Can Admissions Percent Plans Lead to Better Collegiate Fit for Minority Students?

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

No 9598, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Why do so many students mismatch when choosing a college? A plausible hypothesis is a lack of information about the likelihood of admission. This study contributes to the literature on mismatch by testing whether public university automatic admissions policies mitigate academic undermatch and promote academic overmatch by providing some students with admissions certainty. Focusing on the interaction of admissions certainty and race/ethnicity, our results support the hypothesis that a priori admissions information can vastly improve minority access to college quality by encouraging eligible students to apply to, and more importantly, enroll in more challenging institutions.

Keywords: Texas Top 10% Plan; admissions policies; academic undermatching and overmatching; automatic admissions; college enrollment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I23 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2015-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: American Economic Review, 2016, 106 (5), 348-354

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9598.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9598

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().