Nancy Meuy Saechao does not exactly stand out in a crowd, not least because she is barely five feet tall in heels. She is 24 years old, astute and enthusiastic, and the possessor of a liberal arts degree from a respected college out west. She shares an apartment with roommates in Harlem and, until relatively recently, worked part time at a bar.

Ms. Saechao might be just another ambitious young thing trying to make her way in New York  but for her job at Rockefeller Center as an NBC page.

It is not glamorous work  $10 an hour to photocopy, fetch coffee and often stand sentry outside studio doors in empty hallways. A publicity pamphlet advises that potential pages should expect to work “at least six days” a week.

And thus has Ms. Saechao, the daughter of Laotian refugees who settled in Portland, Ore., traced the early career path of Regis Philbin, Ted Koppel, Michael Eisner, Kate Jackson, Eva Marie Saint and countless other notables who started out as pages at NBC. Which may help explain why 7,000 people apply for 60 to 85 slots each year, making the page program about 10 times as competitive as admission to Harvard or Yale.