August 31, 2009

Stanley H. Kaplan, the Entrepreneur Who Put Academe to the Test

Stanley H. Kaplan has not been a major player on the higher-education scene for the past 15 years. Still, his death last week, at the age of 90, is a reminder of the roles that his little tutoring business turned test-preparation empire played in shaping two trends that continue to transform academe.

One of those, the democratization of college admissions, was purposeful. The Brooklyn-bred Mr. Kaplan believed he had been denied admission to medical school because he