Discussion paper

DP14747 Choosing Differently? College Application Behavior and the Persistence of Educational Advantage

We use administrative data from Ireland to study differences in college application behavior
between students from disadvantaged versus advantaged high schools. Ireland provides an
interesting laboratory for this analysis as applicants provide a preference-ordering of college
programs (majors) and marginal applications are costless. Also, college admission depends
almost completely on grades in the terminal high school examinations. Thus, we can compare
the application choices of students who have equal chances of admission to college programs.
Conditional on achievement and college opportunities, we find that students from advantaged
high schools are more likely to apply to universities and to more selective college programs.
They are also more likely to have preferences that cluster by program selectivity rather than
by field of study. Our results suggest that, alongside differences in achievement, differences
in college application behavior also cause persons from advantaged high schools to be more
likely to enroll in selective colleges and enter more selective programs. Importantly, we find
that enrollment gaps for equally qualified applicants are smaller than differences in
application behavior; the relatively meritocratic centralized admissions system based on
achievement undoes much of the effect of the differences in application behavior.

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Citation

Delaney, J and P Devereux (2020), ‘DP14747 Choosing Differently? College Application Behavior and the Persistence of Educational Advantage ‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 14747. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp14747