Wondering which colleges fare best in placing graduates in the top professional schools? Thinking long-term about law school and trying to decide if Dartmouth or Williams is a better place to start? If so, you might want to consult a report produced by classroomedition.com, an education site maintained by the Wall Street Journal.

According to the findings, the top 10 feeder colleges to elite business, law and medical schools are as follows:

1. Harvard
2. Yale
3. Princeton
4. Stanford
5. Williams
6. Duke
7. Dartmouth
8. MIT
9. Amherst
10. Swarthmore

To produce this study, editors at the site looked at enrollments at the "top five" business, law and medical schools. They assessed the undergraduate backgrounds of 5,100 students entering these 15 schools last fall. What's more, they adjusted for institutional size so smaller colleges wouldn't be penalized.

It's a great idea, but with obvious shortcomings. First, why limit each field to only five professional schools? Second, the choices seem somewhat arbitrary (e.g. Stanford isn't included among law schools but is ranked third by U.S. News; in medicine, Penn and Duke tie for fourth in U.S. News, but aren't considered by the WSJ). Third, capturing only one year of entering students is hardly enough. No doubt a five- or 10-year analysis, if possible, would shed more light on the subject, though perhaps many of the top feeder schools would remain on the list.

So take it for what it's worth: an interesting exercise that's somewhat useful if you're targeting a top professional school.

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