People parrot this point a lot but it doesn't make any sense. The average SAT/ACT at the Ivy's are near perfect, the number of mediocre rich kids paying their way in is a small fraction of the student body.
And yes test scores aren't the best metric for "talent" but it is one of the better signals you get in a college application.
Yeah, but the money paid by that small fraction of the student body is colossal.
They're not numerous enough to change any GPA/SAT averages, but they likely pay many times more in tuition & donations than the rest of their class put together. That's why they're the main focus of these places, even if their numbers are small.
All the schools lie about their average test scores to boost their rankings(source, president of northwestern when I took his econ class). We have no idea what the ivies averages are.
And yes test scores aren't the best metric for "talent" but it is one of the better signals you get in a college application.