Having worked at one of these firms, I will say that there was general recognition that the system was flawed. Many managers recognized that the best candidate at some noncore schools would be better than the n-th candidate at Harvard.<p>One key limitation alluded to in the article is that identifying and recruiting top talent incurs high per-school costs (hosting info sessions, maintaining relationships with the U, general brand-building). Since many of these firms turn over half their workforce every year, efficient recruiting is critical.<p>A further problem that's commonly cited is that identifying top talent is challenging for non-graduates who don't know which majors are easy/hard, what GPA ranges are reasonable, what clubs are legitimate, etc.<p>Finally, there's strong inertia due to the similarity bias. Princeton graduates like other Princeton graduates and want to hire more of them. The recruiting teams for different schools may even compete against each other over who brings more recruits.<p>[1] Personal and friends' experience