The Best Feeder Schools to the Ivy League: Matriculation Data for America’s Top High Schools
By Rona Aydin
What Are the Best Feeder Schools to the Ivy League?
Feeder schools are the high schools that consistently send outsized shares of their graduating classes to the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, and peer institutions. Nationally, roughly 0.4 percent of US high school graduates enroll at an Ivy League college; at the schools on this page, the equivalent figures run from 10 percent to more than 30 percent of a class. They fall into three structural groups: New England boarding schools with centuries-old university pipelines, private day schools concentrated in New York City and the Northeast, and selective public magnets such as Stuyvesant that replicate feeder outcomes at taxpayer prices. Our Class of 2030 feeder school results track a single admission cycle in detail; this page maintains the evergreen matriculation data across cycles.
Which Boarding Schools Have the Highest HYPSM Matriculation Rates?
The cleanest available metric for boarding schools is the share of graduates enrolling at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or MIT, aggregated from published multi-year matriculation lists. On that measure, Groton School ranks first in the United States, a function of its tiny classes of roughly 85 seniors and an admission process selective enough to assemble them. The table below covers the schools most families shortlist, with each school linked to our full admissions guide.
| School | HYPSM | Top-25 | Top-50 | Senior class |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Groton School | 21.9% | 22.4% | 7.3% | ~85 |
| Deerfield Academy | 21.6% | 20.4% | 16.8% | ~200 |
| Phillips Exeter Academy | 19.1% | 17.1% | 19.2% | ~320 |
| St. Paul’s School | 19.0% | 21.6% | 21.5% | ~135 |
| The Hotchkiss School | 18.6% | 23.4% | 8.6% | ~170 |
| Choate Rosemary Hall | 17.9% | 21.3% | 21.0% | ~230 |
| The Lawrenceville School | 15.2% | 18.6% | 22.1% | ~210 |
| Milton Academy | 14.9% | 20.4% | 19.5% | ~186 |
| Phillips Academy Andover | 14.8% | 27.5% | 22.8% | ~340 |
| The Pingry School | 14.1% | 23.9% | 23.6% | ~130 |
| The Peddie School | 12.9% | 23.8% | 12.9% | ~135 |
| The Taft School | 12.5% | 16.1% | 18.1% | ~155 |
| Princeton Day School | 10.5% | 15.2% | 26.7% | ~95 |
| Loomis Chaffee | 8.1% | 13.3% | 18.6% | ~180 |
| The Hill School | 5.3% | 11.8% | 23.0% | ~130 |
HYPSM = share of graduates enrolling at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or MIT. Top-25 and Top-50 tiers per 2024 U.S. News National Universities ranking, exclusive of higher tiers. Multi-year aggregates from each school’s published matriculation lists via FindingSchool; Pingry, Peddie, and Princeton Day School are New Jersey day or day-boarding schools included for regional comparison.
Two readings of this table matter for families. First, small classes amplify percentages: Groton’s 21.9 percent represents roughly 19 students in a class of 85, while Andover’s 14.8 percent represents about 50 students in a class of 340, the largest absolute HYPSM cohort of any boarding school. Second, the tiers tell different stories: Andover leads the nation in top-25 matriculation at 27.5 percent, and Milton’s published list shows Harvard as its single largest destination with 31 matriculants over recent years. The full context for the consortium schools sits in our guide to the best boarding schools and the Ten Schools Admission Organization.
Which Day Schools and Public Magnets Send the Most Students to the Ivy League?
Most elite day schools stopped publishing full matriculation lists years ago, so day school figures rely on estimated Ivy+ placement, the share of a class enrolling at Ivy League universities plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago, assembled from school reports, published college counseling profiles, and our own tracking. The concentration in Manhattan is striking: three of the strongest feeder schools in the country sit within four miles of each other.
| School | Type | Estimated Ivy+ rate | Senior class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trinity School | Private day, NYC | ~30% | ~125 |
| Collegiate School | Private day, NYC | ~30% | ~65 |
| The Brearley School | Private day, NYC | ~28% | ~50 |
| Roxbury Latin School | Private day, Boston | ~28% | ~55 |
| The Dalton School | Private day, NYC | ~25% | ~115 |
| Horace Mann School | Private day, NYC | ~25% | ~175 |
| Stuyvesant High School | Public magnet, NYC | ~12% | ~800 |
Estimated Ivy+ placement (Ivy League plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and UChicago) from school reporting and Oriel Admissions tracking across recent cycles; most day schools no longer publish complete lists. Figures are directional, not audited.
