<p>Yes and no. While the quality of the student body is clearly a very important factor, and to a certain extent it doesn’t measure the school as much as the students, there are still interesting disparities between top schools. For example, Penn and WashU (ranked 16 and 47) are two schools that have shot up very recently in the US News rankings. However, they don’t have as much long-lasting prestige. WashU and Penn are incredibly selective and more pre-professional than most (which should help), but the fact that Penn is the second-lowest ivy and WashU is way lower than schools that are far less selective may suggest that their reputation at grad schools has not caught up with their rankings/selectivity.</p>