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Match or Mismatch? Automatic Admissions and College Preferences of Low- and High-Income Students

Jane Arnold Lincove (jlincove@umbc.edu) and Kalena E. Cortes (kcortes@tamu.edu)
Additional contact information
Jane Arnold Lincove: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Kalena E. Cortes: Texas A&M University

No 10150, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the role of information in the college matching behavior of low- and high-income students, exploiting a state automatic admissions policy that provides some students with perfect a priori certainty of college admissions. We find that admissions certainty encourages college-ready low-income students to seek more rigorous universities. Low-income students who are less college-ready are not influenced by admissions certainty and are sensitive to college entrance exams scores. Most students also prefer campuses with students of similar race, income, and high school class rank, but only highly-qualified low-income students choose institutions where they have fewer same-race and same-income peers.

Keywords: automatic admissions; Texas Top 10% Plan; academic undermatching and overmatching; social matching; admissions policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I23 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-gth and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 2019, 41(1), 98-123

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