I don't see how it's a fallacy in this case; this is definitional in the construction of meritocratic admissions: the people admitted have more merit than the o

I don't see how it's a fallacy in this case; this is definitional in the construction of meritocratic admissions: the people admitted have more merit than the ones that are not. OP phrased it as a matter of effort, and I was just making explicit what he left implicit.