Virtual Market Design Seminar

Test-Optional Admissions

Alexander Frankel (University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

Mar 27, 2023, 16:00

Online Zoom seminar

 

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend of many colleges moving to test-optional, and in some cases test-blind, admissions policies. A frequent claim is that not requiring standardized test scores allows a college to increase the diversity of its student body. This argument is unsatisfying: how can a college make better decisions with less information? Our paper instead argues that test-optional policies may be driven by social pressure on colleges' admission decisions.  We show that, when social pressure is important, a college can use a test-optional policy to reduce its “disagreement cost” with society and obtain a student pool the college prefers. We discuss which students either benefit from or are harmed by a test-optional policy. In an application, we study how a ban on using race in admissions may result in more colleges going test optional or test blind.

Joint with Wouter Dessein (Columbia Business School) and Navin Kartik (Columbia Unviersity)

More Information

Online Zoom
Registration here