When Emily Bertsche (SFS '12) arrived on campus three-and-a-half years ago, she may have been across the country in a brand-new environment, but she was surrounded by some familiar faces.
As one of 10 graduates of St. Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit school in Chicago, Ill., to matriculate into Georgetown from her grade, Bertsche could tackle college with a built-in community.
"The best part of going to Georgetown [with so many people from high school] is that you have a guaranteed support network from the get-go," she said. "It's great because we have a shared past and present."
St. Ignatius is among several of Georgetown's "feeder schools" — high schools that regularly send large numbers of applications to the university. The close relationship these schools have with Georgetown can be a boon to prospective students both during the application process and after they have found their way to the Hilltop.
Tallying the Numbers
During the admissions cycle for the class of 2015, the university saw upwards of 50 applications from seven high schools across the country that admissions counselors target.
Four of the Northeast's elite boarding schools — Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey — topped the list, sending 69, 66, 65 and 62 applications respectively.
The next six schools on the list include Regis High School in New York with 55 applicants, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and Chaminade High School in New York with 53 each, St. Ignatius College Prep with 48. Harvard-Westlake School in California with 45 and Winston Churchill High School with 45.
The Jesuit tradition can often play into many students' application processes. Regis and St. Ignatius are two premier Jesuit high schools on the top-10 list.
Georgetown Visitation, an all-girls Catholic school just outside the front gates, regularly produces more than 20 applicants to the university each year, nearly half of whom end up studying on the Hilltop, according to a Visitation college information packet. Of the 26 Visitation seniors who applied to Georgetown in 2010, nine now attend the university.
Application information for the Gonzaga College High School, an all-boys D.C. Jesuit standard, and Loyola Academy in Chicago, was not yet available for the class of 2016's application process, but in years past an average of five to 10 students from each of these schools have matriculated each year.
"I can't really speak for all of Gonzaga but if it were a feeder for any college, I guess it would be Georgetown," said Brian Potochney (SFS '15), a graduate of Gonzaga. "People definitely seemed particularly excited when I would say I was coming here, not just because Georgetown is well-known, but also because of the whole Jesuit connection."
According to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon, Georgetown relies on these schools to supply a substantial number of applicants.
"Year to year, we know we're going to get a good number of applications from [them] and a regular flow of students," he said.
FOSTERING A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions reaches out to prospective students at high schools that regularly send students to the nation's top universities through receptions for local students, college conferences and personal visits by admissions officers at about 350 high schools every year.
According to Deacon, the majority of these stops are at schools with a strong history of student interest in Georgetown.
"High school visits are a traditional, but not the most effective, form of outreach in the college process," he said.
After all, students at feeder schools often hear about Georgetown from their high schools' alumni and faculty with a Blue and Gray background before visiting the school.
"The president of my high school had also gone to Georgetown and is close friends with my family, [so] I also had the great fortune of hearing about Georgetown through his eyes before making my final decision," said Madeline Molo (COL '12), another Ignatius alum.
Although Georgetown is not required to accept a certain percentage of students from the surrounding area, the university makes an effort to establish ties with many of D.C.'s Catholic schools. For students at these targeted schools, a closer connection with Georgetown and their shared institutional values play into their May-time decisions.
"I definitely feel like the Jesuit universities were more popular choices among Gonzaga students than among kids in other high schools around here," Potochney said. "Coming from Gonzaga, I had a lot of Jesuit universities on my radar that I would never have considered had I gone to public school, including Georgetown."
WHAT'S IN A NAME
Despite their high application rate, college counselors and students at feeder schools often reject the title.
"I don't believe in the word ‘feeder.' We send a good number of students to Georgetown every year, but Gonzaga students look all over the place," Eli Clarke, director of college counseling at Gonzaga, said.
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