You are definitely right. What I wanna suggest is, if you are as result-oriented as I, you care more about what you can achieve than what you can experience, what you should do is -
Be one of the best players in one of the best programs. If it is too hard for you, then - Be one the best players in one of the good enough programs (NYU, Umich, Fudan, etc...)
If you are a mid-level player in the best programs, you can only get opportunities that the top players are not interested in... If you are in a poor program, you'd better find other meanings of studying...
(Actually, the difference of competency between players in the best and good enough programs is huge. Using MBA as an example, 95% of the Sloan MBAs must get rejections from HBS, or they'd choose HBS.)
Definitely, investment banks in HK love students in US. They hire 2/3 from US and 1/3 from PKU, THU, FDU and SJTU. But how many students in Fudan are applying? 30? How many of them have ever read the vault guide? How many even know the book"Investment Banking"? How many spent more than $1,000 on Mergers and Inquisitions just to purchase something that is fxxking useless if they don't become a banker in the end? How many of them spent $400 on Harvard Business School resume book just to copy one or two sentences onto their resumes?
Half of the Wharton Asian undergrads are doing these things.