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Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition

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Author Info
John Bound
Brad Hershbein
Bridget Terry Long
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 region, 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.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 15272.

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Date of creation: Aug 2009
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15272

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Robinson, Michael & Monks, James, 2005. "Making SAT scores optional in selective college admissions: a case study," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 393-405, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Heckman, James J. & Lochner, Lance J. & Todd, Petra E., 2006. "Earnings Functions, Rates of Return and Treatment Effects: The Mincer Equation and Beyond," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Winston, G.C., 2000. "Economic Stratification and Hierarchy Among U.S. Colleges and Universities," Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education 58, Department of Economics, Williams College.
  4. Gordon C. Winston, 1999. "Subsidies, Hierarchy and Peers: The Awkward Economics of Higher Education," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 13-36, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Gneezy, Uri & Rustichini, Aldo, 2000. "A Fine is a Price," Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-17, January.
  6. Rabin, Matthew, 1993. "Incorporating Fairness into Game Theory and Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1281-1302, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. McDuff, DeForest, 2007. "Quality, tuition, and applications to in-state public colleges," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 433-449, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Kreps, David M, 1997. "Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Incentives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 359-64, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Caroline M. Hoxby, 1997. "How the Changing Market Structure of U.S. Higher Education Explains College Tuition," NBER Working Papers 6323, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
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  1. Garey Ramey & Valerie A. Ramey, 2009. "The Rug Rat Race," NBER Working Papers 15284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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