There are a relatively small number of US allo med schools compared to the number of top college grads who want them, so ALL are competitive. It's not like college where there is a big range of quality. Endowments and facilities may vary but pretty much all US allo places are well regarded. And all are going to be decent launching pads to almost every specialty if you do well.
As mentioned above, residency program directors are surveyed annually and never rank alma mater over things like Step 1 scores, clinical evaluations, and the like. There will be people on SDN who like to claim more import, especially if they've chosen this path and want to feel like they've already accomplished something. But my own experience is that PDs often base their residency selection much more on their experiences with a prior schools grads. If the guy a program took from Harvard last year was a crummy resident, it will be a few years before the program drinks from that well again. Or if the guy from lower ranked Bobs Med School was amazing, the program will try to encourage more people from Bobs to apply again next year. Or if students from X school routinely apply, but don't ever seem to rank the program highly, eventually the interview invites may fall off. So it's a lot more about experiences than prestige.
At any rate most people who are thinking about premed in college won't apply, so it's not all that relevant. But yeah I agree the focus should be to get into a US allo school and do well, not a "top" school do you can pat yourself on the back but possibly end up in the same place, if your upper class men didn't burn that bridge for you.
