We currently are outside observers of grad school admissions. Our ds’s very serious girlfriend that he met at an REU (at an elite school) is a physics UG at ND (both of her parents are drs.) Both applied to the exact same list of physics grad programs and their acceptance list is a mirror image of each other. So one applicant is a full merit scholarship attendee at Bama and the other is from a higher SES background at ND. They have both been accepted to some top depts.