Do college admissions counselors discriminate? Evidence from a correspondence-based field experiment

B-Tier
Journal: Economics of Education Review
Year: 2017
Volume: 60
Issue: C
Pages: 86-96

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 1 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

I design and implement a correspondence based field experiment to test for race and gender discrimination among college admissions counselors in the student information gathering stage. The experiment uses names to identify student race and gender, and student grade, SAT score, and writing differences to reflect varying levels of applicant quality. I find that counselors do not respond differently by race in most cases, but there are measurable differences in response/non-response and in the type of correspondence sent that favor female students. I also find that the quality of the student induces large differences in the type of response.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:ecoedu:v:60:y:2017:i:c:p:86-96
Journal Field
Education
Author Count
1
Added to Database
2026-01-25