A study was conducted to identify older graduate student applicants and the graduate school selection process. Older students were operationally defined as over age 30 or those who received their baccalaureate degree eight or more years ago. Information about the characteristics of older graduate students was obtained from the Graduate Record Examination Background Questionnaire. About 15 percent, or 37,000, of the individuals in the data set were over 30, but only about half of these individuals received their baccalaureate degree in 1967 or before. The older applicants differed from younger students in several respects: there are more women than men in the older group; older applicants were more likely to have previously attended graduate school; older applicants are less likely to be undecided about their field of graduate study; and older applicants are more likely to select career-oriented fields than younger students. About 50 interviews of graduate school departments around Washington, D. C.; Los Angeles, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and Chicago, Illinois revealed that few departments had experimented with alternative methods to select graduate students, despite a realization that the older students are not well served by the traditional criteria. (SW)