The study compared a group of police officers hired by a large metropolitan police department during a recent 5-year period (n = 190) with a group of all applicants (n = 1,545) for a recent recruit class. The study examining age, gender, race, residence and military experience, found that many of the characteristics appeared with nearly the same frequency in both groups. However, there were differences in the frequencies in the populations of the two groups as to age, education, number of white females and number of black females. While white females represented only 9.2 percent of all applicants, they represented 12.6 percent of the historically successful applicants. Black females represented 7.8 percent of all applicants but only 5.3 percent of the successful applicants. Although 4.0 percent of all applicants had some post-graduate education, only 2.6 percent of the historically successful applicants had undertaken any post-graduate work. The article discusses the probable effects of raising the education requirement and raising the age requirement for applicants. Tables, notes, references