Short answer: no. If you aren't part of the club, or if you don't go out of your way to find out these things, this is not particularly well-known. And honestly

Short answer: no. If you aren't part of the club, or if you don't go out of your way to find out these things, this is not particularly well-known. And honestly, I could flip this pretty easily: there are lots of narratives out there by people who for whatever reason weren't privy to this fact who made it into some of the big name schools and saw how daddy's ability to buy a new building beats out perfect grades, describing their shock at seeing some of these systems up-close and learning the rules. That should also be approximately as "obvious". It depends where you're looking, and whether or not you know to look there and care enough to actually look.