No -- I'm going off news that came out in light of the lawsuit against Harvard recently, but I have no reason to believe other elite universities handle it differently. These things are shrouded in secrecy for the precise reason that it is massively unpopular, but at least in this case we got an inside look because of discovery for the lawsuit.

Harvard creates a special "Dean's Interest List" (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harv...) which includes celebrities, "top donors", and certain athletes. The admissions rate restricted to this list was 42.2% in 6 recent years.