This makes essentially no sense, since the other students at high-income schools also have the resources so the money isn't why they're at the top 10%.

He makes perfect sense. He's saying they get in because they have the resources and the aptitude/work ethic. But it's because of the extra support that they were able to succeed enough for Ivy admission. Without that support, they would not have gotten in, even though they'd still probably be pretty decent students.

This is not true for the vast majority of students. The people whose parent's donated enough to affect their admissions decision is existent but very small.

You're correct here. Still, it bothers me that people aren't more outraged about legacy admissions when people seem to throw a big fit about affirmative action. But yeah, mostly a drop in the bucket.

Anyway, it's possible that you're right and that I was reading it wrong. My initial sense was that he wasn't claiming that people who go to Ivies aren't smart, but upon re-reading, I think you might be right. I was also perturbed because I didn't get the sense from your post that you were acknowledging that it's pretty fucking hard to get into an Ivy without some level of privilege.

I suspect we all know that getting into an Ivy is a combination of a lot of things going "right."