<p>Graduate school admissions is indeed more complex than “class rank” – something that isn’t even possible to know if the student is applying right out of undergrad. And even afterward, it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>However, there are feeder schools to certain programs. For instance, my D was told at one program that they loved to accept students from her LAC. She was invited for an interview over others in part because of her undergraduate institution. And she was advised to apply to other specific prestigious programs because of her department’s track record with them (she didn’t, because the programs weren’t quite right for her.) Of course, other programs don’t have the same experience/feeling for the same LAC, so while the college name had a small effect with some grad programs, it had little or no impact on others.</p>