Stuyvesant deserves its own paragraph: survey data published by its student newspaper show 70 to 96 graduates per year enrolling at the Ivy League, Stanford, or MIT, close to one in eight of roughly 800 seniors, with about a quarter of each class reaching a top-25 national university. By absolute count that is more elite placements than any private school in America, from a school that charges no tuition and admits purely on a single entrance exam. For families comparing the Manhattan day schools in depth, our guide to NYC’s most selective private schools and NYC elite private school college admissions guide cover admission strategy school by school, and our Princeton private school guide does the same for the New Jersey market.
Why Do Feeder Schools Produce These Outcomes?
Four mechanisms drive these results, and only one of them is the school itself. Selection comes first: a school admitting 9 to 22 percent of applicants has already assembled a class that would outperform anywhere. Preparation is real but secondary: college-level coursework, writing-intensive curricula, and counselor loads of 25 to 40 students per counselor versus a 400-to-1 national public average. Institutional knowledge matters at the margins: counselors who speak with elite admission offices weekly calibrate school lists and application positioning with unusual precision. Finally, network effects persist: admission officers know these schools’ grading scales, trust their recommendations, and read their transcripts fluently. Families should be clear-eyed that the schools do not manufacture admits; they concentrate and polish students who arrive strong.
Does Attending a Feeder School Guarantee Elite Admission?
No, and the arithmetic is sobering. Even at Groton, 78.1 percent of graduates enroll somewhere other than HYPSM. These schools collectively enroll far more ambitious students than elite universities admit, which produces intense internal competition: at a school sending 15 students to the Ivy League, being the sixteenth-strongest applicant in the class carries real cost. Admission officers evaluate students against their school context, so a transcript in the middle of an Exeter class reads differently than the same grades at the top of a strong suburban public school. The feeder advantage is real at the level of preparation and process; it is not a substitute for an individually excellent application.
How Should Families Use Matriculation Data When Choosing a School?
Matriculation tables reward careful reading. Compare percentages only alongside class sizes, because a small school’s single strong year moves its rate by multiple points. Prefer multi-year aggregates over one class’s results, and prefer schools that publish full lists over schools that publicize only highlights. Weigh the tier that matches your child’s realistic trajectory: a school with moderate HYPSM numbers but deep top-25 placement, such as Hotchkiss at 23.4 percent top-25, may serve a strong-but-not-superstar student better than a school whose outcomes concentrate at the very top. Finally, treat fit as a multiplier: the schools’ own admission officers say plainly that a thriving student outperforms a miserable one at a higher-ranked school, and the matriculation data across schools supports them. Families deciding between specific schools can pair this page with our private school interview preparation guide and per-school admission guides linked in the tables above.
Frequently Asked Questions About Feeder Schools
A feeder school is a high school whose graduates enroll at elite universities at rates far above the national baseline, typically 10 to 30 percent of a class versus well under 1 percent nationally. The term covers elite boarding schools, private day schools, and selective public magnets.
By percentage, Groton School leads the nation at 21.9 percent of graduates, followed by Deerfield Academy at 21.6 percent and Phillips Exeter at 19.1 percent. By absolute numbers, larger schools such as Andover and Stuyvesant place bigger cohorts despite lower percentages.
Yes. Stuyvesant High School sends roughly 70 to 96 graduates per year to the Ivy League, Stanford, or MIT, close to one in eight of its roughly 800 seniors, and about a quarter of each class reaches a top-25 national university. By absolute numbers, that is more elite placements than any private school in the country.
Admission offices deny formal quotas, but applicants are read within school context, and each additional admit from one school raises the bar for the next file from that school. In practice, strong feeder schools see stable per-school ranges year over year.
It depends on what you are buying. The schools deliver preparation, counseling depth, and process expertise, but they do not convert average students into elite admits. For a strong student, the honest comparison is being exceptional in a good school versus being solid in an exceptional one.
A top-of-class student at a strong public school often has better odds than a middle-of-class student at a feeder school, because admission officers evaluate students against their context. The feeder advantage is largest for students who would sit near the top of either environment.
Most Manhattan day schools stopped publishing full lists in the 2010s to reduce internal competition and college-list pressure. Their figures in this guide are estimates assembled from school reporting and counseling profiles, which is why they carry tildes.
School-published matriculation lists refresh each summer, and aggregated tiers update annually. This page maintains the evergreen data, and our separate Class of 2030 analysis tracks single-cycle results in detail.
Sources: Phillips Exeter Academy College Matriculation, Groton School Matriculations, Milton Academy College Matriculations, The Peddie School Matriculation List, Princeton Day School Matriculation, FindingSchool Boarding School HYPSM Rankings.
About Oriel Admissions
Oriel Admissions is a Princeton-based college admissions consulting firm advising families nationwide on elite university admissions strategy. Our team brings deep expertise across every dimension of the application, and our distinctive 360 approach develops strategy, positioning, activities, essays, and interviews as one coherent whole. To discuss your family’s admissions strategy including private school and boarding school admissions, schedule a consultation.
