EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Admission mechanisms and the mismatch between colleges and students: Evidence from a large administrative dataset from China

Shiyu Bo, Jing Liu, Ji-Liang Shiu, Yan Song and Sen Zhou

Economics of Education Review, 2019, vol. 68, issue C, 27-37

Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence on how China’s transition from the Boston mechanism to the Chinese parallel mechanism (a simplified version of the Deferred Acceptance mechanism), along with changes to the information available to students on their entrance exam performance when they submit their college preferences, affect the academic match between colleges and students. Using data on students admitted to Chinese colleges from 2005 to 2011, we characterize the general patterns of mismatch between colleges and students based on students’ scores on China’s National College Entrance Exam and find evidence of substantial overmatch and undermatch. Results from a generalized difference-in-differences model indicate that switching from the Boston mechanism to the Chinese parallel mechanism lowered the probability of mismatch by approximately 6%. Allowing students to submit their college preferences after learning their exam scores rather than before the exam reduced the probability of mismatch by 18%.

Keywords: College admissions; School-student mismatch; Chinese parallel mechanism; Boston mechanism; Preference submission timing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I23 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775718300712
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:ecoedu:v:68:y:2019:i:c:p:27-37

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2018.12.004

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:68:y:2019:i:c:p:27-37