Yes, but my knowledge of this comes from having an admissions officer as a friend, so I am NOT going to name a few highly regarded elite schools which do this.

Yes, but my knowledge of this comes from having an admissions officer as a friend, so I am NOT going to name a few highly regarded elite schools which do this. Universities will certainly not publicly announce that they admit some students strictly because of connections or funding. Yet it happens... children of prominent alumni gain admittance with relatively lackluster grades, some numbers of foreign students which are required to pay full tuition get admitted even though they're not quite up to par with the other students. There's always plausible deniability, they're not going to admit idiots and at the same time many stellar students get admitted with no regard to need. Admissions is not a "pure" meritocracy, nor is it the opposite.