Okay I come from Hong Kong, so it's pretty much IBank or bust for most people. Since I am a lot younger than my brother, I know a lot of junior managers in ibanks. Lots of banks are country bias. Citi, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan prefer North American graduates. UBS, BNP prefer European university. Goldman seemed to have the least bias, although most people I know at GS are only analyst (1st and 2nd year), all North American, but that might be due to me being a NA person. So I came from a non-target (it's a target if your Canadian) and lots of friends have landed first year roles in NA BB (GS, MS, JP, C, BOC), but I haven't heard of any who have landed in an European one (UBS, BNP, RBS(second tier)).
One of my friend gave me an general explanation for their ranking system for school and other things. School are ranked by different tiers. Although UPenn is a great school (my target for MBA), all the Ivey, MIT, Stanford (undergrad) fall into the same tier (not sure about Dartmouth though. Seems decent since my friend's gf is working on wall-street). We're competing with the undergrads for since MSc are non-work experience masters and no one hires an associate that has no work experience. Also I think so a post you have that your in HEC, you can look at your corporate parters. Basically these companies will have reserve spots (minimum intake not that many maybe 2-3) for your school.
I think from the school list you gave me seems like your friends from Europe cause not many people know Bocconi, St. Galeno or WHU outside of Europe. Geography plays such a huge role in selection, since you're interviewed by the local offices by the team you're working with (junior - senior, back office - front office). It definitely helps a little to be from the same university as your interviewer because regardless of what most people say, humans prefer individual who are similar and have some share experiences.
I hope you can see it from my POV (NA and HK centric). I am not saying HEC or any European university are bad or are non-targets. If I offended you Gottesscha, even if it's only a tiny bit, then my bad. Water under the bridge man.