The documents revealed in the Students for Fair Admission vs. Harvard case confirm what you observed, which was the power of the “ALDC” list in Harvard’s process.
Not to get off topic, but it’s interesting to see Dartmouth and Yale claim their new test-required policies are all about increasing socio-economic diversity while they have not renounced legacy admissions. (Though I would argue that a lot of top high schools attract — or are located in demographic clusters of — families with strong academic bona fides and connections. So is it the high school itself, or the composition of the families that school serves?)