It's way easier to get into elite schools in Europe than top tier American ivies.
Also, I've always wondered why so few Americans decide to study in Europe. I understand some might not be able to afford the remote study, but this doesn't explain everything. Language is not a problem, every top university offers all, or almost all master's level courses also in English.
It varies a lot depending on course, but here is Oxford: https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-stat...
For undergrad it's 14%.
Harvard: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics
3%
That's quite some difference, especially if we consider that Harvard has special tracks for legacies and various others. What's the real admission rate? 2%?
For other European unis I don't know what exactly the criteria are for being elite.
Germany is a good example here, they have a wide spectrum of schools starting already past primary education (around 10 years old). Many of those schools, those of the "mid" and especially "lower" rank do not bash into children's heads that they absolutely must go to a good university or they will be a failure. As a result those kids do not apply there, instead they go into internships and get a job. Overall there is a continuum that a) reduces pressure on people that probably shouldn't study medicine or law, b) gives better education to talented children by putting them together in more aligned groups.
Crucially, the admission to those schools past age of 10 is not zip-code based. Admitting children by zip-code past the very first school where you learn how to sit, read, write and multiply numbers is nonsense.
A process like this will result in a higher university admission rate, all else being equal, including the "true difficulty" of getting into a specific university.
Oxbridge's admissions rates are not the lowest in the UK; schools no one outside the UK has heard of, like Warwick, have the lowest, and their admissions rates are still two to three times higher than the Ivies'. In many countries, universities admit all applicants that meet the qualifications. An example is Switzerland, where ETH Zurich—by every measure, among the world's finest universities—admits every Swiss with a Matura (university-track high school diploma) who applies.
Another thing to consider is that the pool of applicants might be different between universities. 1% admission rate tells you a very different story whether 100% or 10% were decent applicants in the first place.