certainly. its a good discission here and i agree with you that local u and scholar will still have advantage over the rest.
but i see that the gap had narrowed down and the more emphasis had shifted towards skillset/capabilities instead of the old way - academic

the purpose of my post is to encourage everyone from non local u (who are in PS or CS) to give yourself a chance, work hard and move up the ladder. if you have the mindset that no matter how well you do, you will never overtake local u, then you had already lose at the start of the race.