My entrance exam in the (First) English Language School in Sofia was before 1989 and quite difficult. My schoolmates were very bright and interesting kids (the girs were a bit nerdy, maybe). There was no way someone could enter this school without extracurricular literature lessons. I don't know how it was in other schools, but in my average middle school the level of literature education was not enough for the exam. So I took some lessons, and learned some basic essay writing skills, which proved to be quite useful in later periods of my life.

I did not prepare in maths with a teacher, I was quite good at it. ;-) I entered the school, being 19-th on the exam and very proud of myself.

And the Party connections - I never did have or used any of these. 2-3 of my schoolmates (from our class of 25) entered maybe because of their family connections, but they did not mess with the application process, they joined the class some months later.

We were very competitive and became great friends, all of us, regardless of family ties and background. In the school nothing of these really mattered. It sounds strange, but that's how it was.

Being true to myself, I have to stress out that maybe, if one belonged to a family of the former elite (from before 1944), maybe he wouldn't be allowed to apply for the school (there were methods to do that quietly), but even this rule was quite loose at my time. I had schoolmates, who belonged to the family of one of the last Bulgarian regents. (And one of the guys is a very famous economist nowadays).