Working Paper: NBER ID: w26456
Authors: Peter Arcidiacono; Josh Kinsler; Tyler Ransom
Abstract: Over the past 20 years, elite colleges in the US have seen dramatic increases in applications. We provide context for part of this trend using detailed data on Harvard University that was unsealed as part of the SFFA v. Harvard lawsuit. We show that Harvard encourages applications from many students who effectively have no chance of being admitted, and that this is particularly true for African Americans. African American applications soared beginning with the Class of 2009, with the increase driven by those with lower SAT scores. Yet there was little change in the share of admits who were African American. We show that this change in applicant behavior resulted in substantial convergence in the overall admissions rates across races yet no change in the large cross-race differences in admissions rates for high-SAT applicants.
Keywords: college admissions; African American applicants; Harvard; recruitment strategies; diversity
JEL Codes: I23; I24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Harvard's recruitment strategies (M51) | demographics of applicant pool (J79) |
| recruitment of low-scoring African American applicants (J79) | inflated perception of diversity (J15) |
| recruitment of low-scoring African American applicants (J79) | actual admissions (Y40) |
| lower SAT cutoffs for African American applicants (I24) | substantial increase in low-scoring applicants (I24) |
| increase in applications (J68) | proportional increase in African American admits (I24) |
| recruitment of low-scoring African American applicants (J79) | preferences shown for African Americans over Asian Americans (J78) |
| historical context of recruitment of low-scoring African American applicants (J79) | changes in financial aid initiatives and legal scrutiny of affirmative action policies (I22) |