[eaurouge]

I don't think it's more true in the US. It's easier to get into the best universities in the US than it is in the UK. If you manage to make it, (for the most part) no one cares who your parents or grand parents were. In the UK these things matter to the point of absurdity. In the UK, the system was rigged centuries ago; here in the US our rigged system is still very much in its infancy, relatively speaking of course.

[barry-cotter]

I'm pretty sure the US super elite schools (HYPS) do not cover as much of the population as the UK super elite schools (Oxbridge). I believe it's something like 1-2% for the UK and 0.4% for the US. I may misremember the components (i.e. it may be for merely elite schools, like the Russell Group or the rest of the Ivy League plus MIT and Cal Tech etc.)

Super elite term taken from Lauren Rivera's "Ivies, Extracurriculars, and Exclusion"