The purpose of this article was to report the most common career path to the superintendency in the Northwest. We compared career paths across four subgroups of study participants-male and female superintendents and male and female certificate holders who were not superintendents. First, we sought commonalities in the routes chosen by current male and female superintendents in the study. Second, we examined the career choices of potential superintendency applicants to determine whether they were actually gaining the types of administrative experience required by school boards and search consultants. We concluded with implications for practice based on study findings
