It’s unlikely. Much of the details about what composes the Dean and Director’s special interest list has been redacted from the lawsuit. In one of the few relevant sections that was not redacted, Harvard’s expert writes, “there is no particular criteria for inclusion on those lists but that they might include, for example, applicants that the Dean or Director have encountered at recruiting events, as well as applicants related to donors to Harvard or lineage applicants.”
What we can see is that this from the numbers in the lawsuit is the Dean/Director’s list is mostly composed of well of White kids. The group has extremely similar racial percentage to legacies and likely has a good overlap with legacies. There is also a notable overlap with the Z-list, with most students on the Z-list also appearing in the Dean or Director’s list — a higher percentage of Z-list students than any other hook group. This is not the pattern I’d expect with the “brightest minds” group. Instead of the Dean/Director’s special interest list, the academic 1 rating definitions sounds extremely similar to the “brightest minds” descriptions.