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Psychology professor Samuel Gosling and collaborator David Evans created the "You Just Get Me" Facebook application and web site, where users could answer forty questions about their personality and then compare their answers to how others view them. The users would rate each other based on these answers, letting their first impressions be their guide. People could be rated as anything from lazy to ingenious to quiet or rude or any of several other unique personality traits.

Surprisingly, answers to most of the basic type of questions, like those found on social networking sites, did not help users figure out what each other were "really" like. Instead, the researchers found that when a user posted things on their profile like their most embarrassing moment, proudest moment, or spirituality, their personalities were much better understood.

Horace Mann’s endowment was $60 million at the time, but the construction budget topped $100 million. To finance the project, the school floated $103 million in bonds certified by the city’s Industrial Development Agency over the next five years. According to documents filed with the IDA, Horace Mann’s total debt will reach $339 million, including principal and interest, over the 42-year life of the bonds. The board has since raised tuition (now $29,000) and has completed two major fund-raising campaigns, including selling the naming rights to its new buildings (lockers at $500,000, computer classrooms $150,000 a pop, the orchestra pit for $250,000).

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One consequence of the debt has been the consolidation of wealth on the board. The last full-time educator to serve as a trustee, Barnard dean Marjorie Silverman, left the board in 1999. Nowadays the board is dominated by lawyers, investment bankers, and real-estate developers, and, possibly as a consequence, the school’s relations with its teachers have suffered.

Then, after lunch, McGuire and Sheehy were walking in front of Tillinghast Hall when a woman wearing alligator sunglasses stormed up to them. It was the trustee whose daughter had formed the anti-McGuire club.

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“You logged into Facebook under a false name,” the woman said, glaring at McGuire.

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“I had a right to defend myself against defamation,” McGuire responded.

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“Students are just blowing off steam,” the trustee said. “They’re very stressed; it’s not unusual for them to say racist and sexist things … The site is private.”

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“No,” McGuire insisted, “it’s got 9 million users.”

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“What you did was like breaking into my daughter’s room and reading her diary … ”

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“No,” McGuire said, the emotion rising in her voice, “what your daughter did was the equivalent of posting something in Times Square.”

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McGuire could not control herself any longer. “What your daughter did was actionable, and I’m not talking about this anymore,” she said before walking off.