On the Road, Measuring the Miles per Applicant

By ERIC HOOVER

Jim Reilly still wakes up thinking about the high school he could not find. In 1980 or so, Mr. Reilly, then an assistant admissions director at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pa., went on a recruiting trip to New York State. After visiting one school, he set out for the next.

A half-hour ticked by as Mr. Reilly drove....