Re: well

"The reason for this is that far more people apply to law and med schools than there are spots for, so those schools can be selective in a way that enhances their own reputation. so they leverage the fact that people assume undergraduates from certain expensive schools are in some way "elite"."

Now there's some serious anti-elitist spin. Schools are selective so as to enhance their reputations? Hmmmm?? You can only be as selective as the pool of candidates allows you to be. If the pool of candidates is either too small or too weak academically (by whatever measure you choose), you cannot create selectivity out of that. Selectivity comes from a combination of two things; a number of applications that is far above the capacity of the institution, and an overall high academic quality of the candidates. Neither one on its own will do the trick, you need the combination of both. If you have the combination of both, you will by definition be selective, not by choice, and that selectivity will definitely enhance your reputation. The only conscious decision to be "selective" is taking fewer incoming students than you have the capacity for, and I can assure you that rarely, if ever, happens.