[johnrob]

To some degree, the elite universities are selling success to those already predestined for it. This is an end game state for any popular institution that accepts a subset from a pool of applicants. The battle to get in ends up being a significant source of the value creation.

Raising a venture round from Sequoia is probably a decent non-academic example of this. I would not be surprised if companies who turn Sequoia away are just as successful as those who are funded by them (although the former is probably a small data set!).