The International Schools Review Forum

You are overthinking this and a bit narrow in your scope.

Simply put, there are Ivy schools and Ivy equivalent schools whose name recognition is really high and whose reputation is really good. Anyone would recognise names like Harvard and Yale and Oxford.

Anyone with a bit of experience in academia should know schools like McGill or Northwestern or Cornell as well as Stanford. Those who actually attended these unis (at least in the US) will know the quality of Dartmouth or Duke or Columbia. If you aren't considering Chicago or Brown as at least on par with UCLA, you are clearly not in the know; those who actually attended a place like Georgetown will have heard of and probably applied to equivalent institutions such as Vanderbilt. The question is how well the recruiter is in the know. A Canadian recruiter would be far more likely to know McGill than a Brit would. And while Columbia doesn't have the name recognition of Yale, it does have enough clout to stand out to most recruiters, even those not from the USA, while Vanderbilt might not. So you can see that even within the "top schools," regardless of whether or not one calls them Ivy, there is still a sort of tier system. This is further complicated by the fact that within individual fields a school may be higher or lower or even lack a program, and recruiters are less likely to know exactly how your top school ranked in the area for which you attended. If the recruiter has mostly worked in secondary schools, they are more likely to know unis than someone who worked in primary school just by the nature of hearing people talk, writing letters of rec, etc.

Again, ultimately you are being too narrow in your thoughts. Name recognition counts a bit, especially early on when you don't have a resume built up. Otherwise it's just a tie breaker or a point of interest on a resume. Lots of people with less on their resume than you have go abroad, and many with more don't get beyond a low end school simply because they are too stuck in what they think things "should be." Think outside the box. PsyGuy is great if you want to know how to get licensed in Underwater Basket Weaving in Arkansas, but he is not the ultimate authority on international teaching, but I am not sure why you want his input specifically when so much of recruiting doesn't follow his patterns of what he thinks it should be.

Just go to the program that makes the most sense for you and focus on becoming a good teacher. Don't get so hung up on names.

@intotheblue

Acme AS is a fictional name used for when referencing a generic American International School
(for comparison I use IS Genovia as a fictional name for a generic International School, and Duckbills BS for the fictional name for a generic British International School, and while not having need for it yet Malory FS for the fictional name of a generic French International School).

ES = English School; mainly ESOL but could include other "cram" subjects.

There is a negative perception among a minority of recruiters about skills based credentialing pathways. However, they wont know that you went through Teach Now or a skills (online) pathway to your credential. You state on your resume that you have a DC standard credential and QTS. Even if you did discuss or were asked about your training you spent 12 weeks in a classroom, which as long as student teaching in an academic program. All that said, its not difficult if a recruiter or leadership wants to find out, they can simply look at your transcripts and figure out you dont have any professional education coursework.
The steal meet stone of it though is that trying costs you nothing, and gives you data about your marketability. There are three things that comprise an ITs resume that which they have taught (experience, exam scores, etc.), what they can teach (degrees, credentials, etc.) and special skills. Of those three experience is king, in a few years whats going to matter is what you do with students in a classroom, either you suck or your great, and if your great none of the rest matters. There are plenty of ITs with a PGCEi who dont have QTS and never had to set foot in a classrooms for their EPP/ITT program, lots of them have jobs, and some of them at good ISs.
Is it possible one of those upper tier IS recruiters will score your application negatively because your EPP/ITT program wasnt an academic F2F program, sure, its also possible they dont like your outfit during the interview. there arent assurances, even if you maximize your marketability you still may not have one any one recruiter is looking for on a particular day.

The general consensus of the forum contributors is that those two years are best earned in a DS in DE. ISs arent good places for a new IT to make their bones, so much of good practice is learned on the job and in the classroom, such that those first two years are figuring out lessons and what works and classroom/behavior management.
That being the case their are third tier IS (mostly lower third tier) that have to take what they can get, meaning settling for intern class ITs (thats what an IT with less than 2 years classroom experience is considered).

Assuming you were teaching ESOL, its not going to count.

If they were easy to get admitted to they probably wouldnt be 'Ivys' in IE.

'A Masters is a Masters is a Masters', a Masters has value but if its not from an IE 'Ivy', than all that matters is how well it fits with your resources (financial, time, etc.). You can get a "formal education related degree" at a lot of institutions for very reasonable coin.

Mostly, its determined by what parents who pay the fees value, and value significantly enough that an ISs ownership can sell it to parents as real value. Its a very small number of Unis that provoke this type of response thats actually worth something to ownership.
As I wrote earlier, in these cultures jobs, career, etc. are based less on merit and more who you know and what your relationships are. These parents extrapolate that to IE, and they believe that if their child gets a rec from an alumni from one these highly elite Unis that it will give them at the least an edge and at most a real advantage in getting their child admitted. These parents spend tens of thousands of coin on writers, consultants, prep tutors, etc. to produce perfected application packets to these Uni. To them its worth spending USD$5K-$10K more for tuition at an IS for what they perceive as an advantage (a member of the faculty thats an alumni). These parents if they can get their child into an 'Ivy' thats what matters and there really isnt an alternative despite the excellent reputation a uni has among academics.
I was asked to write a ref for a student to my Alma mater, and the parents gifted me with a jade tea set that when I had it appraised was worth a few thousand USD, I would of written the letter anyway, it was a good student but I put in an extra paragraph I would not have written otherwise.