Orel Family

It was late August, 1976. Every year after all the kids returned home from summer camp or wherever we'd been all summer, my family would take a short road trip vacation. My older brother was going to be a senior in high school, so this year it was time to visit colleges. Our vacation consisted of visits to several colleges in New England: schools like  Amherst  and  Wesleyan . They seemed so tiny. And somewhere in there, we visited Yale . By the time our tour guide got us to Ezra Stiles College , I was sold. "This is where I want to go to college."  Was it Saarinen's building? It was the coolest dorm I'd seen, for sure. Whatever the reason, from that moment on I had one central purpose to my high school years and that was to get in to Yale. In hindsight, I can say that was a profoundly awful purpose; one that I don't recommend for anyone today. My brother was not admitted to Yale. Nor Amherst. Nor Wesleyan. He "settled" for Cornell , my mother...

A few weeks ago, The Detroit Jewish News published its annual "Cap and Gown" issue. This issue has a section with the names and faces of all area students who sent their information to the newspaper; generally, this consisted of the high school name, some information about their activities in high school, and what they're doing next. Although the list is by no means comprehensive -- many families may not subscribe to the paper or, like us, may simply have forgotten -- it seemed to me to provide an interesting slice of the local community. Between the listings in The Jewish News and a handful whose information I have because we know the families, I found I had records for 283 students. Of these, 20 have not listed a college, either because they listed only a gap year in Israel, or because they listed themselves as "undecided." I decided to take a look at the other 263. Of the 263 students with a listed decision, 99% are headed off to a 4-year (or more) college...