If a university's objective is to select the applicants most likely to reflect prestige and wealth back onto it, the university is best served by picking those

If a university's objective is to select the applicants most likely to reflect prestige and wealth back onto it, the university is best served by picking those who can most effectively cause themselves to be selected (rather than the most academically gifted students). Admissions essentially boils down to "impress me." (Not saying that's good for society, but it's good for the university.) It's one of the exceptional cases where Goodhart's Law—"a targeted metric is no longer good"—doesn't hold.