I don't disagree with you about college admissions (http://paulgraham.com/colleges.html). But in my experience investors try a lot harder than undergrad admissions officers, partly because they suffer fairly immediate consequences when they make mistakes in either direction. In that respect investment is more like graduate admissions, which is done by professors instead of admissions officers, and the professors get whoever they select as grad students. (And incidentally, I went to grad school at Harvard, not to Harvard College.)