Christine: graphic design - the preserve of the young?

I've decided to copy and paste a thought i had here, as my last post is a long way down; not sure if people are reading past a certain point. Here goes:

It would also seem that the design world itself is perpetuated by bright young things (i remember Geoff saying that they always asked what people looked like before they would interview them), which begs the question, if a 50 year old graduating student and a 21 year old with the same skills applied for a job within a design agency, who would be more likely to be offered the job? Would be interesting to call tons of agencies and tell them i'm a 21 year old graduating student of Chelsea and ask for an interview; then do the same thing telling them i'm 50. Wonder what the response would be? Would be cool to send my Mum in undercover too and see the reaction she gets!
I know this is naughty, but a project exposing nationwide industry ageism would be interesting; graphic outcomes could be an expose newspaper, with a free pull out map detailing the areas in the design world that don't welcome the over 30/40/50's.

Christine