportunities for cool paths regardless of the path chosen right now.