the people you met were simply making excuses and misleading you. (there is always scope for corruption in school admissions everywhere).
It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.
It is like saying, if you studied in public school in small town america, you cannot get into Harvard.
Your small town analogy doesn't work. A better analogy is if you went to a poor inner city public school, then you can't get into Harvard. This is basically true, since you don't receive a good enough education to get the scores to get in. Also, if your family is poor, especially in India, you have to work to support your family and self rather than focus on your school work, which leads to lower grades and test scores.
It's just a fact that people with more wealth have better socioeconomic opportunity than people with less wealth, not that they're more intelligent. This means better schools and better education.
Further, there is actually reservation for poor people from lower castes (25 - 50% of the seats). So it's not the same thing. I don't disagree with ingenium that better socio-economic opportunities help richer people do better, but the discrimination against lower caste people is not systemic in higher education.