Is Penn State an Ivy League School; if not, how does it compare with Ivy League schools?
Penn is an Ivy League school. Not Penn State (or the Pennsylvania State University). The Ivy League is:BrownColumbiaCornellDartmouthHarvardPenn - University of PennsylvaniaPrincetonYaleRichard Moll wrote of the "public Ivies" in 1985, which originally were defined as:College of William & MaryMiami University (Ohio)University of CaliforniaUniversity of Michigan University of North Carolina University of TexasUniversity of VermontUniversity of VirginiaPenn State did not make that list, but was cited as a runner up by Moll.In 2001, a new "public Ivies" list was created by Howard and Matthew Greene and they list Penn State as a "public Ivy" in the Northeast region (along with Binghamton University (SUNY) and UConn).For 2016, US News and World Report's National University listing ranks, Penn (University of Pennsylvania) at No. 9 and Penn State in a tie for No. 47. This ranking puts Penn at the No. 5 spot among the Ivy League (behind Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia). It also puts Penn State well down in the rankings among the "public Ivies".Now, for individual colleges in any university, a school can rank very highly. The US News and World Report rankings, as well as many others, attempt to compile a more general picture. For example, Penn State is ranked by US News and World Report at No. 1 for Geology (grad), No. 2 for Geochemistry (grad), No. 2 for Environmental Sciences (grad), No. 3 for Supply Chain Logistics and No. 5 for Nuclear Engineering. Penn State is an "ag and mining (engineering)" land grant institution, so its strengths are in those areas.Penn is ranked No. 1 for undergraduate business school (Donald Trump's alma mater), No. 1 nursing (grad), No. 5 medical (grad), and No. 7 law school (grad). But, unlike Penn State, Penn only ranks at No. 71 for earth sciences (grad).So, go to Penn State for the engineering, earth sciences, and ag programs (and others). Go to Penn for the business, arts, and grad programs in education, business, nursing, medicine, and law.
What are the top 20 feeder high schools for the Ivy League?
Defining such a set is challenging, because getting into elite university is obviously an exercise for an individual student rather than a project of an entire school (and did you mean in your question just Ivy League, or Ivy League-Stanford-MIT-CalTech-public Ivy-Duke?) BUT:This is Forbes' NYC-heavy attempt at a list of best private prep schools: Trinity (NYC), Horace Mann (NYC), Phillips Andover (Mass), Brearley (NYC), Roxbury Latin (Mass), Phillips Exeter (NH), Collegiate (NYC), St. Paul's (NH), Spence (NYC), Winsor (Mass), Chapin (NYC), Harvard-Westlake (Calif), Dalton (NYC), Lawrenceville (NJ), Groton (Mass), Milton (Mass), College Prep (Calif), Noble and Greenough (Mass), Hopkins (Conn).http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/29... A mixed public-private list from the Wall Street Journal in 2007 polled incoming classes at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins.http://online.wsj.com/public/res...A list of public feeders would no doubt include the gifted/math-sci high schools from major cities and suburbs around the country: Lowell (San Francisco), North Hollywood (L.A.), Gunn (Palo Alto), New Trier (Chicago suburbs), Thomas Jefferson Science (Va), Bronx Science & Stuyvesant (NYC), Illinois Math & Science Academy, et al., but this is a much larger set and the different schools feed to different universities. Here's the Daily Beast's latest attempt at a public high school list:http://www.thedailybeast.com/new...