As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the bes

As opposed to the current 1/3 legacy, unclear percentage propped up by wealthy parents, elite prep school system that consistently and efficiently finds the best students. There are still plenty of directionless Harvard kids that end up back in their parents's basements after graduation. Also have you ever stopped to ask yourself who reads and evaluates these admission packets? How often do we complain about hiring here on HN? That it's hard, that you can't tell enough from the slice of information you have about a person. Do you really think the admission people at Harvard have such a gift to accurately tier these teens futures? And if they had such a gift, why are they admission officers at a university and not in a position where their impeccable qualitative assessment skills can be better leveraged to make tons of money or truly great careers? The same people assessing these applications are the same, reasonably intelligent but flawed people that are doing recruiting and hiring and screening in every other prestigious institution that struggles to choose the best candidates. Anyway I'm not trying to argue most people are undeserving (except for the legacy and wealthy parents kids, who are again, a very sizable percentage). But the idea that we actually have a finely enough tuned comb and good enough data to actually pick the children with the most elite futures is on its face absurd. And culturally both the benefactors and the people in awe of the halo of achievement around our elite universities are taking it too far.