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Qualitative information in undergraduate admissions: A pilot study of letters of recommendation

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  • Rothstein, Jesse

Abstract

A subset of undergraduate applicants to the University of California, Berkeley were invited to submit letters of recommendation as part of their applications. I use scraped text of the submitted letters, natural language processing tools, and a within-subject experimental design wherein applications were read in parallel with and without their letters to understand the role that this qualitative information plays in admissions. I show that letters written on behalf of underrepresented applicants were modestly distinctive. I also construct an index of letter strength, measuring the predicted impact of the letter on the student's application score. I show that underrepresented applicants tend to get weaker letters, but that readers pay less attention to letter strength for underrepresented students. Overall, the inclusion of letters modestly improved application outcomes for the average underrepresented student.

Suggested Citation

  • Rothstein, Jesse, 2022. "Qualitative information in undergraduate admissions: A pilot study of letters of recommendation," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:89:y:2022:i:c:s0272775722000607
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102285
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    Cited by:

    1. Gandil, Mikkel & Leuven, Edwin, 2022. "College admission as a screening and sorting device," Memorandum 2/2022, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    2. Gonzalez, Felipe & Coy, Felipe & Prem, Mounu & von Dessauer, Cristine, 2022. "Uncertainty from dictatorship to democracy: Evidence from business communications," SocArXiv gz934, Center for Open Science.
    3. AJ Alvero & Jasmine Pal & Katelyn M. Moussavian, 2022. "Linguistic, cultural, and narrative capital: computational and human readings of transfer admissions essays," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 1709-1734, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    College admissions; Natural language processing; Holistic review;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development

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