Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition

John Bound, Brad Hershbein and Bridget Long ()

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2009, vol. 23, issue 4, 119-46

Abstract: Gaining entrance to a four-year college or university, particularly a selective institution, has become increasingly competitive over the last several decades. We document this phenomenon and show how it has varied across different parts of the student ability distribution and across regions, with the most pronounced increases in competition being found among higher-ability students and in the Northeast. Additionally, we explore how the college preparatory behavior of high school seniors has changed in response to the growth in competition. We also discuss the theoretical implications of increased competition on longer-term measures of learning and achievement and attempt to test them empirically; the evidence and related literature, while limited, suggests little long-term benefit.

JEL-codes: I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.23.4.119
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (42)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.23.4.119 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/app/2304_Bound_Hershbein_Long_data_appendix.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition (2009)
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:aea:jecper:v:23:y:2009:i:4:p:119-46

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().