Subject specific league tables and students'application decisions

Arnaud Chevalier and Xiaoxuan Jia
Additional contact information
Xiaoxuan Jia: Anglia Ruskin University and Royal Holloway, University of London

No 201503, Working Papers from Geary Institute, University College Dublin

Abstract: Do applicants to higher education rely on expert judgement about the quality of the course when applying? Using application data across UK universities over a period of 8 years, we investigate how league tables affect prospective students’ application decisions. We use subject specific ranking rather than the commonly used institution level ranking. We find that a one standard deviation change in the subject-level ranking score of an institution is associated with on average a 4.3% increase in application numbers per faculty. This effect is particularly pronounced among faculties with the best scores, and overseas applicants. Limits to the number of applications have increased the preponderance of league tables.

Keywords: Higher education applications; league tables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2015-03-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-eur
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/publications/workingpapers/gearywp201503.pdf First version, 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Subject-Specific League Tables and Students' Application Decisions (2016)
Working Paper: Subject Specific League Tables and Students' Application Decisions (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201503

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