I literally went to the cheapest state school in rural Pennsylvania and still was accepted into YC. My co-founder didn't even finish college, at some point I think people just want to make excuses.
Also — I don't understand your second point. It's an accelerator. Capital is part and parcel when it comes to accelerating.
If you aren’t pre-vetted, it doesn’t mean you’re worse, it just means vetting you is more work and has more risk.
For example, wealthy family safety net for extended risk-taking, connections for finding customers and partners and investors, confidence of founders in asserting will over hires, and appealing to class-based beliefs of other investors.
But since most of us aren't investors, this isn't to say that fancy schools vet for, say, hires.
While I generally like and respect the people I've known who happened to attend fancy schools, I've learned not to pay much attention to what schools someone attended.
Just because it’s tiresome doesn’t make it untrue in this “era”.
This is not a bag on YC, but yesteryear’s “web store”, begot “social”, begot “blockchain”, begot “ai” and today’s private markets are more conservative for Seed and A rounds.