ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with which students, who in most cases are between 19 and 20 years old, are admitted to the Stockholm School of Economics. Admission takes place via grades and quotas that aim to recruit students on the basis of their merits, but selection criteria still tend to favor students from socially and economically privileged backgrounds; as a result, only a fraction of the students come from working-class families. For instance, the admission quotas that idealize students’ elite performance in sports, entrepreneurship, and music favor students from socially and economically developed areas and families, where an active and energetic lifestyle is a central norm. Although the school brands itself as a place where all people are welcome, irrespective of background, its elite status is manifested in the history and culture of the institution that affects what kind of people are attracted to it and how it is perceived in society at large. Largely, the school selects the people who will be able to reproduce its fundamental values and norms, which are not academic in the regular sense, but instead business related.
