Top Ivy League Graduate & Professional School Placement

Our team at Ivy League Feeders did a deep dive, examining over 5,000 profiles, resumes, and biographies of recent Ivy League graduate school alumni and current students to find out which undergraduate institutions were most represented at the top and most sought after graduate level programs offered by the eight Ivy League universities – Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University. All of the graduate and professional school programs we looked at were highly selective and turn away far more applicants than they admit. 

Previously on our site we looked at the percentage of high school graduates who attended Ivy League Colleges, showing clearly which schools place the best at the ancient eight. This may indicate which high schools may give you a boost or leg up in the admissions process. However, according to the most recent data available, the Ivy League sent a whopping total of 385,193 (approximately) individual letters denying high school seniors a spot at one of these schools. The total admit rate (number of acceptances out of total applicants) for the Ivy League last year was about 5% - meaning a huge number of students on Ivy Day, when decisions are revealed, end up disappointed if any of these institutions happened to be their dream school or one of their top choices. What we hear from many rejected applicants is ‘that’s O.K.’, I’ll go to an Ivy for grad school…undergrad doesn’t matter as much right?’ While that’s certainly debatable and an understandable reaction or position to hold, the reality is that most of the most coveted seats at elite Ivy League graduate programs are filled with students who completed their undergraduate school at an Ivy too. To quote a Wall Street Journal article on “feeder schools” to top professional schools (MD, JD, and MBA programs) published back in 2003, “Ivy begets Ivy.” In other words, a very high percentage of top Ivy League graduate students attended college at the same institution or another Ivy, leaving fewer spots for students from other colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and the world.

For these reasons, we wanted to find out which colleges and universities both in America and globally send the greatest number and percentage of students to the most reputable and targeted Ivy League graduate and professional schools. In examining the undergraduate institutions attended by literally thousands of recent alumni and current students, we took larger random samples of the highest ranked and more competitive programs and smaller random samples from lower ranked programs to ensure we ranked colleges by which had the best placement at what are largely considered the top programs in each academic field. Factors we considered in our research were reputation, academic strength, potential earnings and opportunities, and difficulty of admission. In this way, the results are weighted. For example, there are more graduates from Yale Law than Columbia Law, Harvard Medical School than Brown’s medical school, Wharton’s MBA program vs Cornell’s Johnson School, etc. We excluded all the Ivy League undergraduate colleges from the data and only looked at non-Ivy schools to see which schools increase your chances the most or are most likely to result in a alumni ultimately picking up an Ivy League degree after all, at the graduate level. It is important to note that of course there are wonderful graduate and professional school programs outside of the Ivy League. Furthermore, our list and rankings are designed for prospective students who want to eventually earn an Ivy League degree.