Fat and Thin Envelopes: Challenges in Studying College Applications and Admissions

• In Event: Poster Session 7
  In Poster Session: Fat and Thin Envelopes: Challenges in Studying College Applications and Admissions

Abstract

Students’ college applications, and the admission decisions of institutions, perform a crucial linkage between high school and college. This linkage is the subject of intense research, even as data on college applications remains scares. I evaluate whether information from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, widely used for analysis on college applications, is biased. I find that data in ELS:2002 consistently shows upward bias in probabilities of admission. Admission rates calculated from ELS:2002 are 10 to 16 percentage points higher than reported by colleges themselves; the magnitude of this bias is greater for more selective and for smaller institutions. This difference in admission rates estimates has important implications for research on college admission and evaluations of admission policies.

Author

• Fernando Furquim, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor