“Don’t worry every Brit I ever met thought they were the superior being, its just the way they were raised.
BTW that is what you get with a purely merit based system, those with the most advantages are accepted, those without advantages, not so much.”
This is a slight misunderstanding of British society (unless you equate “advantages” to intellectual ability) and in particular how Oxbridge students and fellows behave. They are openly competitive about intellectual achievements because it is not socially acceptable to talk about money. So for example my neighbor in college claimed for two years that it was purely a coincidence his surname was the same as the name of the building we were living in, when in fact (I found out much later) his family had donated vast sums of money to pay for the construction. I never felt out of place as a first gen kid from a poor part of the country (although I had attended a competitive grammar school where it was “expected” I would go to Oxbridge - watch “The History Boys” for a very good illustration of this) and I could happily feel superior to him intellectually without money ever being a consideration.
Conversely, you have the classic boast “more Nobel Prizes than France” (which is a regular feature of college dinners, fundraising events, etc. even though it’s not strictly true) and headlines in the alumni newsletters are always about Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, or becoming an MP, winning an Oscar, writing a book, etc. and never about business achievements.