America is an egalitarian society, we're brought up to believe. And Silicon Valley, in particular, prides itself on being a meritocracy where all doors are open.

So, are the doors open to the captains of technology and politicians who decide our lives? Can an average person talk to Mayor Ron Gonzales? Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang? Or Susan Packard Orr, chairwoman of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation?

The answer, if the experience of San Jose State University students is any guide, is maybe, no and maybe.

For two years, Professor Rona Halualani has challenged a communications class to try to interview people on San Jose magazine's annual ``Power 100'' list. They were to use any means they could: front door, personal contacts, guerrilla tactics. The results? Half got interviews, half didn't.

The point, said Halualani, is to make students think more critically about their own status as consumers, clients, taxpayers, shareholders. To challenge their notions about their ability to talk to powerful people.

Students chose 19 people on the magazine list. Success was judged by the ability to interview the subject in person, with a list of questions. They needed their picture taken with the interviewee for proof. They had two months.

They were successful with nine: Susan Packard Orr, Robert Caret, the president of San Jose State University; George Kennedy, Santa Clara County's district attorney; Cindy Chavez, city council member; Blanca Alvarado, Santa Clara County supervisor; Martha Kanter, now chancellor of Foothill-De Anza Community College District; Pat Dando, San Jose vice mayor. And -- phew! -- my boss, publisher Joe Natoli, sat down for an interview, too (I didn't tip him off).

Students were less successful with 10 others, including the mayor, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, KNTV General Manager Linda Sullivan, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia, sports anchor Gary Radnich and news anchor Wendy Tokuda of KRON-TV, Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Cisco CEO John Chambers.

But it wasn't for lack of trying, often on both sides.

Chambers, Lofgren and Tokuda called back themselves, for example. Students trying to reach Yang kept getting sent to the public relations department.

Orr told Sage Feliciano and Daphne Pantaleon that the only reason she talked to them was that they were students from San Jose State. Students assigned to Yang staked out his hair salon. It didn't work.

Students Jonathan Bunting and David Bond got close -- a picture and an interview -- with one of the mayor's aides.

The pair tried calling the mayor's office. Bunting got put on hold for 15 minutes, and gave up because his lunch break was over and he had to go back to work. They tried e-mail. They filled out a scheduling request form found on www.sjmayor.org . They kept calling. Then they got mayoral aide Chad Payne.

``What Chad did was what no one else was willing to do -- he listened to us,'' Bunting said. Payne arranged for Bunting to get his picture taken with the mayor while Gonzales was making a City Year appearance at Washington Elementary School. But no interview; the mayor had to run to the next appearance. Payne offered to stand in for the mayor as the interviewee.

It's not impossible for people to meet with the mayor, his spokesman, David Vossbrink, said. Fourth-graders have interviewed him for their class paper. His staff tries hard to accommodate. But with jammed schedules and competing priorities, sometimes the stars sometimes line up nicely, and sometimes they don't, he said.

Fair enough. And Bunting and Bond got an A on their report.

Like all things in the egalitarian meritocracy of Silicon Valley, success comes with creativity, persistence and . . . no small bit of luck.