<p>I apologize if this is a dumb question, or if it's been answered previously. </p>
<p>I will be graduating in 2010, but my school's (public) class of '09 sent many seniors to prestigious schools. Harvard (2), Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia (2), Northwestern (2), Duke (3), Notre Dame, Georgetown, and UPenn (2). </p>
<p>I've heard that this means my school is now simply a 'feeder' school, and it will be more difficult to get into good schools for my graduating class. Is that true, or does it not matter in the admissions process?</p>
<p>Hmmm… from what I’ve heard/read on CC, I thought that typically “feeder” schools were for a single college, oftentimes in the school’s same general area (i.e. top private schools in DC for Georgetown, Princeton High School for Princeton, etc.) with lots of legacies’ children and lots of money. However, depending on the size of your school (as Yakyu Spirits said), your school does sound like a “feeder” school for many top-tiers.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t see how this could be a significant disadvantage for you at all; students are compared regionally, not on a school-to-school basis. If anything, since your school is being better represented in the top-tier universities, you know these adcoms better understand the rigor of your classes and the context in which you earned your GPA, ECs, etc. I guess if your val/sal were applying to the same school EA/ED as you, then you would have lower chances, but it should not make your application process any more “difficult.”</p>
<p>It’s a high school (private or public, but usually public) that “feeds” top colleges its top students. It usually does that to one specific college. Like Princeton high school for Princeton.</p>
<p>Sending 5 kids to ivies does not make your school a “feeder” school…
Another example of a feeder school would be a school like Gunn High School in Palo Alto, which tends to get something like 40-70 kids into Stanford each year, because of all the moneyed legacies.</p>
<p>Schools aren’t going to look at students graduating in '10 from your school and say, well, X many people got in to ivies last year so we expect more of you.</p>
<p>Also, depending on the size of the school and location, a lot of colleges might not even see that many ivy acceptances as a big deal; my high school’s a pretty typical public bay area high school and had something like 17 ivy acceptances plus loads of others to Georgetown, Duke, Northwestern, Chicago, etc, along with at least 80 to Berkeley.</p>