[D] Is nepotism prevalent in big tech ML roles?

I heard from a friend who interned at a big tech company in a prestigious ML team. Heard most of the other interns in the team are from a certain uni (not top 10 in CS), same as the one the team director is a prof. Is there even a point in applying to these internships if my advisor is not well connected?

big director machinelearning roles team tech top 10