A study was conducted to determine the effect of the college attended on the occupational attainments of students. Data were obtained from the National Opinion Research Center on the occupational and educational activities of the college class of 1961 and analyzed by path regression techniques. (Analyses were limited to the activities of male graduates who entered professional and business-managerial occupations; female graduates' activities were not analyzed, although some data are provided.) Results of the study included (1) that college origins influence careers among professional occupations, not among business-professional ones; college origins provided differential first-job status, and they also appeared to be associated with subsequent mobility; and (2) college origins influenced the occupational achievement of low status individuals more than of high status college graduates; grade point average was more important to the attainments of high status graduates than it was among low status ones. Implications of the research are that the social stratification system is made up of chains of opportunity, and that it is important to be able at the the right place at the right time (right college). The findings suggest that policies have to be tailored to the specific occupational segment in question; that society needs to provide incentives in the occupational market as much as in the educational market; and that more attention should be paid to the question of who goes to what college. (KC)