Actually, the UC process is holistic for initial readings, where each of two readers gives a score of 1 (best) to 5 (worst). If they are too far apart, a senior reader also reads the application and replaces a score. Each application then has an average of the two holistic scores. Indeed, the single score may be more holistic than the Harvard process which assigns several subcategory scores during initial reading.
But then it is mostly rack and stack within a campus, division, or major (depending on whether admission is done by campus, division, or major). Of course, the cutoff may be within a group of applicants with the same score, so tie breaking procedures are used to determine admit, spring admit (if used), waitlist, and/or reject within the group that is tied. The Hout report describes the process in detail.
At UCB, recruited athletes go through the regular process; only if not admitted through the regular process do they go to a recruited athlete review for the limited number of recruited athlete spots. Any “fake athletes” admitted through this path were taking spots away from genuine athletes who may have otherwise been admitted.