IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15772.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Students Choosing Colleges: Understanding the Matriculation Decision at a Highly Selective Private Institution

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Nurnberg
  • Morton Schapiro
  • David Zimmerman

Abstract

The college choice process can be reduced to three questions: 1) Where does a student apply? 2) Which schools accept the students? 3) Which offer of admission does the student accept? This paper addresses question three. Specifically, we offer an econometric analysis of the matriculation decisions made by students accepted to Williams College, one of the nation's most highly selective colleges and universities. We use data for the Williams classes of 2008 through 2012 to estimate a yield model. We find that--conditional on the student applying to and being accepted by Williams--applicant quality as measured by standardized tests, high school GPA and the like, the net price a particular student faces (the sticker price minus institutional financial aid), the applicant's race and geographic origin, plus the student's artistic, athletic and academic interests, are strong predictors of whether or not the student will matriculate.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Nurnberg & Morton Schapiro & David Zimmerman, 2010. "Students Choosing Colleges: Understanding the Matriculation Decision at a Highly Selective Private Institution," NBER Working Papers 15772, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15772
    Note: ED
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15772.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Monks, James, 2009. "The impact of merit-based financial aid on college enrollment: A field experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 99-106, February.
    2. Stephen L. DesJardins & Dennis A. Ahlburg & Brian P. McCall, 2006. "An Integrated Model of Application, Admission, Enrollment, and Financial Aid," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(3), pages 381-429, May.
    3. Christopher Avery & Caroline Minter Hoxby, 2004. "Do and Should Financial Aid Packages Affect Students' College Choices?," NBER Chapters, in: College Choices: The Economics of Where to Go, When to Go, and How to Pay For It, pages 239-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. David M. Linsenmeier & Harvey S. Rosen & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2006. "Financial Aid Packages and College Enrollment Decisions: An Econometric Case Study," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(1), pages 126-145, February.
    5. Griffith, Amanda & Rask, Kevin, 2007. "The influence of the US News and World Report collegiate rankings on the matriculation decision of high-ability students: 1995-2004," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 244-255, April.
    6. Weiler, William C., 1996. "Factors influencing the matriculation choices of high ability students," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 23-36, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David L. Sjoquist & John V. Winters, 2016. "The Effects of State Merit Aid Programs on Attendance at Elite Colleges," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 527-549, October.
    2. Dickson, Lisa & Pender, Matea, 2013. "Do in-state tuition benefits affect the enrollment of non-citizens? Evidence from universities in Texas," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 126-137.
    3. Turner, Nicholas, 2012. "Who benefits from student aid? The economic incidence of tax-based federal student aid," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 463-481.
    4. D. Randall Smith, 2019. "The Lure of Academic and Social Reputations Versus Athletic Success: Influences on Enrollment Yield at NCAA Division I Institutions," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 60(6), pages 870-904, September.
    5. Alexandre Belloni & Mitchell J. Lovett & William Boulding & Richard Staelin, 2012. "Optimal Admission and Scholarship Decisions: Choosing Customized Marketing Offers to Attract a Desirable Mix of Customers," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 621-636, July.
    6. Peter Cappelli & Shinjae Won, 2016. "How You Pay Affects How You Do: Financial Aid Type and Student Performance in College," NBER Working Papers 22604, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Loyalka, Prashant & Song, Yingquan & Wei, Jianguo & Zhong, Weiping & Rozelle, Scott, 2013. "Information, college decisions and financial aid: Evidence from a cluster-randomized controlled trial in China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 26-40.
    2. David L. Sjoquist & John V. Winters, 2016. "The Effects of State Merit Aid Programs on Attendance at Elite Colleges," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(2), pages 527-549, October.
    3. Horstschräer, Julia, 2012. "University rankings in action? The importance of rankings and an excellence competition for university choice of high-ability students," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1162-1176.
    4. Li Han & Jiaxin Xie, 2015. "Can Conditional Grants Attract Better Students: Evidence from Chinese Normal Universities," HKUST IEMS Working Paper Series 2015-14, HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies, revised Mar 2015.
    5. Mira Fischer & Patrick Kampkötter, 2017. "Effects of German Universities' Excellence Initiative on Ability Sorting of Students and Perceptions of Educational Quality," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 173(4), pages 662-687, December.
    6. Taylor K. Odle & Jennifer A. Delaney, 2022. "You are Admitted! Early Evidence on Enrollment from Idaho’s Direct Admissions System," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 63(6), pages 899-932, September.
    7. Christopher Erwin & Melissa Binder, 2020. "Does Broad-Based Merit Aid Improve College Completion? Evidence from New Mexico's Lottery Scholarship," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(1), pages 164-190, Winter.
    8. Ehrenberg, R.G.Ronald G., 2004. "Econometric studies of higher education," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 121(1-2), pages 19-37.
    9. Canton, Erik & Blom, Andreas, 2004. "Can student loans improve accessibility to higher education and student performance? An impact study of the case of SOFES, Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3425, The World Bank.
    10. Brent J. Evans & Angela Boatman & Adela Soliz, 2019. "Framing and Labeling Effects in Preferences for Borrowing for College: An Experimental Analysis," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 60(4), pages 438-457, June.
    11. Monks, James, 2009. "The impact of merit-based financial aid on college enrollment: A field experiment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 99-106, February.
    12. Griffith, Amanda L., 2011. "Keeping up with the Joneses: Institutional changes following the adoption of a merit aid policy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1022-1033, October.
    13. Bruce, Donald J. & Carruthers, Celeste K., 2014. "Jackpot? The impact of lottery scholarships on enrollment in Tennessee," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 30-44.
    14. Stijn Broecke, 2015. "University rankings: do they matter in the UK?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 137-161, April.
    15. Melguizo, Tatiana & Sanchez, Fabio & Velasco, Tatiana, 2016. "Credit for Low-Income Students and Access to and Academic Performance in Higher Education in Colombia: A Regression Discontinuity Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 61-77.
    16. Firoozi, Daniel, 2022. "The impact of post-admission merit scholarships on enrollment decisions and degree attainment: Evidence from randomization," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    17. Alexandre de Gendre & Jan Kabátek, 2021. "From subsidies to loans: The effects of a national student finance reform on the choices of secondary school students," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2021n12, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    18. Liu, Chengfang & Zhang, Linxiu & Luo, Renfu & Wang, Xiaobing & Rozelle, Scott & Sharbono, Brian & Adams, Jennifer & Shi, Yaojiang & Yue, Ai & Li, Hongbin & Glauben, Thomas, 2011. "Early commitment on financial aid and college decision making of poor students: Evidence from a randomized evaluation in rural China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 627-640, August.
    19. Meneses, Francisco & Blanco, Christian, 2010. "Financial Aid and Higher Education Enrollment in Chile: A Government Policy Analysis," MPRA Paper 23321, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Damgaard, Mette Trier & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2018. "Nudging in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 313-342.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15772. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.