No like it seriously doesn't matter lmao. A majority of Penn/Columbia/Harvard did not go to a "prestigious" undergrad. Seriously people it doesn't matter. Get good grades, get a good DAT score, show that you're a good human, doing something slightly interesting = accepted into a plethora of dental schools.
You never see dental schools flexing the undergraduate schools that their students came from.
I'm not trying to argue with you, as I feel the same way that you do about the fact that it really should not matter what undergrad you attend, that being a high stats, well-rounded, good human being will gain the majority admission, I just have a slightly different way of looking at this.
One of the big reasons that acceptance into DS is so competitive is that there are so few DS schools and so few seats for all of the applicants. For the first screening by DS Adcoms, all of those applicants are simply virtual pieces of paper with details about themselves. There are a lot of details they ask: Gender, Race, First-generation, Family income, Place of birth, and schools attended, etc. When you are applying to be a dental student, why do they need to know if you are a male/female/gender fluid? White/AA/Asian/Pacific Islander? First-generation/Legacy? Raised by a bus driver/attorney? Born in Pittsburgh/Peoria/Prague? What college you attended? Because all of those details are categories that they have set up in order for them to build a diverse class. I believe that Ivy/Elite versus non-Ivy/Elite may be a category.
So, while the numbers may show that the majority of DS students (even at the Elite DS) do not come from Ivy/Elite undergrads, there are students in the minority that did. Was this detail the thing that tilted the odds in their favor because the DS was building a diverse class? Maybe. Maybe not.
With so few seats and such high level of competition to gain a seat, in a world where a cyber algorithm pre-screens thousands of apps before a human being ever lays eyes on one, when target words on apps are used as part of the screening process... Yes, I believe those details matter. I believe they are given consideration. I believe they may be a tilting detail when comparing 2 equivalent candidates at the time of screening for interview invites (algorithm) and in acceptance decision making by Adcoms (human beings using rubrics).