Over 3/4 would have been rejected if they were not...

MIT literally does not use legacy admissions. They are 100% merit based. Also most STEM departments in most elite institutions are more hesitant to accept legacy students into their department relative to the business department for example. They don't want to inflate their drop out rate. The vast majority of legacy students chose fields such as business.

Also, business undergrad is the one undergrad field where students are almost proud of how easy they can skate through their four years. Most other majors, students have some level of pride in the field they study.

And yes there are definitely majors offered in even Harvard, where academically unqualified students will be able to succeed. The recent admissions scandal has confirmed this. Hardly any of those kids didn't fail to complete their degree and many of them were no where near academically qualified given their SAT scores and high school gpa.

There are definitely curriculums in Harvard where getting in is the hardest aspect of the school and graduating is significantly easier.

 

That's exactly right -- getting in is harder than graduating. I would say you are "qualified" if you have a good prospect of graduating. Lots of qualified people can't get past admission.