Cream of the Crop: The Impact of Elite Education in the Decade After College

What constitutes personal and career success? This report addresses the question through a representative sample of men and women ``in one preeminently elite institution-Stanford University.'' In this follow-up to a study of the group's college years (Careerism and Intellectualism Among College Students, 1955) the lives of the educational elite, as exemplified by the Stanford class of 1981, are examined longitudinally. In a combination of biographical interviews and questionnaire responses, Katchadourian (professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, human biology and education at Stanford) and Boli (professor of sociology at Emory) probe the attitudes and outlooks of these high achievers. Among their conclusions is that these graduates, while exceptional in their career development, are ordinary in their personal lives, spending leisure time mainly playing sports or pursuing hobbies and centering their activities on their families. (Dec.)