I remember when my wife was applying to law schools in the UK and she happened to know someone (through a sporting club) who had previously handled admissions at one law school and he explained to her that they were looking for an "alpha quality" in applicants - my wife proceeded to ask what actually made up this quality and how they tested for it - to which the answer was basically "you know it when you see it". Eventually when she realised was "alpha quality" meant "went to a good public school and already have family in the profession"...

Mind you - at least these days law has changed and nobody really cares about how posh your relatives are, just how much money they have....