"Selecting the best applicants possible"

I predict stunning success, based on this sentence alone.

That said - I think that providing help for people who are already doing well is nice, but it doesn't really support the real goal of public education: educating (all of) the public.

Unless you're thinking that this will be a great for-profit biz, with the most successfully students+parents most able to pay top dollar for this?

In which case - yeah, you've got a solid idea. It's essentially the same as idea as going to Harvard/Yale/Cornell/etc. If you can get a good round of 'seed families' (students+already successful parents) it just might work.