I’m not sure if relevant now, but back in early 90s, I had a friend who got into my UC school because his parent was an alumi and donated before and wrote a letter to get them in.

Originally, he was either denied or waitlisted, not sure which.

I don’t mind too much of this actually since I already accept the world we live in, and with the school funding issues, you either get funds elsewhere (China) or quality of the school would suffer in general. I could see them dumping all these fancy facilities.

Pretty much, either way you lose and it will never be fair when it comes to admissions.