You could always tell which households contained a high school junior. As a member of Generation X, I could look down my block and know instantly which houses had the juniors and which did not, just from watching the mailman. The inevitable deliveries of stacks of mail, composed mostly of glossy printed college viewbooks with tear-out reply cards and paper applications, were a sure sign that a standardized test score had gotten a student’s name on the mailing lists of dozens of colleges.