Three Essays on the College Admissions Process.

Abstract

Over the past several decades, the perceived returns to college completion have influenced both conventional wisdom and national policy. Yet there is significant heterogeneity in these returns by student and by school. This has helped to create industries and policies designed to match students to the colleges of their choice. Preparatory industries improve students’ SAT scores, automatic admissions programs extend college access to diverse populations, and merit-based scholarships funnel students toward particular colleges. Each of these presents students with unique incentives. In this dissertation, I study the impact that each has on students’ preparation for college and their enrollment choice.

In my first chapter, “The Impact of Admissions Policies and Test Prep on SAT Scores,” I study how college policies impact student behavior and SAT scores. I find that when colleges cannot view how often students take the SAT, the optimal score evaluation policy is unclear depending on policymakers’ objectives.

In my second chapter, “Does Student Effort Respond to Incentives? Evidence from Automatic College Admissions,” co-authored with Lindsay Daugherty, Paco Martorell, and Isaac McFarlin, Jr., I study how students respond to academic policies in high school. We use the Texas Top Ten Percent Law as a quasi-experiment to study whether students shirk if they are guaranteed admission to college, finding evidence that their grades fall slightly but their class participation does not.

In my third chapter, “Iowa's National Scholars Award and the Efficiency of Merit Aid: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis,” co-authored with Stephen L. DesJardins, I study the impact that rule-based merit aid has on the probability of student enrollment at the University of Iowa. We find a jump in students’ probability of enrollment at the award cutoff. Analysis of an earlier, tiered version of the award suggests that it could be effectively targeted towards very high-achieving applicants.

These chapters analyze several points of the college application process, from standardized testing to enrollment choice. There is much additional work to be done in studying this process, and it is my hope that future work on these topics will represent an important step forward in the economics of education.