I tend to agree with you on those points. Although I would say even people who don’t obsess or focus on this stuff hear “Amherst” and think it’s some kind of elite place … it has that British upper class ring to it. Like Dartmouth. Or Princeton. It just sounds prestigious. Williams? Middlebury? Swarthmore? Not as much. Amherst wins the best name Olympics in the NESCAC by a mile.
I think it’s true that Wash U suffers from this “not a household name” kind of thing in a particular way. There is the confusion with the University of Washington, or George Washington Univ, and really they all suffer from some less than ideal understanding of who they are.
Related to this general marketing challenge, some schools benefit simply by being in Boston. If it’s in Boston and it’s a college, it must be a big deal.