CAROL: My brother and sister got stuck on that conveyor belt. I, however, escaped somewhere around the eleventh grade, thank God … Oh, hey, but no offense. I mean, that’s just me. If you like being on the conveyor belt, then good for you.
RORY: I’m not on the conveyor belt.
Rory is definitely on the conveyor belt. Lorelai has been psychologically grooming her for Harvard since she was a toddler, and enrolled her at a private prep school that is a feeder school for Harvard.
Carol says she “escaped” the conveyor belt around eleventh grade, when she was sixteen or seventeen (about the same age Lorelai got pregnant and had to leave school). It’s not clear whether Carol means that she left school around that age to start working, or if she means she refused to begin applying to colleges, and made it clear she wasn’t going to attend university.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 