Tuesday, August 8, 1995

That perennial: The college tour

From the series Creating the Class of 2000

After covering Higher Education for a while, I realized that perhaps the most important question about this world was access: who gets into the golden gates and who doesn't? Golden, because of the deeply rooted belief that going to a top-flight college provides a huge leg up on the ladder of life.  

It's a big story, and to illustrate it, I persuaded the University of Pennsylvania admissions office to let me hang out with them over the course of a year as they recruited students, received applications and decided the fates of all those hopeful high-schoolers. I got tremendous access. I even got to sit in with the admissions committee as it decided, behind closed doors, who made it and who didn't.

I published roughly one story a month for a year. Here's the first one, in which we see doctors, lawyers and hedge fund managers lead their children unto top-tier college campus to perpetuate a new generation of doctors, lawyers and hedge fund managers.

(please click on images to enlarge)