This is true. I’m just saying there is an alternative way of doing things where I’ve seen some PhD students have significant success.
For any graduate program to accept a student, you need to write up essays to show you’ll be a “good” PhD student and do what @boneh3ad suggestions. The alternative method is you basically kinda stiff your advisor on the data that could be used to get you advisor more grants and focus on doing research that leads to a thesis and journal publications…sometimes your advisor’s goals and your goals can be very different…if you have a mediocre or worse advisor.
Universities are changing policies to prevent students from doing this…for obvious financial reasons.